Page 6 of My Trojan Horse Majesty

Three hours? That sounds like a good head start to me.

Thank you, crazy woman, for breaking me out of my jail cell, but tomorrow, we won’t be starting any sort of ‘work.’ Tomorrow, I’ll have my powers back, no matter what it takes for me to get them, and I’ll be gone faster than you could possibly imagine.

Chapter3

Izzy

Horses were made to run.

Locking them in a metal box is about as opposite of their nature as it gets. I expect Drago, now that he’s secured and I’ve left, to lose his mind—kicking, screaming, and tearing up Steve’s trailer. Ihopehe doesn’t. But my heart’s in my throat, because if Steve or Mom wake up from his screaming and kicking and see me driving off. . .it’s going to be very awkward explaining why I’m stealing a horse.

A horse that’s destined to die, I remind myself.It’s fine. I’m trying to do something good.

Only, something good isn’t usually something that could also enrich me. I very much need this horse to turn his problems around quickly so I can have the money Heaston needs to get out of jail and start preparing his defense against his horrible partners’ claims.

To my shock, the stallion stands completely calm. There’s no banging, there’s no clanging. He doesn’t even shift around or scream. Why would anyone want to put him down, when he’s behaving so well?

Is it possible. . .he just likes me?

I’ve heard of it before—usually in stupid, made-up stories. I shake the nonsensical idea off. Perhaps he’s amazing in trailers, but a complete lunatic when anyone comes at him with a saddle. I’m just going to have to approach each step of this whole thing one small problem at a time.

The first half hour or so, I’m so panicked that I drive at ten and two, my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. I keep expecting my mom to call or the stallion to lose it. Or, once, when a cop car passes, my heart skyrockets.

But that’s ridiculous.

Mom wouldn’t call the cops on me.

After half an hour, I turn on the radio.

“—very often,” the female radio personality’s saying. “I mean, it says the last time there evenwasan earthquake in Utah, it was 2022, and that was just an aftershock of the 2020 one.”

A man chuckles. “Well, maybe we were due.”

Earthquake?

“If we were, I suppose having it happen out in Manila, Utah, of all places, is a good way to go.”

My hands go slack, the truck swerves a little, and I have to clamp down to straighten us out.Manila? There was an earthquake in Manila? When?

“With a population of just five hundred, the tiny little town located on the Wyoming border isn’t going to have much property damage to speak of,” the man says.

“Yeah, I bet their cow pastures will recover just fine.”

It happened late last night, apparently, a quake that measured five point one on the Richter scale. There have already been three smaller tremors since then, all of them around a two. I’m a little worried that the earthquake might have damaged someone’s house—Mandy’s? Amanda’s? Helen’s?—when my phone rings. I glance at the screen. I’d usually be excited to talk to her, but between the news I can’t share about not getting into vet school, the horrible mess with Tim, and now the stallion I’m towing, I feel more sick than anything else.

And, I really,reallyneed that horse to be quiet.

Because it’s my mom.

My hands are shaking when I hit the green button. “Hey, Mom.”

“Izzy?” She sighs. “Thank goodness you’re alright. Oliver said he saw you this morning?”

I groan. “Yeah, I woke up super early, and I decided I’d return Steve’s trailer, but then when I was almost there, I got a phone call from an old lady client of Tim’s. She doesn’t have a trailer, and I wanted to at least say hello, but it was urgent?—”

“Hey, did you happen to see a stallion while you were here?”

“A stallion?” I ask. “You mean that insane chestnut?”

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