I follow the voices down the hall until I emerge in a kitchen. Trays of raw meat are sitting on the counter. I lick my lips involuntarily. The music is louder here, and I can smell more meat sizzling on the grill outside. I push through the screen door into an enclosed backyard.
It’s twilight now, and colored lights are strung from the trees, giving everything a festive glow. I see a mix of people in the yard, old and young, all of different ethnicities and speaking different languages. I wonder what they’re doing together back here. A woman with long gray hair stands at a grill cooking rows of succulent meat.
Is this a party of some kind?
I stay in the shadows, trying to understand what I’m seeing.
“Are you hungry?”
I spin around to find a young woman with kind eyes smiling at me. She has a tray of freshly grilled meat in her hands, and I can’t help but lick my lips again.
“Of course you are,” she says, and she picks some pieces from the tray and puts them on the ground at her feet. “Korean short rib. Very delicious.”
I hesitate, remembering my track record with strangers and food.
“It’s okay,” she says. She takes a bite of food from the tray, showing me the meat is safe.
Still, I’m in no rush to take food from a stranger.
I see several tough young men in T-shirts and jeans standing around the edge of the yard. They face out toward the street, not inward toward us.
They must be guards. But what are they guarding?
A man steps out of the house and freezes in his tracks when he sees me. We stare at each other across the yard.
It’s Ruben, the dogfighter who tricked me the other night.
“Secreta. It’s nice to see you again,” he says.
I notice a nasty black-and-blue mark over one of his eyes and scratches on his face like he’s been roughed up. I remember him saying people would hurt him if he didn’t bring a dog to fight. Now I wonder what happened to him after I left.
I growl as he comes toward me.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says.
Regardless of what happened to him, I still don’t trust this man. I rush forward, teeth bared, threatening—
A little girl comes running around the corner, flinging herself against Ruben’s leg.
“It’s a bad time to play, Mija.”
He watches me.
“Please, Papa!”
He lifts her to his chest for a hug, watching me the whole time. He speaks to me over the girl’s shoulder.
“I don’t know how exactly, but I think you can understand me. There are kids here. They have nothing to do with this business between us.”
I look at Ruben holding his daughter, and I back up a step, not letting down my guard, but no longer advancing.
He puts the little girl down in front of him.
“Go to Grandma,” he says to the girl. “She’ll give you something good to eat.”
The girl scowls, but she consents. She rushes toward the kitchen, pausing next to me as Ruben stiffens.
“Good doggy,” she says, and her hand darts out and pats my head—once, twice, a third time. Then she laughs and skips away.
The fruity smell of her skin lingers in my nose, and I’m overcome by the memory of a different child. I’m snuggled against the redheaded girl who is petting me with long, gentle strokes across my back. I look down and see her pink boat shoes—
I shake my head and flap my ears, dispersing the girl’s scent, and the memory along with it.
“Maybe you’ll sit down and have some food with us,” Ruben says.
“You fooled me once before. It’s not going to happen again.” I move toward him, snarling. The people in the yard gasp and back away.
“I know you’re angry. I tricked you, and I used you. That’s the kind of person I am. Heaven help me, I’m not a good man. Not when my back is against the wall and I have people to care for.”
He gestures around the yard.
“I don’t know if you can understand what a family is, Secreta. Maybe it doesn’t matter to you.”
“I understand everything, but I’m not about to feel sorry for you,” I say.
Ruben looks at me strangely.
“I wonder what you would say if you could talk. I’ve been looking for you for two days now. Ever since you blew through that warehouse window and ran away. I knew you were special, and I knew I had to find you.”
He takes a step toward me, emboldened.
“You got a lot of blue vans after you, girl. I’ve had some trouble with Animal Control in my time, but I don’t know who these blue-van vatos are. I only know there’s a lot of them, and they want you bad. Why is that?”
I growl, warning him back, but he continues to walk forward, speaking to me in a soft voice.
“I saw you and the kids get picked up by the cop. I watched him drive past the station, and I knew you were in trouble. That’s why I got involved. I owed you one. Maybe more than one.”
That’s when I understand.
It was Ruben’s truck that hit us.
“I have a proposal for you,” he says. “At the very least, I think you’ll want to hear it.”
The kitchen door opens behind me, and Chance and Junebug’s scents mix with the many odors in the backyard.
“What’s going on?” Chance asks. “It looks like a party out here.”
He rubs his eyes, adjusting to the scene. Junebug is behind him, equally confused.
“Welcome to the family,” Ruben says.
Junebug looks around at the Latin, Asian, and Black faces around us.
“Whose family is it?” she asks.
“That’s what we call ourselves,” Ruben says. “As long as you’re in this neighborhood, you’re under the protection of the family, and those blue vans can’t get to you.”
He gestures to family members and drifts toward the table to arrange plates of food.
I move to the kids, turning my back on Ruben so he doesn’t see me talking.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“I feel like I got hit by a truck,” Junebug says.
“No kidding,” Chance says. “Who are these people?”
“They’re some kind of organization. I don’t know the details yet.”
Ruben motions us toward a picnic table in the center of the yard. “Please come and sit with me. You need to eat, and I need to talk to you about Secreta.”
