Wawa never learned the name of the man who owned her before everything changed. But she hoped he was dead or dying somewhere. Preferably the latter, in some dank cave where the last of the humans waited out their final days. And she hoped that he saw her scarred face in his dreams, and that he wanted to remember her name but couldn’t, and that it drove him mad. He deserved to know that he had failed to break her. He deserved to be afraid.

Wawa didn’t have time to be dwelling on these things again. It was late, and she had work to do. The only light in her cramped room at the barracks came from an old computer salvaged from the rubble, displaying a spreadsheet that detailed every possible EMSAH infection in the sector. Mort(e)’s investigation had begun, and she had to record his findings. If this was an EMSAH outbreak, then it was spreading so fast that the Red Sphinx would soon need an army of investigators to sort through everything. Of course, she could not yet use the word EMSAH, not even in the filename. In keeping with the gag order, she described the cases in numbingly bland prose: “Thor (canine, 12). Murdered by neighbor, Averroes (canine, 10). Altercation began Y9 7.3. Assailant stabbed victim; later poisoned family at dinner (mate, two pups); committed suicide.” There was still a blank cell where she would have to write an equally flat assessment of the deer suicides. It was almost a relief to hear reported cases of biological symptoms. At least they were more predictable. But they had turned up negative in every suspected case so far. Now anyone with an abnormally long cold was being tested.

Though she had heard about settlements that had been erased from the map, she had not witnessed the process in real time. “Think of it as a test,” Culdesac told her. Everything was a test to him, including Wawa’s initiation into the Red Sphinx. He had toured the refugee camp where she lived, searching for new recruits. After being told they were drafting only cats, Wawa challenged the newest members to a fight. It was three against one. Wawa held her own against them until Culdesac consented to let her join, making her the first canine in the squad. The others were stunned. “You owe me,” Culdesac reminded her, “and you will pay up.”

Upon hearing the story of her slave days, Culdesac nodded and smiled. “You should be grateful,” he said. “Grateful to be alive. Grateful that your master gave you this rage that you’ve harnessed. That is who you are. That is your strength. You have to let it burn inside you. Never let it go out. And then you’ll be your own master.”

The colonel was the only other person at the base who was still awake. From her window, Wawa could see a light in his office. That damned coffee was keeping him up, along with a host of worries she was not supposed to know about. Instead of coffee, it was the expression on Mort(e)’s face earlier that day that kept her from sleeping. When she had pointed her gun at him. He thought that he was better than her. He was the bravest. Culdesac’s favorite—something neither she nor her comrades could ever hope to be. She had to listen to all the stories of Mort(e)’s exploits, told by drunk, arrogant cats who thought that she wasn’t qualified to be a member of their little Red Sphinx club.

If he only knew what she was before all this.

Before the Change, her only reason for living was to make her master rich, while the canines around her suffered unspeakably, lived meaninglessly, and died horribly. Even now, after surviving so much, she could not shake the feeling that things could return to the way they were, and she would suddenly find herself trapped in her old life, realizing that the war had been a dream.

She could remember the litter of puppies, her brothers and sisters huddled together, hiding from the cold and the light. Then they were all separated, her mother included. Everyone was confined to cages facing a white stucco wall. Wawa could hear her siblings, along with many others, squealing above, beside, and beneath her. She tried to talk to them, but her voice died out amidst the shouts bouncing off the wall. Every once in a while, an overhead fluorescent light would turn on. Her master would enter, usually to feed everyone. He was shorter than most men, always dressed in a tracksuit—pants and jacket in matching colors, a white stripe traveling from his shoulders down to his ankles. A bucket hat or a baseball cap covered his shaved head. He called her Jenna. Years later, after giving up on finding out his name, Wawa began to refer to him simply as Tracksuit.

