A Wolf in the City

22. Pick a Horse.

Dante.

“That is the son of our second target coming in, Dante and I have to meet up with him now. He is quite easy, all I had to do was bat my eyelashes at him and now he is literally obsessed with me.” Adalee whispers to me just at the same time that a familiar man - by photos only of course - walks in with a lady and securities by their sides.

“Do you think he stood you up? Because I can see another lady beside him right now and if I am not hallucinating, that should be Karen Imani, the daughter of Kofi Imani?” I say as I fix my eyes so attentively on the lady who was yelling some instructions at one of the securities.

I rolled my eyes because everything about her simply screamed, ‘spoilt, bratty, rich fool who thinks her money is the assess to treat anybody like trash and get away with anything she does.’

Honestly, they both scream all of that and I am not in anyway surprised at all, these are the cubs of those dreadful and wicked men after all and you know what they say about the apple not falling too far from its tree.

“I asked him to come with his good friend because I would be coming with an accomplice as well, knowing that he is literally close friends with Karen of course. I just figured that we could get acquainted with them both at once which would in turn speed all of these. Which means, while I am messing with the big guy, you can just get into Karen’s head, easy peasy.” Adalee says as she gloats, obviously proud of herself for having thought of this on her own.

“You are such a smart beautiful woman, Adalee. Why did I not think of that? Well, off you go now to meet him, we don’t want to appear like a couple to those two, that would jeopardize the plan, right?” I say and Adalee walks away after giving me a subtle wink while I look back at the man she was walking to.

I watch as he turns excited as soon as she gets to him with her arms wide open and I smirk at how easy male humans are. The man's nose is the star of his face, and not in a good way. It sticks out like a pinch of clay fashioned into a beak. It is arched, but not in a regal way. He looks like a carnival mask painted in fleshy tones, it is odd to see something that shape covered in real skin and stubble.

The look is made more pronounced by the thick black eyeliner he has on, so that his eyes seem to peer from behind his face rather than within it. The man has a beard you can only describe as a bush, and a moustache to rival Yosemite Sam, a cartoon character from the human creation called looney toons or something. But despite this great amount of hair on the lower half of his face, he is bald as an eagle, as in, he wears a toupee.

And the Karen? Well, it is not a coincidence that her parents decided to name her that of all names, is it? Honestly, she just has the sort of face you forget even while you're looking at it...

She approaches me all by herself and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes as she Kicks her right leg forward and then her left following suit with pointed toes and flexed calf muscles, the dark haired lady pivots in a revolving whirl of sharp precision and mocking grace. She looks like she wants to do this as badly as she wants to breathe.

The entirety of her being began advances in movement with purposeful clarity and absolute control. With each poised stride she takes, it becomes crippling obvious just how demanding and rigorously punishing the practice of this sequence has been on her body.

It is like she is making some stupid entrance for people, it looks way too forced.

“Dante? Right?” She asks when she gets to me and I immediately plaster a fake smile on my face while suppressing the urge to simply snap her neck in half.

“Yes, Dante Barlowe. And you beautiful lady are?” I ask.

“Karen. Karen Imani. I am here for the horse riding with uh... Micheal which is my friend and I figure that it will be so rude to let you be alone while he remains so infatuated with Adalee, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes, I do. I am in fact very elated to be such a beauty’s companion for the evening.” I say she takes my arm with a wide smile and then we walk to the stable to pick horses of our choices. Micheal Lodion and Adalee meets up with us in there too.

Karen moves closer to one of the horses. The black and white horse reaches around and touch her hair with her muzzle. Karen reaches up and gently grips the saddle. ”Hy, Sandy.” She greets.

“She’s so big now, Micheal!” Karen says as she lifts a foot, and stabs it at the stirrup, missing the first time. The second time she gets it, and hauls laboriously herself up, honestly, I am a bit impressed by the fact that she could do that all by herself.

For a moment, she did not move, taking deep breaths and sitting tense. The horse, Sandy turns her head and looks questioningly at Karen. Her blue eye and brown eye was gentle, but confused.

“Dante, do you know that as soon as a horse is born, it spends its entire life looking for a way to kill itself?” Karen says with pride as if she has just said something that is sure to make me see her as someone extremely smart.

She continues while I raise a brow up, “this is, without a doubt, the most accurate statement I have ever known. Owning a horse is a lot of fun, they're just like giant dogs. They love you, will be loyal to you, and most of them will do just about anything for a treat and a head scratch. Truly my favorite animal. But damn, they can and will injure themselves on just about anything they can find.”

“Get your horse? I will advice the strong ones.” She adds as she ups the two ropes coming from the horse’s head. Sandy did not move. She then cautiously kicks the horse with her heels. Startled, the creature takes a few quick steps forward, then relaxes into a steady walk.

It is a rocking motion, yet difficult to balance. Sandy’s head bobs in time with his feet. He takes a deep breath and let out a loud fluttering noise. Karen flinches, tightening. Sandy responds by moving faster, and bumpier. She bounces along, dropping the reins. She grabs frantically at the handle sticking up in front of her.

Holding it tightly with both hands, she struggles to control her fear. At each step, she is jolted in danger of being thrown off. Then Sandra’s ears went up. She goes faster, and suddenly the bumping is gone. It is just a smooth rocking motion. Karen find herself laughing abruptly. The sight is so beautiful, if I would be honest.

The wind streams by her, whipping Sandy’s long hair back in her face. Her head is up, her ears forward. Her back goes up and down smoothly, evenly. She is gaining speed. Wind tugs at Karen’s hair. The ground rushes by her, and the only sound was the pounding of hooves. She wraps both hands more firmly around the handle and let herself smile.

We are all watching her in her element when Micheal speaks, “she loves that animal so much, you know? I could say they grew together.”

I am about to respond and start a conversation that I will rather not start when a familiar masculine voice suddenly yells, “I’m here, Micheal, Karen. What did I miss?”

When I look in the direction of the voice, the people I see catches me off guard.

Kai Huan and of course, Raven Martinez.