My sleep is filled with nightmares, of ripped flesh and monstrous trashy trucks with metal jaws and teeth on their hindquarters. I know my flanks are twitching, and I whine, but I can’t shake out of this dream.
“GET DOWN, BUCK!”
The Colonel’s fire truck shouting snaps me awake. I leap off my pillow, prick my ears and nostrils to find him.
The closet.
Colonel Victor crouches like a tiger in the corner, hanging clothes camouflaging him. He clutches a huge, curved, red-alarm knife. His heart hammers and his eyes are wide and white. His face curls with the colors of deep wounds.
Anna stands in the doorway in a thin, worn nightgown, a ghost.
“Victor, honey,” she whispers, voice trembling, disappearing. “Wake up. Come back to bed.”
“DON’T BE STUPID, BUCK!” he yells daggers at her. “THE INSURGENTS ARE HERE! THEY’VE FOUND US!”
I sense Micah now, creeping in the darkness of the Colonel’s bedroom. I curse Smaug for not doing a good job of keeping Micah safe in his room. Useless lizard.
A cold rumbling starts in my belly. This is very, very wrong.
The Colonel’s eyes narrow tight like a strangle on his wife. He’s dripping sweat. “Get. Down.” His voice is barbed wire.
I push around Anna and ram my skull, thud, against Colonel Victor’s arm, trying to bring him back to us. He shoves me aside. My hip slams purple bruises against the wall. I whine.
Anna sobs. Micah sobs, too. Somewhere deep in the house the baby screams, toenails scratching across metal.
The Colonel spins the flashing knife in his sweaty hands. He crouches. He shifts his weight, preparing himself to tackle Anna, who he thinks is someone named Buck.
The taste of danger is thick on my tongue: meat with maggots.
The growling in my belly grows louder. I lick and nudge and push against him, but it’s not working. If his face was filled with the colors of wounds before, it’s now filled with darkest night. Holes. Demons.
How can I get him back?
“BUCK!” The Colonel leaps at his wife, knife flashing.
I dive between them. The Colonel wrestles with me. The knife slices the pad on my back left paw, a crackle of white lightning pain. I squeal.
That does it.
My teeth sink into Victor’s hand. I don’t put the full force of my jaws behind the bite; if I did that, I’d destroy his hand. I know how powerful my anger can be. No, I only clamp down enough to break the skin. His blood tastes like oily rain water, like puddles with rainbows of gasoline floating on top.
The Colonel’s scream flares red, then simmers down to a boiling orange. He stops punching me and pulling my fur. His eyes focus on the beads of blood on his hand.
His breathing slows, his pupils get smaller. His heart drums a little slower.
“Miss Daisy?” he whispers hoarsely.
I sit between him and Anna.
I growl.
The Colonel moans, then heaves, like he’s going to throw up. His stomach lurches three or four times. He slings his arms around my neck. He wails like howling wind into my muzzle.
Anna turns and drifts away, tears streaking rivers on her cheeks. She grabs her pillow and a blanket and floats from the bedroom. She’s sleeping somewhere else tonight.
I hear Micah creep closer. He peeks around the corner into the closet. He didn’t see any of this, and blue confusion colors his face. His confusion shifts into black anger, however, when he sees the bloody bite marks on his dad’s hand. I growl, warning him not to get any closer. Based on how his shades flare red, this angers him further, but I don’t care. Distance is safety. I’m up close. Micah shouldn’t be. (Stupid Smaug!)
My sliced paw soaks blood into the carpet. The red stain grows bigger, darker, like afternoon grows into night. My heart beats in the throb of the cut.
“Miss Daisy,” the Colonel whispers. His mouth is full of foamy saliva, his fur is a mess, and he’s still dripping sweat. “You understand, don’t you? The military—it’s a pack. You protect your pack, always. You understand that, don’t you? No one else does but you.”
Micah lets out a small sob at that.
The Colonel snuffles and drools, a bulldog. “Thank you, Daisy. You’re my pack.”
I clench my jaw.
Micah clenches his jaw, too. He is a shard of ice.
It’s odd. No one asked me if I wanted this job. No one asked me to be a part of this pack.
They never asked if I want to stay. They order me to stay: Stay, Daisy! But ask if I’d like to stay? No.
With my first human pack, my job was to fight. They said so, and they’d put me in a ring with other growling, starving dogs. But I couldn’t do it. I hated fighting. So they called me useless and left me to have my pups in a Dumpster. I couldn’t do that job. Maybe I can’t do this job, either.
This pack, the Abeyta family? They don’t have a fence.
Next time I go “do my business,” I could just run away.