Silver Flames

Chapter 6

     I walked for what felt like twenty minutes, I couldn't tell time without my phone. Something must have really scared Fox to make him run this far I thought. I just hoped the poor horse was alright. My left arm still hurt pretty badly. I was pretty sure it was broken. I knew I should see somebody about it really soon but I was over an hour away from home by now on foot, maybe 45 minutes on a horse. I knew Nina would come looking soon as I'd told her I'd be back by lunch time so we could meet up and eat together and if I was guessing the time correctly it was about that time now. Just as I was starting to think I would never find Fox, I heard a horse neigh. What bothered me was that it sounded like a fearful neigh, but at least he was close. I ran towards the sound and was shocked at what I saw when I finally got there. Two guys in hoods who I knew from the Internet were Dark Core workers were with him. One had grabbed the reins and the other actually hit him with a whip when he freaked out. And I don't mean using it like a good rider would, the guy literally slapped the poor horse with it. I ran towards them and yelled "Hey! Get your hands off my horse!" I didn't even care he was Kate's I knew I'd sound more threatening if I called him mind. The guys turned and looked at me. One of them then instead of simply giving the horse back to me said "How do we know he's yours huh? We found him wandering around" I was probably gonna regret saying this but I replied "Well how many other girls do you see wandering around out here? Plus I saw you guys hit him with that whip and even if he wasn't mind I'd still want to get him away from you!" Then before they could react I grabbed the reins out of the guy's hand when he didn't expect it. I leapt onto the horse as quickly as I could ignoring the searing pain in my arm and urged Fox into a gallop. Maybe two seconds after we started to run I almost literally ran into Nina. We both stopped inches away from each other. "There you are!" She said "I've been looking everywhere for you and I kept calling but it went straight to voicemail and-" I cut her off quickly hearing those guys shouting behind me. "No time to explain, just run back to the stables and don't stop until you get there" I told her quickly before starting to gallop again. She turned around and followed close behind me. We galloped for about 45 minutes straight before racing back into the stables. Once we were through the gates we slowed to a walk and gave the horses a loose rein. "So what happened to you? And why did those creepy guys chase us?" Nina questioned immediately. I told her the story of what had happened. "Oh my god that's horrible! Why would they do that to a horse?" She exclaimed when I finished. "I don't know" I replied. I knew if anyone knew about this it would be Silverblaze but I didn't want Nina to know about him yet. I decided I'd have to try and get somewhere alone with him later to talk. After walking around for a bit to cool out the horses we got off and untacked. Once they were both in their stalls, Nina then noticed my injured arm. "Did you hurt your arm when you fell?" She asked looking at it. "Yeah, it hurts pretty badly" I told her. I then asked "You've helped your mom out a lot, are you able to tell if it's broken?" "Yeah that's one of the few things I do know about medicine" she said with a laugh. She looked at my arm and then said "I'm pretty sure it's broken" "Dang it" I replied "I probably won't be able to ride for at least a month!" My luck was pretty bad lately. First my horse hurt his leg and now I'd managed to break my arm. Nina begged me to go to the hospital and even though I knew I should I really didn't want to. I told her I'd go later that evening. After Nina left and I was alone in the barn Silverblaze said "You aren't going to the hospital are you" "I'm going to tonight, I just really don't want to" I replied laughing. "So how'd you break it anyway?" He asked. "Oh yeah I wanted to tell you that story actually!" I said. I told Silverblaze everything that had happened today. "This isn't good" he said pacing around the stall "I get why they'd take Sunny but why random horses, what do they want?" "No idea, I just know I saved poor Fox from them" I said walking over to Fox. I fed him a carrot and looked him over to make sure they hadn't done anything else to him. The whip had left a nasty looking mark on his side but other then that he looked fine. I pointed out the mark to Silverblaze "How do I explain this to Kate?" I asked him. "Just tell her what really happened, no point in hiding it" he replied. I hung out with the horses for about twenty minutes before finally deciding to go to the hospital. As I was walking down the road I thought I heard something in a bush. I turned frantically half expecting to find a murder with a knife but all I saw was a horse. He was a gray (for non-horsey people white horses are all actually grays except for albinos) but with an unusual blue mane and tail. He walked up to me and put his nose on my broken arm my eyes widened as the pain in my arm faded away. After the horse took his nose off I moved my arm around hardly able to believe it. "Thanks" I said to the horse. Without replying, he raced off into the woods somewhere. Pondering what had just happened, I turned around and just decided to head home for the night.