When she was older, her master and some of his friends would take her out of the cage and into a yard along with the other dogs. It was so bright that her eyes felt as though they would burst. Her nose and ears tingled with unfamiliar sensory input: grass, dirt, leaves, wood, concrete, rusty metal, rope, tiny armored creatures that crawled on the ground, distant elegant monsters that glided in the sky above. The master leashed the dogs to a row of dying trees, which allowed them to get close to one another without touching. Other humans would arrive. These visitors—almost always young men—would gawk at the dogs, occasionally nodding in approval. Sometimes they would even point and smile at her. She barked at them as loud as she could to show them that she would protect her master. They would smile more, as if she had performed some trick on command. The men inspected the animals, squeezing their hind legs, holding their jaws and examining the teeth. Sometimes, after a lengthy inspection, they would take one of the dogs away. In the yard, Wawa learned the names of the others in her pack. Rommel, a brown dog who fought with the others whenever he got loose. Hector, a younger one, very agile and fast. Kai, another female who wheezed when she growled.

One evening, Tracksuit placed Wawa and three other dogs in cages and loaded them into the rear of a windowless van. She recognized her companions: Baron, Ajax, and an older one, Cyrus. He had a whitish coat with a few black splotches. His mottled tail and missing left ear suggested that he had been defending the pack for many years, second in command only to Tracksuit. He could quiet the others with a mere grumbling in his throat. One time, he protected Kai from Rommel, reminding the others who was in charge. He was the elder, the strongest among them. He would drink first from the trough in the yard and got the largest share of the food.

Wawa could not take her eyes from Cyrus as he sat in his cage, scratching himself, unburdened by what took place around him. After the van arrived at its destination, Tracksuit and his friend opened the door and led the animals out one at a time. The landscape was much different from the one outside her master’s house. The ground was flat, rough, and hard. Tall poles held lights that hung over a vast empty space. In one direction, a highway stretched into the distance. In the other was a square building, the front of which glowed blindingly white through giant windows. Inside, the linoleum floor reflected the light like the surface of a puddle. Brightly colored cans, bags, and boxes lined the shelves. A man stood behind a counter, eyeing Tracksuit suspiciously. At the top of the building, looming over it, were glowing red objects braced to the wall with bolts and bent into shapes Wawa did not recognize.

Behind the building, the parking lot ended at a wooded area. A row of trash cans, fragrant with a week’s worth of garbage, concealed a dirt trail into the forest. Wawa followed, her senses alert. In the failing light, Tracksuit’s outfit went from a navy blue to black.

The trail snaked its way to a house painted a dull green color to blend in. The curtains were drawn. Tracksuit knocked, and the door opened, releasing the sound of hundreds of voices along with the smell of smoke, alcohol, and sweat. Once inside, Wawa was lost in a moving forest of legs. Few of the people seemed to notice her arrival. Instead, the crowd circled around an arena in which a man stood. There was a wall that rose as high as the man’s waist. On the other side of the wall, Wawa could hear the unmistakable sound of two dogs thrashing at each other. A head and a tail peeked above the lip of the barrier. Each yelp from the combatants drew cheers from the spectators. Before she could get a better view, Tracksuit pulled her into another smoky room where four men sat around a table. Each wore a long white T-shirt that went almost down to the knees, along with baggy jeans and high-top sneakers. Glowing cigarettes hung from their lips. One of them had a porkpie hat and wraparound sunglasses. He did not speak much, but the others were quiet and attentive when he did. Wawa had been trained to be silent, but she wanted to warn Tracksuit that these men were enemies from another pack, constantly encircling them. She could smell it on them. And she could detect the anxiety seeping through her master’s sweaty outfit.

Tracksuit left the room, leaving Wawa alone to keep an eye on these predators. Minutes later he returned, holding Cyrus on a leash. Wawa was so overjoyed that she began to jump up and down, unafraid to bark at her friend. She stopped when she sensed the men walking past her. Each took a turn petting her. The man with the porkpie hat was last. With a meaty hand, he lifted his sunglasses to reveal two enormous eyes, one of which had a brown iris. The other was shaded over with a milky cataract. He smiled, exposing teeth that were the same off-white color as the diseased eyeball. He patted her scalp and left the room.

