For the next several minute, you don't stop and you don't look back. You don't until you reach Lucy's house. You race up the steps of the porch and then collapse in front of the door, heaving in gasping breaths and looking back at your path, half-expecting the troll to have followed you. But it doesn't seem like he did.

Exhaling with relief, you reach into your pocket. It's empty. The small box containing the golden chain necklace you were going to give Lucy for her birthday is gone. You must have dropped it in the struggle, and you groan inwardly. You start fiddling with and twisting the ring on your thumb, anxiously biting your lip and going over what on earth you could do to get it back. If the troll noticed it on the ground, he probably took it and will probably sell or trade it. But there was still the possibility that he hadn't noticed it.

Frowning, you place a hand to your chest and press lightly. The spots where his horns had punctured you are achy, and the slightly damp spots indicate that it had [i]literally[/i] punctured you and was bleeding. Your back is still throbbing from the impact of being thrust against the wall. This was not how you expected this day to go.