“Is that her real name? I call her Secreta.”
“If you already have a name for her, that means you’ve met her before, right?”
“We met for the first time a couple of days ago.”
“Do you know where her home is?” Chance asks.
“She doesn’t live with you?”
Chance shakes his head. “We’re following the clues, trying to find out where she’s from.”
Ruben nods. “So that’s what this is all about.”
He motions to the table where the family lays out plates heaped with food. The children hesitate, standing back with me.
“Why did you save us from the cop?” Junebug asks.
“I’m not a fan of cops, except my brother Eduardo in San Diego. He’s a detective, but he’s the black sheep of the family. More importantly, I owed Secreta a big favor.”
He picks up a chicken wing and digs in.
“Come now. The food is safe, and we have a lot to discuss.”
Chance crouches by my side and whispers, “Why does he talk to you like you can understand? Does he have an earbud?”
“No earbud. I think he’s spent a lot of time with dogs, and he can sense that I’m different somehow. Let’s keep our secret, okay?”
“Got it.”
“Me, too,” Junebug says.
I walk over and hop up on the picnic bench, and Chance and Junebug sit on either side of me.
“Hey, do you have Wi-Fi here?” Junebug asks. “I need to do a little research.”
Ruben leans across the table and shows her the network. Then he goes back to the chicken wings on his plate, so I take some chicken, too. Chance and Junebug follow my lead and dig in.
Ruben watches us for a moment, giving us an opportunity to get some food down, and then he starts to speak.
“The family and I, we work together as part of a certain business enterprise.”
“Dogs,” Junebug says.
Ruben’s eyes widen in surprise. “Sharp girl.”
“I saw bags of dog food and veterinary supplies in the kitchen cabinets,” Junebug says. “Kind of strange when there are no dogs.”
“The dog thing was a temporary—” His face turns red as he clears his throat. “It was stupidity on my part. I got involved in something I couldn’t handle.”
“Dogfighting is illegal,” Chance says.
“It was more like dog wrestling,” Ruben says.
Junebug slams her fist on the table. “Call it whatever you want, but it’s unethical.”
Ruben sighs and gestures toward the dozen or so members of his family standing around the yard.
“I was just trying to take care of my people.”
“But what about the dogs?” Chance demands.
Ruben frowns. “I agree, it’s not an excuse. Anyway, those days are over. I left the kennel gate open by mistake, and the dogs ran away. One of them pooped on my pillow before he left.”
Junebug chuckles, and Ruben cracks a smile.
“Serves me right, huh? Anyway, Secreta—I mean Wild—is something special. I knew it the first minute I saw her. What she did the other night—it was amazing. I saw her fling a huge rottweiler across the room like he weighed nothing,” Ruben says.
Junebug and Chance look at me, amazed.
“Then she bounced around like a Super Ball, jumped twenty feet in the air, and smashed through a window.”
“She’s a cool dog,” Junebug says quietly, “but she’s not going to wrestle for you. We won’t let her.”
“I don’t want her to wrestle. I want her to work.”
I sit up, surprised by what I’m hearing.
“Work how?” Chance asks skeptically.
“Maybe we start a YouTube channel and show her doing tricks. Or maybe we create some kind of stage show. I think people would pay a lot of money if they could see what she can do.”
“You want to put her online?” Chance asks. “But people are looking for her.”
“We’ll dye her fur and give her a new name.”
“Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me,” Chance says.
Ruben motions beyond the yard to the neighborhood around us.
“You can’t run forever, Wild, especially with these kids. They’re in danger because of you. You know I’m telling the truth.”
My breathing quickens as I listen to his words. I can try to dismiss what he’s saying, but I know he’s right. I only have to think back to the moment in the police car when I realized we were trapped.
“You said you were looking for her home,” he tells Chance. “Maybe you’ve found it. Right here.”
We sit silently as a sad Spanish ballad plays behind us.
I scan the faces of the family members around the yard. They smile and their postures are warm and open.
Could I be a part of this family?
“Maybe there’s nothing out there for you,” Ruben says. “Or maybe you’d be better off not knowing what’s out there.”
For just a moment, I remember the blond soldier screaming in my nightmare.
“I don’t know who you were,” Ruben says. “But I know who you can be. With us.”
I look at Chance and Junebug, and I feel the connection to them I’ve built up in only a short time. I think about going through a day without the sound of Chance’s voice or the scent of him by my side. The idea makes me sad beyond belief.
“Thank him for his offer,” I say, “but I won’t do it. I’m not leaving you alone.”
I hop off the bench and walk away. I hear Ruben sigh deeply behind me.
“She made her decision,” Chance says.
“That’s a shame,” Ruben says.
In a moment he’s on his feet and whistling to the family members, who begin to gather together.
“What’s happening?” Junebug asks.
“I can’t keep her against her will. I’ve seen what she can do,” Ruben says. “So we’re going to help you with some supplies. Food, clothes. A car, too.”
“What about my dad’s Honda?”
“The car back at the 7-Eleven? Kiss that thing good-bye. My people saw them towing it away to the police impound lot.”