The men took seats in the front row of the arena. By then, Tracksuit had positioned Cyrus in one corner. Another dog owner—a fat man with a pit-stained T-shirt—brought his own warrior into the ring, a gray mutt. Both masters carefully washed the dogs using a bucket and a sponge placed in the middle of the floor. Cyrus’s tongue bobbed up and down while Tracksuit wiped his fur with a waffled towel.

The referee inspected the animals. He was a squat little thing with a goatee and a buzzed haircut. He resembled a dog himself. Cyrus sniffed him. I can inspect you, too, he seemed to be saying. The arena grew quiet, prompting Wawa to stop barking. Several people whispered into the ear of the man with the porkpie hat. He nodded, the fluorescent lights reflecting off his sunglasses.

And then it began. The two dogs charged each other, colliding in the center of the ring, snapping, growling, twisting about until they no longer resembled living things but malfunctioning machines leaking fluid. Cyrus attacked deliberately, while the other dog seemed unable to help himself. He clawed at Cyrus, spraying foamy saliva with each bark.

It wasn’t long before the gray dog made a mistake and allowed Cyrus to corner him. The older dog pinned him and bit his leg, tearing open the skin. After that, the gray dog was on the defensive. His wounded leg left bloody footprints, and a cut slashed across his face from his snout to his right eye. Through the cigarettes and spilled beer, Wawa picked up the bitter scent of it. Cyrus was exhausted but had the upper hand. He took swipes at his opponent, provoking helpless squeals from the gray dog. Cyrus did not need to kill this mutt, but he would if he had to.

Before he could finish the job, Cyrus froze, his ears pinned to his skull. While the crowd exhorted him, Cyrus barked at them, telling them to shut up and listen. Wawa heard it, too: something was approaching the building. Tires crunching the dirt. Footsteps and whispers. The smell of rubber and gasoline. Wawa let out a warning bark of her own. A malevolent presence surrounded the house.

A man rushed into the arena. He clapped three times. The sound cut through the din of the spectators. Everyone rose from their seats and headed toward the rear exit in a thunderous stampede of shoes and sneakers. Tracksuit pushed his way through the crowd. Wawa barked, pleading for him to let her loose so she could run with the others, with Cyrus. He told her to shut up, a phrase she knew very well. As he untied the leash, the front door of the building burst open. The evacuation became more frantic. Everyone was shouting. Men in matching blue suits and hats entered through the front door, all pointing metal objects and barking like dogs themselves.

Tracksuit pulled Wawa into the meeting room and slammed the door. Thinking she needed to protect her master, Wawa growled at the door as the men tried to batter it down. With another tug of the leash, Tracksuit directed her to a window. Opening it, he ordered her to jump out. When she hesitated, he cursed, picked her up, and shoved her through. The wooden frame clipped one of her vertebrae. She managed to land on her feet. Tracksuit squeezed out and landed behind her.

Seconds later, they were running, the trail and the trees jostling with each breathless step. Tracksuit stumbled a few times. The noises and the scents of the building receded. Though she was more tired than she had ever been, Wawa kept up with the dirt-caked pant legs of her master as they trudged deeper into the woods.

They made it to the trail, which eventually returned them to the hard, flat surface. The sun was rising. The building where Wawa had seen the strange red shapes seemed to be sleeping, the glow now dull. The van was where they had left it. Tracksuit knocked on the window. His friend was napping in the driver’s seat. It took another knock to wake him up. The men spoke briefly. Then Tracksuit took Wawa around the truck and opened the sliding door. Cyrus was inside, sitting in his cage calmly like a sphinx. The other dogs were gone, lost in the confusion.

