Still no ticking. Even the scent of his adrenaline faded a bit. Was that good or bad? I wagged my tail, hoping he’d tell me.
“Ghost, old buddy,” he said as he continued staring at the bomb, “I think we got lucky.”
Then my ears popped up at a soft scuffing behind me and we both spun around. A growl rose in my throat as the smells of fear and death grew stronger again.
There were two of them. One a major my master had fought earlier, who’d lost his teeth. The other in orange coveralls of refinery staff. The major smiled, showing fangs, his real teeth. Long fangs. Red Knights!
Though both were armed, neither they nor my master had drawn their weapons. But their eyes glowed at us: red, haunting.
My body started shaking and I let out a whimper as my bladder let go. I had no control. Now the urge to run was almost overwhelming, but I couldn’t move.
The two men’s smiles widened.
And I was torn between the shame at my own fear and immobility, sensing the disappointment of my master. He was counting on me and yet I couldn’t do a thing. A thousand blips of memories, of things Joe and I had been through, flooded my mind, taking over all my thoughts. Desperate for something to ground the world around me, I focused on one, the earliest. The day I met my master.
He was broken, I could sense it. Not physically — though he bore the evidence of that as well. Damaged in a way I couldn’t see. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him. He reminded me of the Man, the ex-Marine who caged my mum and me and my siblings in filth. Whose voice was as harsh and cruel as the wire we slept on each night. The Man and this Joe Ledger had the same hair color, the same… hardness… to their eyes. From experience, I knew that hardness changed only when it came with pain. My pain. My mum’s pain. The pups around us who I could smell and hear but never saw. If I was too eager for my food, a steel-toed boot would thump into my ribs. And those eyes glinted like glass.
I couldn’t possibly be safe here.
I narrowed my gaze on Joe and lowered my ears.
My trainer, Zan Rosin, smiled at Joe. “He’s a very nice dog,” she said. “He’s exceptionally smart and has already passed through standard and advanced training in search and rescue, bomb detection, bark and hold, high-speed disarm, cover and concealment…” Her words trickled down and stopped.
Joe scowled at me. He didn’t like me much, either. Fine. I’d put an end to this and go back with the woman who’d spent so much time teaching me. The woman who’d rescued me and taught me kindness. I curled my lip and bared my teeth.
I tried to pull myself out of the cycling memories, back into the cavern of rot and death. But the fear… I was back in that horrible puppy mill again, terrified to poke even my nose out of my cage when Zan rescued me, certain the pain would come again. That maybe this time, like my youngest littermate, I wouldn’t survive it.
Memories cycled again. Another took over, an echoing laugh that was warm, friendly, and accompanied belly rubs. Rudy. Rudy was always safe.
“How long’s it going to be, Joe, before you acknowledge the pain instead of trying to drown it? Grace is gone, and I miss her, too, but she’d roll over in her grave if she could see you right now,” Rudy said, his usually kind voice harsher than what I’d become accustomed to.
Joe instantly turned cold, his words sharp and intense, though not a shout. “Fuck you.”
“Nothing changes no matter how often you say that. I get the message — I’ll let you wallow. You do that damn well.” He snatched his keys off the table and stalked to the door.
Joe made no move to get up. Confused, I glanced between the closed front door and my master. I’d only known him a couple of weeks, but I’d not seen him this way. As if Rudy’s words stole something from him.
Joe lifted his beer bottle at me and cracked a sardonic smile. “Cold, hard honesty.” He took a long slug, frowned at the bottle, then set it aside and stared out the window.
Something was different. I didn’t know what, but I sensed it in my bones. And I was Joe’s companion now, so I did what seemed right. I rested my nose on his thigh. His hand fell on my head, fingers barely shifting through my hair.
“He’s right, you know,” he murmured quietly. “I am wallowing. Because nothing’s the same without her. You’d have liked her, Ghost.” He shook his head. “You’d have loved her.” His fingers gripped tighter — not painfully — and then relaxed completely.
“I’m going to bed. You coming?” He pushed out of the chair.
I wagged my tail hesitantly. My dog bed was evidence of my new freedom — no kennel at night. Run of the house. Soft bed to curl up on while I guarded him and the house. Only Joe had never invited me. I followed as I ought to. Something had definitely changed.
The following morning Rudy interrupted our training session — something completely out of the ordinary. “Joe, they found him,” he said urgently.
Joe froze in place. He radiated an intensity I only ever felt when Rudy brought up his lost mate. In moments, we were running, meeting with the man Joe called Church, and what seemed even seconds later, boarding a giant winged bird, heading someplace called Amsterdam. I asked no questions. It was my duty. I was working… and I sensed Joe was, too.
We met another man — one I’d end up never forgetting — after the long air ride. Spurlock, Joe called him. During the taxi ride to what would be our destination, they talked about Joe’s mate, Grace. Joe didn’t like what Spurlock said. And strangely, I found myself not liking him for upsetting Joe. We hadn’t been together long, but I liked him. He treated me like a friend. A partner in all he did.
“Well,” Spurlock said, “at least we have the bastard cornered. Time for a little bit of payback.”
Silence filled the car. Outside the windows, the island rolled by, green and pretty. I watched Joe, though. His energy was all over the place. I didn’t know how to communicate with him, not in the way he talked with me, at least. I didn’t have words. But I did have a voice.
I whined, telling him I understood.
Joe reached back and ran a hand over my head.
I’ve got this. I’m right here, I wanted to say. But he’d never understand my limited language. I couldn’t rumple his fur, but I could lick his fingers. And so I did.
“Fetch dog,” someone said as my eyes focused again. The two knights kept staring at me. The major laughed and sneered as he touched his chest and drew a line with his fingers above his eyes. What did that mean? Some sort of crazy human ritual?
“If you kill that piece-of-shit dog, we will make it easy for you,” said the other knight, the one in the maintenance uniform, smiling.
And I shrank back involuntarily, afraid, even as my master’s eyes went from fear to fury.
“Here’s an idea,” my master said, and instantly threw a screwdriver at the maintenance knight with his left hand while drawing his pistol with his right. The shiny, well-oiled black metal glinted in the low light.
The knight in overalls caught the screwdriver.
Then a red dot opened in his forehead as my master fired the pistol right at the knight’s nose and he flew back. Blood and brains splattered out the back of his head as his neck snapped with a crack and he landed hard against a stony wall, sinking into a heap on the floor.