1.11 Importance of Paying Attention
What I really wanted to do was rip open the bulky one's stomach, take his small intestine and wrap it around his throat, and, while he choked to death, scratch the eyes off of the dark blondes and point him towards a fire.
They were really that infuriating.
And they couldn't even come up with half-intelligent insults.
Glinda would put them to shame without even trying to. And even though the blonde haired girl wasn't as dense as she led people on to believe, it was still saying something.
"What's the matter greenie, got a frog in your mouth?"
The old scarf they'd wrapped around my head was uncomfortably tight and the fabric felt distinctly unnatural between my teeth. Regardless of the intensity with which I tried to spit it out, the darn thing remained stubbornly in place. It amazed me they were able to get that one thing right.
"Oh look, the beast's getting restless," skinny semi-dark haired man said and I glared at him while the other laughed.
Oh how I would love to get my hands on him, bash his head in to prove that there was nothing inside it. How I marveled that these two were even capable of coherent, if sometimes grammatically incorrect, speech. That they could walk and talk at the same time.
I didn't very much mind the fact my wrists were restrained, tied behind me around a tree. I didn't even mind much that they'd done the same with my ankles, though my legs had already passed onto numbness.
What really bothered me was that they'd taken away my ability- my right to speak.
Forcefully.
It created a sense of helplessness, which only fueled my anger and proneness to violence: one of the reasons they wouldn't come near me. They already bore some battle scars from their mistake of releasing me without agreeing on who would do what. Chaos ensued and they paid dearly before they managed to restrain me again. Just in time, for I thought I saw Shandra lurking in the shadows, seconds away from coming to my aid.
Now they settled on attempting to agitate me from afar. It wasn't very effective.
"… on Oz would he?"
Oz? I caught the word and wondered what it meant. Was it possible that these two were not random attackers? I started paying attention;
"I've heard her say that she has a power most only dream of,"
"And what would that be? Being able to come here? Who would want that when you've got all of Oz back home?"
There was weak verification that they, too, were from Oz.
"Well she doesn't know now, does she?" They both looked pointedly at me and I'd never felt more limited in my life. What had they been talking about? I eyed them suspiciously and they laughed at my confusion.
I wouldn't have asked what they were talking about even if I could, but my inability to mock them or even speak out against them enraged me.
"Are you a wicked little witch?" the bulky one asked, shuffling closer to me. I glared at him, daring him on. "Do you want the magick book?" he said, holding a book- the book I assumed was stolen from Shandra- waving it in front of me. "Do you want to magick us away?"
He was now almost just inches away from me and I couldn't resist the urge to say something. Even though it came out as an odd combination of vowels, it did the trick, and as he leaned forward to both try to hear properly and understand I swung my head down, hearing the satisfying crunch of his nose.
The man screamed and I thought I heard a giggle behind me, but it lasted for only a second. "Bitch!" he screamed, kicking me in the side, and swearing some more. Finally he stopped stomping around and turned to me, seething; "You disgusting weed!" he slapped me across the face, digging in his nails so they broke through the skin.
I bit down on the rag, willing the tears that instinctively filled my eyes not to fall. Taking a fist full of hair he pulled me up while the skinny dark-blonde hastily stood up. The ropes around my wrists and ankles prevented me from being pulled up all the way, stopping me in a painful compromise.
"When we get back to Oz," he promised in a whisper, his voice full of loathing and contempt, "I'm going to make it my personal duty to make sure that you suffer in every way possible."
He dropped me and gave me a kick before turning around. Tears rolled down my cheeks, adding to the pain of the gouges from his slap and I lowered my head, hoping to hide them from my captors.
"You all right?" his friend asked while he tentatively touched his nose, blood still flowing freely from it. They both ignored me.
"Fine!" bulky hissed, nursing wounds that were more than superficial. I smiled, happy that I'd not only managed to hurt his nose, but his pride as well.
After all, not only was I a rather small being compared to him, I was also a girl, tied up and gagged at the moment.
Like I said before- I was amazed that these boys could walk and talk without hurting themselves fatally.