Tracksuit did not need to tell Wawa to get in. She went straight for Cyrus, sniffing him, licking his face and the base of ears through the metal bars. Cyrus reciprocated by snapping playfully at her. Through sheer will, he had defied the men who had descended from the night sky. He had survived the battle and found his way through the forest to where the sun rose peacefully. It was then that Wawa felt the primal urge of her species: to be a part of his pack, to be one of his people. To hunt with him, to taste blood and share it. To roam the forests, meadows, and mountains, claiming territory for her clan. To huddle together under the night sky in defiance of the cold, without cages to separate them. She would still die for her master, but she belonged out in the wild, without a rope tied to her neck, without canned food served in a child’s bowl. It was Cyrus who made her realize that she had been in a cell, and that the love and protection that Tracksuit bestowed upon her was somehow an illusion. She did not understand it yet, and the thought often fell out of her primitive brain whenever she felt the need to bark, eat, or piss. But the seed took root, and it sustained her through the worst times of her life. Even before the ants began their experiment, Cyrus showed her that there was such a thing as freedom.

On the way home, Wawa pledged her life to Cyrus. She would die for him if she had to. And she would kill.

“LUFF-TENANT,” SOMEONE SAID. Wawa knew right away that it was Archer, a raccoon who had followed Culdesac’s soldiers around for days before the colonel finally relented and allowed him to join the Red Sphinx. Archer insisted on using the weird British pronunciation of Wawa’s rank. When asked why he spoke the way he did, he claimed that he hid in the basement of the main branch of the New York Public Library after Manhattan was evacuated. He spent months learning the classics, watching documentary filmstrips, learning things that the ants could not program into his brain. Wawa had once seen him pick a bullet out of his thigh with his claws, wipe his hands on his tail, and keep fighting. He had earned the right to be a little snooty. Even though he still ate trash on occasion—a trusty survival skill, she had to admit.

“What is it?” she asked.

“First of all,” he began, “I should point out that this is not in jest.”

“Go on.”

“I saw a human.”

Wawa lifted her hands from the keyboard and swiveled her chair to face him. She wrinkled her nose and tried to think of what to say.

“I would not play games with this,” Archer said. “Certainly not at this hour.”

“Where did you see the human?”

“Bonaparte and I were on our way to the supply depot near the creek. The pig pulled over to urinate about a quarter of a mile north of the quarry. There was a man standing nearby.”

“You’re sure it was a man?”

“It could have been a woman,” he said. “It was the tail that gave it away.”

“The tail?”

“He was disguised as one of my kind. A raccoon. But the tail didn’t wave right. He wore a mask that he pulled over his face when he realized that I could see him. Then he ran away.”

“Bonaparte saw nothing, I suppose,” she said, “or else he’d be in here with you.”

“The pig can’t see at night like I can, Luff-tenant,” Archer said. “But he can smell just like I can.”

“Did you both smell a human?”

“No, we smelled raccoon,” he said. “But it wasn’t right. It was … fake.”

“Fake?”

“Dead, to be more precise. I could tell it was taken from a corpse. I’m good at smelling dead things.”

Wawa genuinely felt for Archer. He knew that he had no evidence, but they were investigating EMSAH, so even the unlikely sighting of a human had to be noted. Still, Bonaparte had refused to take part in this, and was probably snoring away as they spoke. She imagined the debate they must have had over whether to approach her about it. Wawa’s job often required her to be tougher than she really was. This time, she decided to be gentle.

“Corporal,” she said, “there are a lot of people moving in and out of this sector. They’re scared. Some of them are traumatized. Is it possible that it was a local who was trying to see what you were up to, and then got spooked and ran off? We are a little intimidating, and our presence has probably alarmed some people.”

“I trust my eyes, Luff-tenant.”

It was implausible that humans were willing to take such a risk when they could spread the infection from a safer distance. They had done it before. Archer, Bonaparte, and all the rest were probably exhausted, nothing more. After training for months to be the best soldiers in the world, they had been given the thankless task of running this sector, and it was probably getting to them.

