Chapter 27

27

L ogan tested the strength of every wall and door with his feet, and found that the stall had been built to keep a strong and temperamental stallion in. Without human limbs and digits, and access to his keypad cracker, he was completely imprisoned.

He snuffled around the stall and found the iron that they'd seared him with, safely cooled in a pile of faintly charred hay. It was lucky that it hadn't started a fire. It still looked more like a brooch than a branding iron, welded at the end of an iron rod. It had too much fine detail to be a logo, and it looked a little like antlers that ended in knots when Logan nosed it around and fixed one of his eyes on it. It gave Logan a tingle of magical recognition, but he couldn't put a finger on what instinct was trying to tell him.

Because you don't have fingers, his stallion snorted.

It's an expression, you dolt , Logan sighed.

He tried again to pry the door open, or to get a grip with his teeth on the hinges, and failed. He could get his head over the stall door, but he couldn't reach the keypad, and he wasn't sure he could use his big tongue to push the buttons anyway. Assuming he could figure out the code or see it when he was that close.

Finally, he dozed as the night fell in earnest and morning followed it.

He wasn't the only horse in the stable, but none of the others had shifter tingles that he could sense. Grooms and stablehands came in and out to feed and clean them, occasionally taking one of the other horses out on a lead, but none of them approached Logan's stall. It probably didn't help that Logan had his head out over his door and was eyeing them dangerously and curling his lips in fury.

What he did notice, though, was that all the keypads had the same code.

It made sense; Tallier probably didn't have a staff that could remember a separate code for each valuable horse. As the afternoon turned into evening, Logan pieced together the access numbers, running them over in his head so he wouldn't forget them.

4-7-2-3-9

4-7-2-3-9

4-7-2-3-9… He kept wanting to continue the string with the numbers from the 80s song Jenny. If he could call someone, they could break him out…but his phone was in his human shifted pocket with the keypad cracker, and his calls were probably going to voicemail right now.

He still couldn't reach the keypad, and didn't have fingers to use on it, even if he could. He paced the stall, and kicked the unyielding door again.

"Temper, temper," Tallier said, catching him at his futile efforts that evening. He didn't offer to come within biting distance of the door, though. "I'm a patient man, Logan, and I can wait until you've realized your position here. A horse as clever as you could do a lot for a man like me, and you don't have any other choices now."

Logan howled in rage inside his head, but he only turned away in a show of disdain, his ears flat back and his tail twitching.

"Should we sedate him?" one of the stablehands asked.

"He won't hurt himself," Tallier said with a smirk. "He's too smart for that. He's got plenty of hay and water and he'll see the error of his ways soon enough."

They left, and Logan paced around the stall again, clipping the branding iron with one hoof.

The sound jogged an idea, and he reached down to take it into his mouth. With much effort, he could get it balanced, the tingling brooch inside his mouth and the iron rod sticking out like a cigar. The rod was about the width of a human finger.

It took an agonizing number of tries to figure out the angle, stretching his head out over the door as far as he could, that it would take to depress the keypad buttons with the rod, and he clumsily keyed in the code wrong four times before he accidentally dropped the branding iron from his numb lips.

Logan had to lay down in the straw and use one leg to paw the iron back under the door to himself, cursing inside his head until his stallion was as agitated as he was.

Hopefully the keypad didn't have a number of wrong inputs that would shut it down.

Twice as slowly and carefully, his neck at an agonizing angle, Logan punched in the code. 4-7-2-3-9.

Whirr!!

The door cracked open and Logan dropped the branding iron, crowding into the gap to make sure that it didn't accidentally close again .

Free! We're free! his stallion crowed.

Logan heard a commotion at the stable door and had to wrestle back his impulse to charge out regardless. He found the piece of cloth that he'd ripped from the unlucky handler and stuffed it with his mouth into the latch so it wouldn't fully close again, then pawed the rod back into his stall and closed the door, listening in dread for the sound of it clicking shut. If it didn't, would the colored light on the keypad give it away? Should he just let it close and hope he could open it again?

