I heard Jamie’s cry of surprise from below the deck, and I could tell he was unhappy that I’d let us get bitten.
Henry Mancini barked at me like I was a burglar or something. I held up my hands to remind him who I was. “No, baby! No! It’s me! I’m your mama! I love you!”
He lunged at me and bit at my shoe with his maw that was now bubbling with white foam.
Jens was on him in a hot second. He wrestled Henry Mancini until he finally clamped his fangs shut. Henry Mancini struggled mercilessly against Jens to get at me, but fortunately Jens was stronger.
“Loos, Pesta’s got him,” Jens explained through gritted teeth. “There’s nothing we can do for him now.”
Horror slammed into me, pushing me forward onto my knees. “No! Don’t hurt him! He would never bite me like that. You know he’s a good dog, Jens! He didn’t mean to do it!”
Jens was a mix of woe, duty, pity and sadness as he looked at me and tried to make me understand. “Lucy, he bit you. Possessed or not, he has to be put down.”
“It doesn’t even hurt!” I lied as the blood dripped off my shaking fingers onto the floor. “Don’t take him away from me! I’ll do better! I’ll watch him more carefully! I promise!”
“It’s got nothing to do with you, honey. Pesta’s using him to track us now. He won’t stop coming at us till we’re all dead.” Beneath my panic, I could tell Jens was filled with self-loathing at having to restrain our puppy.
Henry Mancini thrashed in his arms, and I hated the sight of his struggle. “Let him go! I’ll hold him. I can calm him down. He needs me!” I reached for Henry Mancini, trying to edge him out of Jens’s unyielding grip. “Please, Jens! Stop it! You’re scaring him!” I could tell by the pitch of my voice that I was on the verge of bursting into tears as the angst effervesced inside me.
Foss tugged me back, wrapping an arm around my torso like a seatbelt. “Jens, let me do it. She already hates me. You don’t want to be the one to end him.”
“No.” Jens spoke as if he wished it was as simple as someone saving him from the dreaded task. “She’s my responsibility. I never should’ve let her keep a wolf to begin with.”
“What’s going on up here?” Jamie asked, his hand bloody. Britta, Charles and Uncle Rick came up when they heard the commotion, too, but they all kept a safe distance.
I lunged at Jens when I saw the resolve on his face. “No, Jens!” I screamed. “I’ll do anything! Don’t take my dog! Don’t murder my puppy! He needs me! You can’t give up on someone just because they’re a little broken. No!” I scrambled to get out of Foss’s grip, but despite my thrashing and frantic movements, Foss’s hold on me was as firm as Jens’s was on Henry Mancini. My dog and I lunged to get at each other. “I can fix it! I can fix it!”
A solitary tear leaked out of Jens’s eye and slid down his cheek. “Baby, he can’t be fixed.”
“That’s what they said about Linus, and those doctors were wrong! You’re wrong!” I clawed at Foss’s arm and threw my entire body weight forward, still short of my destination. “They gave up just because it got hard! He could’ve been okay! One more round of chemo! You don’t know!” I elbowed and kicked at Foss like a madwoman. “Henry Mancini can make it! Just give me a chance! I can make him better! Please, Jens! Please! I’ll think of something! Just give me some time!”
Foss grew frustrated with me almost escaping from his grip, so he pinned my front to the floor with his obnoxiously large body, crushing half the air from my lungs. “I can do it, Jens. Really,” Foss offered, face grim.
“No. He’s half mine. My responsibility.” Jens took a long, hard look at the beast that was no longer Henry Mancini, ignoring my shrieks. I screamed and clawed at the floor to move closer to them, but Foss was too heavy on top of my back. “Don’t look, baby.”
Foss covered my eyes with his too-large hand, but the sound was clear as day. Swish, yelp and pop, followed by the sound of Henry Mancini’s last breath escaping his tiny lungs in a whimper.
“Linus!” I screamed, sobbing like the mess I was.
Foss scraped me off the deck, rolled me over and brought me to his chest in a hug I was too distraught to examine the oddity of. He picked me up and carried me past the gawkers down to the room he’d taken as his. He said not one disparaging word as he sank to the floor with me on his lap. He was a hoarder guarding the treasure he hated.
I punched his chest as I cried.
“Go on. Let it out.”
My ineffectual fists did not damage him as I hoped they would. He’d restrained me and kept me from saving my dog. Henry Mancini was gone, and Foss would pay the price. I wailed on him, refusing to be softened by his arms around me. My knees gripped his hips as I sobbed.
Foss waited out my fury with patience, breathing deeply when my punches turned to girlish slaps across his hard face. “That’s it,” he soothed me. “I know. It’s been a hard life.”
I hated that he was the sane one in this moment. The one time I needed him to be more horrible than me, and he let me down. I slapped him once more before collapsing in his arms like a rag doll. I buried my face in his neck and alternated between crying and screaming, knowing that no matter how many friends I made, I would always be alone.