“Archer, your report is noted. I’ll include it in my daily for the colonel. And we’ll send a team to investigate the area near the depot. Is there anything else?”

Archer hesitated. “Luff-tenant,” he said, “if something is going on in this sector that could endanger the Red Sphinx, you would tell us, right?”

“I fail to see the point of your question.”

“I mean, if there is to be a quarantine, we would have the opportunity to get out. You would not keep us here simply because you were ordered to.”

This raccoon was speaking out of turn, something she suspected would never happen with Culdesac. It was because of that damned Mort(e), the one with the special privileges straight from the Colony, slugging the colonel in front of everyone. Archer was aware that Mort(e) had been Culdesac’s chosen one, while Wawa was merely the latest replacement as the unit’s executive officer. Mort(e)’s first replacement, a cat named Biko, got himself killed within two months. The next one lasted longer, but caught EMSAH in the field. Culdesac had the grim task of putting him down and cremating the body. Both Number Ones felt obligated to mimic Mort(e)’s cowboy style of leadership, and luckily got only themselves killed rather than others. Wawa ran things differently, and this back talk was almost certainly a direct consequence of that decision.

She leaned in closer to Archer, who instinctively located the exit in case he had to make a quick getaway. “Corporal,” Wawa said, “we have sworn our lives to this cause, and we will follow orders. All of us.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It would be in your best interest if I did not hear about this again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She dismissed him and returned to her desk. It had been a rotten day, and she still would not be able to sleep. Twice now, she had been reminded of how she was stuck in this unending war with phantoms and rumors. She found herself once again thinking of Jenna, the person she used to be. She could not help it. It was more comforting than picturing the quarantine. At least Tracksuit’s basement was familiar.

The computer screen melted away, replaced with the white stucco wall.

WAWA WAS ASLEEP in her cage when the sound of the other dogs barking woke her up. Tracksuit stood in front of her gate, holding what appeared to be a squirming bundle of fur. It carried with it the scent of an intruder. Wawa backed away, unsure if this beast was somehow attacking her master. The others were going crazy. Tracksuit opened the cage, shoved the animal inside, and slammed the gate shut. The creature unfolded himself until his yellow eyes glared at Wawa in the low light of the cage. A muffled growl leaked from his mouth—this was definitely a dog, a mutt puppy. But there was something shiny attached to his snout, an alien prosthesis that prevented him from barking normally. Similar bindings were on the dog’s four paws. The dog tried to puff himself up in a vain attempt to claim his territory. Wawa was not afraid. She would defend the pack as Cyrus had done. She would bring this intruder’s carcass to him as an offering.

Wawa pounced on the dog with the voices of her brothers and sisters echoing around her. The dog tried to bat at her with his taped paws. She bit into him, feeling her teeth puncture the skin, feeling the animal’s pulse in her throat. The dog eventually surrendered. Wawa wrapped her jaws around his throbbing neck and throttled him until she felt the crunch of his vertebrae like a warm bag of broken glass. She dragged him to the front of the cage, where Tracksuit was waiting. Pleased, he opened the gate and removed the dog. The entire pack howled as one, but Wawa could still detect Cyrus’s voice among the others. She always could. She shouted to him, I am one of you.

The scene repeated itself many times. Some animal—usually a puppy, but sometimes a large cat—would be placed in her cage, and she would kill it with increasingly ruthless efficiency. Wawa did not understand where they were coming from, or how they were getting past Tracksuit’s defenses. But she could feel the pack willing her to fight for them. And when Tracksuit put her on a strict exercise regimen, marching her endlessly on a treadmill with heavy chains on her shoulders, Wawa felt her body getting stronger. She was becoming an extension of this pack.

Every two weeks or so, Tracksuit let Cyrus out of his cage for another fight. Hours later, he would return, occasionally with a scratch, reeking with the blood, fur, and saliva of the rival he had vanquished. She would join the others in praising him.

