The Life Of A Horse

Chapter 13

The guy that isn't Ben answers, "Let me go get her. She will listen to me." I freeze. I recognize that voice. Stepping away as far back as I can, I quickly prepare for who will come and what they will do. I hear some fumbling around with the lock and then the door slowly comes down. I look out into the night to see who is there. Confused, I blink a few times. No one is there, but I don't think it will be smart to just run out.

I slowly walk forward and stop before the ramp. I look to the sides and see nothing. So I take one step and then another and before I can launch off, someone throws a towel over my eyes. I start to gallop but a rope is throw over my head and I am pulled back. I rear up and shake my head trying to knock the towel off, but it is too tight. I neigh as loud as I can and I think I hear a whinny from far off. "Shut up!" The same voice whispers angrily at me. I kick, but no one is behind me.

Another rope is thrown over my head and the two unknown people lead me in a circle so many times that I get dizzy. They lead me somewhere and I am forced to follow. I hear a door squeak and they lead me inside and then close the door. They tie me to the post and leave. I still have the towel over my eyes and it is irritating and itchy. The door squeaks loudly again and they come back in. A very quiet whinny comes from a few feet away.

They stand close to me for a second and then leave again, closing the door and locking it. I want to shift but it isn't safe yet because I can sense someone in the room with me. I whinny through the towel, trying to get an answer. An answer neigh comes back almost silently. It must be from under another towel. I hear a familiar crackling from someone shifting so I decide it is safe. A towel falls to the floor. With my eyes squeezed shut, I picture myself as a human and the feeling comes along with the cracking. Immediately my towel falls from my face.

After untying our ropes that our connected to a railing on the wall, I blink a few times to adjust to the darkness of the room. The first thing my eyes notice are two brown eyes looking back at me. Only moments later messy, dark hair comes into view from another person in the room. "Colton?" He smiles lightly, "Hey Dakota."

"Call me Sasha when I'm a person and Dakota when I am a horse." "Ok, where are we?"

"I honestly have no clue." It seems like some sort of shed with no handle on the inside. Of course there is no handle. That would have been too simple of an escape.

Things are never that easy. I look over at Colton. "Do you happen to know who stole us?" I ask. He shakes his head no. But of course he wouldn't know, he was blindfolded too. "I have an idea," I say. "And that would be?" He questions.

"We can turn into horses and kick down the door," I say to finish my thought. "Hmmmm, it's worth a try," he says.

We close our eyes and the crackling comes at the exact same time. When I open my eyes, Magic is standing in front of me. He nods and we both step toward the door. We both kick as hard as we can but, of course, nothing goes as planned. I sigh, "This isn't going to work. We have to wait until they come back." He nods again and we both go back to our places. I fall asleep almost instantly, waiting for our captors to return.

......................................

We wake to the now familiar sound of a squeaking door and again a towel is wrapped around our faces. I'm guessing Magic is right next to me. They put a halter on me and this time I hear a chain tie to something but I can't tell because of the irritating towel over my eyes. This is starting to be very annoying. I sense a bucket being placed under my mouth and I quickly drink as much as I can without feeling sick. We will need our strength back for the escape. After I finish drinking, a food bucket is put in place of the water. With only a few bites I feel my power returning. My energy is back.

I hear one of the people whispering to the other. I strain my ears to hear the few words. "This food keeps them from shifting. So we are good." Wait no! I rear up and try to lash out at one of them. The chain tightens quickly and a sharp point digs into the skin of my neck. I try to hold back a scream of pain and anger as I land back on my four legs. I can sense a smirk on both of their faces as blood drips down my back.

One of them takes the chain and leads me out of the dark room with Magic's almost silent steps behind me. I find myself walking up a ramp so I spin around as fast as I can and try to gallop away, but the one holding my chain yanks back hard. The sharp chain digs into the front of my neck painfully. I let him pull me into the trailer.

I notice that it is a two horse trailer as Magic follows me inside. With a loud bang the door closes. With them finally gone I rub my face against the wall to loosen the towel and eventually it rolls off, landing on my hooves. After taking in my surroundings I attempt to shift, but the crackling is missing and an inner feeling of a puff of dust replaces it. In the end I am still a horse.

After hours of being slowly lulled to sleep we come to a sudden stop. I hear voices outside and I try to figure out who the familiar voice belongs to. He was the one who made the food. I know it. I pause a second, hearing them come closer.

The door opens and I scream in rage. If the familiar one comes near me I will rip him into pieces. Someone undoes my chain and immediately I turn to bite him, hard. He screams in pain slapping me on the nose and holding his arm. It was worth it because he is probably bleeding badly.

He angrily ties the towel over my face again and leads me down the ramp, stomping the whole way. I want to bite him so badly, but he makes sure he is far enough away from me. After making me spin in a few circles to confuse me he leads me into a building.

We must be at some abandoned barn because I am lead into a stall. He takes my towel off and locks the door without bothering to tie me to the wall. I hear Magic's loud hooves ringing on the ground. And suddenly there is complete silence. They left the room without me noticing.

"Magic?"

"I'm here."

"Where did they go?"

He doesn't answer making me realize that he knows as much as I do. Nothing. Finally, with hundreds of thoughts running through my mind, my eyes close and I drift off.

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A door being thrown open. Footsteps thundering across the ground. "Dakota!" My eyes fly open and I jump forward, my head reaching over the hole in the stall door. With a swish of blonde hair I see Ashley run to me.

"Are you ok?!"

I nicker weakly in answer, although I am very happy to see her. She slides open the stall door and hugs me tightly. I hug back as best as I can. "Let's go. We need to leave before those two guys catch me."

She tries to lead me away but I fight back, refusing to leave Magic. Finally she sees him and realizes what I'm doing. Quickly she opens his stall door too and he trots after us. The door swings open and the two guys are standing there.

I gasp in surprise at who he is. The familiar voice. Before I can react Ashley drags me away to the little emergency door on the other side of the building. I'll deal with him later, but for now we have to go. Ashley jumps on my back before the two people can do anything and Magic and I gallop away with Ashley, leaving them behind.