He finished as the grooms came in to do their last rounds. They didn't offer to come into Logan's stall, and didn't seem to notice if the keypad showed a different color. A new net of hay was slung in over the door.

Oh, that's good stuff, his stallion said, distracted by the tantalizing smell.

Logan snorted and stomped, threatening, and the staff moved on.

We should eat before we escape , his stallion said practically, moving to munch on it.

Logan remembered what the trainer had said about sedation. He didn't want to risk being muddled and sleeping through his chance to get out.

I'd know if it was wrong, his stallion insisted, and Logan let him eat.

It was hard to wait until night truly fell and all the sounds of the house went quiet. Logan knew that there would still be staff on duty, but he hoped that they would be looking out for things breaking in, and that surprise would be all the advantage he needed.

The door slid open silently when he tested it, and Logan felt himself sag in relief. He paused and took the detested branding rod up in his mouth. It had something to do with how he'd gotten stuck this way, and he wasn't going to leave it behind if he could help it.

It was worse than a bit, with hard edges and a rough iron surface that cut at Logan's already stressed lips, but he clamped it in his mouth and set out to escape the stall.

He feared that the stable would have a lock as well, but if it did, it was overruled by the fire exit style handle on the inside; a simple push with his knee and it swung open.

Unfortunately, it triggered an alarm that immediately began to blare.

Logan didn't pause, but stretched out into a full gallop as soon as he was clear of the doorway, gravel flying from his hooves.

What he hadn't considered was that the security staff on night duty would be armed, and that they might shoot at a valuable, prize-winning horse.

How dare they! his stallion shrieked in outrage.

It only put fresh urgency into Logan's flight, and he did a rodeo barrel horse justice with his zigzag pattern as he skidded off the driveway and into the darkness of the yard, bullets shredding leaves just off his flank.

Someone shouted and the shooting stopped, but floodlights came on along the driveway. Logan took a chance and the straight shot, and flew back out of the darkness down the driveway at full speed, gathering himself as he saw the gate at the end.

Maybe he could have made it as a racehorse after all, he thought, hearing the noise fade away behind him. There was just a guardhouse at the end to get past, with an ineffective crossbar that Logan sailed over with feet to spare. The gate guard watched him go with an open mouth.

Then Logan was pounding out onto the dark road and settling into a ground-eating gallop .

He heard vehicle doors and engines at the top of the drive behind him, and left the road to leap over a ditch and a fence and flee into the darkness across a field.

He kept running long after the sounds behind him faded to nothing, crashed through an orchard, and finally slowed in a second dark field. He had no direction sense besides away , and ran until his legs were aching and his sides were heaving.

They were free.

They were free and could return to Franzi and Tabby, who were expecting them home by now…and Logan had no idea which direction that was.

His phone, with GPS, was safely shifted with his unreachable human form, and Logan could be anywhere. He might not even be in Montana anymore. He couldn't exactly walk up to a gas station and ask for directions as a horse , and he wasn't sure how to unfold a map even if he could steal one.

His mouth was aching around the iron bar now, and after considering for a moment, Logan found a ditch to drop it into. He'd try to find his way back to it for answers, but at least Tallier wouldn't have it anymore.

He worked his sore lips and cut tongue as they trotted along the field road. Eventually, it would come out on a road or a driveway, and that would take him to a street or a highway. He could read street signs and hopefully find something familiar.

Instinct can help us , his stallion reminded him. At least it can if you aren't going to be a stubborn ass about it.

Logan was really good at ignoring instinct when it told him he was being dumb, and he often forgot to listen to it when it would help him. Humbled, he stopped, closed his eyes, and looked inside.

It wasn't a glowing path through the night to show him where to go, and it wasn't quite a dowsing rod, but it was a gentle tug when he was finally still enough, and he let his feet follow it.

Franzi. Tabby. They were that way. They were calling him home.