One day, Wawa heard the tense voices of Tracksuit and his friend. They entered the room, Tracksuit carrying Cyrus’s hind legs, his friend carrying the front. Cyrus was barely conscious. His spine bent toward the floor with the weight of his stomach. His tail was shredded. One leg dangled as if the bones had been liquefied. His snout was a mask of dried blood. With a tenderness that Wawa had never seen before, the two men placed Cyrus in his cage and closed the gate.

The room where the pack slept was oppressively quiet for two days. Wawa occasionally whimpered, hoping that Cyrus would hear her. Sometimes he would move, and Wawa could feel everyone in the room tense up and try to listen, to see if Cyrus was attempting to speak to them. But the moment would pass. Upstairs, Tracksuit paced the floor, slamming things.

On the morning of the third day, Tracksuit opened Wawa’s cage and walked her to a room in the house where she had never been. The space had been cleared out, save for a small table in the center, which was just high enough for her to prop her belly on. The surface of the table was made of smooth wood, and the metal legs were bolted to the floorboards. Tracksuit fastened Wawa’s leash to the front of it. He then took another leash and tied her ankles to the back legs. She was in no mood to argue with him. She was already convinced that whatever he was doing had everything to do with Cyrus and the good of the pack.

Tracksuit left her under the buzzing fluorescent light, her tail to the door. About twenty minutes passed until he returned. Wawa picked up Cyrus’s scent right away. She spun her head as far as she could in order to see him. The great dog limped into the room, favoring his front right paw. Though the blood had been cleaned off him, the gash in his face was still raw and infected. Cyrus needed Tracksuit to push him along. Once the dog was close, Tracksuit retreated to a corner of the room and sat with his head between his knees. Cyrus was the broken one, but Tracksuit looked ready to die and turn to dust right there.

Cyrus limped closer to her, still emitting the alien scent of the dog that had crippled him. Wawa did not fully understand what was meant to happen next, but she knew that she and Cyrus were supposed to join together somehow, that this was how the pack would survive. This would be her greatest service to the others.

Cyrus placed his paws on her skin. She faced forward. But then, with a sickly tremor, he slid away from her and fell to the floor, his claw scraping along her ribs. Quickly, Tracksuit was upon him, cradling him in his arms, saying soothing things. She had never seen Tracksuit cry. But now water streamed down his stubbly cheeks, dripping onto Cyrus’s fur. Wawa could smell the salt, mixed with some alcohol. Tracksuit did not have the energy to release Wawa from her bonds. All he could do was rock Cyrus gently, saying he was sorry over and over. After a while, he stood up and carried Cyrus away. Wawa stared into the dog’s eyes, knowing it would be for the last time. The sun went down before Tracksuit returned, released her from the table, and took her back to her cage.

Wawa went to sleep that night knowing that the pack had been broken. It was the moment she became self-aware, when she saw the world as more than simply her immediate field of vision. There were other packs out there, she realized. The world was enormous, unfair, unknown but knowable, arranged by rules that did not always make sense. She wondered how she did not know these things before. And then she noticed that she was in the act of wondering, of using her mind to do more than track food and assess friends and foes. She considered the possibility that Cyrus had somehow passed these gifts on to her in their final moments together. She quickly dismissed the notion. Cyrus, she now understood, was a mere animal. She was moving beyond whatever he had been.

Lost in thought, Wawa did not notice that the hair had begun to fall away from her paws.

When Tracksuit opened her cage the next day, Wawa thought that he was letting her go. But she realized that he expected her to fight. She saw how easy it would be to escape—it was a matter of sprinting for the open door. She decided against it. She wanted to learn everything, to gather as much information as possible. Going with Tracksuit to the house at the end of the trail would be the best way to do it.

They arrived at the brightly lit building at the tree line. When she exited the van, Wawa immediately sought out the giant red objects attached to the front of the structure. The realization eased into her mind: they were letters, forming a word. The word represented a sound. The sound represented an idea, or a name, or a thing, or a place. The sign was speaking to her.

