Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6)(24)
“I don’t believe in destiny.”
“Destiny believes in you.” The fawn took a breath. “I really am sorry we had to hit you.”
“I’m sorry too,” said Regan.
“You understand this was for your own good.”
“I understand you think this was for my own good.” Regan shifted in the straw, pulling herself as far back as she could manage with the twine binding her ankles. “I understand you think you know what’s best for me, when you’ve never met me before and don’t know what I want.”
“There’s nothing personal about it,” said the faun. “Humans must be taken to the Queen, and if we’re the ones to deliver you, we’ll get paid. So much money that our families will be safe and protected for years to come. You’ll be pampered and cosseted and cared for. Surely a little slice of your freedom is a fair price to pay for knowing our families will never go to bed hungry.”
Regan had never met the faun’s family, and while she was a generally kind and generous child, she was still a child; this wasn’t an argument that would gain any ground with her. She glared and shook her head. “What about my family?” she asked. “They took care of me. Shouldn’t they be rewarded for that, if anyone is? And if I just disappear, they won’t know what happened! They’ll look for me forever.”
“You’re the only human in the world. You don’t have a family.”
“I have the herd.”
“They’re not your family, and if you think they’ll keep looking for you once the season turns and the snow comes down, you don’t know them as well as you think you do. Centaurs are barely more than beasts.” The faun shook her head, ears flattening in disgust. “They’ll never be loyal to you. They’ll never come looking.”
“They took care of me when they didn’t have to,” snarled Regan, and kicked her feet again, straining against the twine. “They’re my friends, and they’re as good as my family, and they’ll come for me. They’ll find me, and you’ll be sorry.”
“Be still, child,” said the faun, sounding concerned.
“I won’t!” said Regan, kicking harder. The twine felt like it was starting to give. She might be able to break free soon if she kept this up.
She was less sure of what would happen after that, but anything would be better than being tied up and helpless.
“Hush!” said the faun, casting an anxious glance over her shoulder at the door she’d entered through. “You don’t want to—”
“What’s going on in there?” boomed the unfamiliar voice Regan had heard before. She stopped kicking and shrank back in the straw, trying to make herself as small as she could. Whoever that voice belonged to, they didn’t sound happy.
The clomping of massive hooves echoed down the hall. The door was pushed wider open, and one of the bull-headed men she’d seen at the fair ducked through, horns barely clearing the frame. Seen this close, he was terrifying, a mountain of a man walking through a world built to a much smaller scale. Each of his hooves was larger than her entire face. He swung his muzzle around to face her, expression bovine and unreadable, and snorted.
“You making trouble back here, human?” he demanded.
Irritation won out over fear. “How could I?” she asked. “I’m tied up and my head hurts, because you hit me! I didn’t do anything to you!”
“You exist,” he replied. “Humans only ever mean upheaval. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t coming to make trouble. The Queen wants you where she can keep an eye on you, and I’m happy to be the one to deliver you.”
“I’m not a package, I’m a person!”
“You’re a human. Whether you’re a person is still up for debate. Now be quiet, or I’ll give the Queen your corpse and tell her it couldn’t be helped. If the universe really wants us to have a human, it’ll send another one. The hills are heavy with the bones of would-be heroes.” He jerked his massive head toward the faun. “Come on. We’re ready to leave.” Then he strode out of the room, leaving the faun to anxiously follow after him, glancing over her shoulder at Regan. In moments, Regan was alone again.
She lay on her side in the straw, shaking with a combination of fear and fury that put her teeth on edge and made her feel as if every nerve in her body was on fire. She wanted to scream. She wanted to rage until they returned to silence her, and then she would kick and bite and do everything else she could to make them regret taking her from the Fair.
And then they would kill her, and she would never see her family—either family—again. No. Rage was the wrong answer, at least right now. She forced herself to breathe slowly in and out, and began twisting her ankles again. The bull-headed man had hooves. All of them had hooves. None of them had any experience with human-type legs, so maybe they hadn’t tied her up the right way, and she could get loose.
She didn’t know how long she’d been there, twisting and straining, when she heard a small snapping sound and her ankles came abruptly apart. She rolled onto her back, letting her legs fall where they would, and waited for the tingling in her feet to fade. Once that was done, she squirmed further around to lever herself onto her knees and from there to her feet.
Regan squinted against the dimness, trying to figure out what was supposed to happen next. She was alone in a dark room with no weapons, no allies, and no use of her hands. But she had her legs, and they’d done their best to take those away from her, which meant they were worried she’d escape. She knew where her kidnappers were, behind the one door she was sure of, and so she tiptoed in the other direction, becoming aware of another advantage in the process.