There was some commotion going on inside the building. The items on the shelves had been scattered about the white linoleum. People scooped up cans and boxes from the floor and display cases. The front window was broken, leaving a jagged hole large enough for a person to jump through.

“Holy shit,” Tracksuit said. Wawa had heard him. She could imagine the words hanging in the air like the bright red one that floated above. As they entered the trail, leaving the scene at the store behind, she wondered what the words meant.

The house at the end of the trail was not as noisy as it had been the last time. There were empty seats for the evening’s match. In the front row, right where she thought he would be, sat the man with the porkpie hat, his dead eye hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. Tracksuit prepped her, washing her down with a bucket of warm water. She faced the crowd. Everyone, she understood, was a sad, scared, powerful, emotional being like herself. They gazed out into the new world as she did: wondering, hoping, fearing, sometimes fighting back. She assessed her opponent, a jet-black dog. Probably younger than she was. Breathing heavily. Wawa wondered if he was undergoing the same changes, which led to another revelation: she was actually concerned about someone outside of the pack.

There is more than the pack, she thought.

Tracksuit slapped her on the side and said, “Go get him, girl.” Her eyes stayed on him. I am not part of his pack, she thought. She was Tracksuit’s slave. The great Cyrus and all the others were slaves. These fights were not protecting anyone. They were merely for sport. She stood still as she considered the awful cruelty of it all. The ways of the world could be learned, but they could also stamp you into the ground before you even noticed something was wrong.

The fight began. The dog charged at her. She parried him, shifting her weight so that he collided with the wall. He kept attacking. He was angry, probably starved or beaten. She noticed a barely healed gash on his left flank and realized that she might not be able to reason with him.

Stop, she said. Listen to me! But she was merely barking. The words were in her mind, but she could not speak them.

They’ve tricked us! she howled. Don’t you get it? We can get out of here!

The dog continued to surge forward. She focused on the throbbing artery in the dog’s neck. How unbelievable, she thought, that this weak point had been there the entire time, and the dogs had been taught to scrape and claw everything else.

I don’t want to hurt you! she said. Nothing. The dog jabbed at her. Wawa remained still in the hopes that her opponent would accept the peace offering. Instead, she felt the dog’s claw sink into the side of her face and rake across it. Drops of blood spattered at her feet.

Wawa swung her right paw in a horizontal arc, slashing the dog’s throat in one movement. A spray of blood hit her wounded face. The animal staggered away, the gash spilling its contents onto the floor, an obscene red against the white canvas. The dog slumped over, collapsing in a crimson pool. Hatred for everyone in the room welled up in Wawa’s gut, making blood throb in her ears, overwhelming the silence that had fallen. They made her do this.

People tried to get closer. At the other end of the ring, Tracksuit stood up. She could tell that he was shocked, and that he was trying to hide his excitement.

And then Wawa rose on her hind legs. She locked eyes only with her master. His eyebrows stretched upward, his mouth a gaping hole in his face. “Jenna?” he said.

“You,” she said, relishing the gasp that emitted from the spectators. “You … are not part of my pack.”

She heard a metal click. Her ears pointed to it first. She turned to see the man with the porkpie hat pointing a gun at her. A breathless What the fuck? came from somewhere.

Wawa leapt out of the ring in one bound. The gun fired. She imagined the bullet striking someone in the audience. Someone screamed. Panicking bodies scurried away. A man tried to bar her path to the door. All she had to do was roar to get him to move.

She was on the trail now. The lights of the parking lot flashed through the tree branches. When she reached the flat asphalt, she gazed for the last time at the little store. It was empty, with the lights still on. The shelves had been completely cleared. She stared at the massive red sign and could at last read it. It said WAWA. It did not make sense, and she knew that she would have to keep going until all the words did. She would have to keep going until something did.