I think there’s something in the backyard.” Her voice cracks on the last word. It takes a second for her words to filter through my brain enough for me to make sense of them. As soon as I realize what she’s trying to tell me, I pull her back, putting my body between her and the gate to the backyard.
“Whoa, are you fucking serious?” I ask. I have my hand flat against her stomach, and I keep my arm extended, keeping her well behind me. I can feel her muscles jump beneath my fingers. I take a careful step forward, trying to see into the backyard while still keeping my distance. But it’s too dark. I can’t see. The only light out now is the glow from the streetlights, and it isn’t quite making it to the backyard. Fuck.
I realize I’m still holding the grocery bag, so I hand it back to Star. She takes it without a word, and together we edge closer to the backyard. We’re almost at the gate when, out of the corner of my eye, I see something move along the back fence, disappearing into the shadows under the oak tree. “There!” Star hisses, reaching out and jabbing a finger toward the shadow. “Did you see it? It was right there?” She takes a step forward, and I reach out and catch her by the arm, pulling her back.
“I saw it,” I say. “At least, I think I did.” It is too dark, too fucking dark. I can’t see anything clearly. My free hand darts out, and snags the flashlight out of the box that we’d dumped by the side of the house. I flick the switch and a beam of light shoots out. I flash it over the fence, scanning the light back and forth, gazing hard into the darkness.
Where is it? Where the fuck is it?
There!
My eyes catch on it. Yes! I inch closer, squinting at the dark shape, Star’s question about wolves looping over and over in my mind.
“Hey!” I yell out, waving the light back and forth, trying to get its attention. “Get out of here!”
But as the words leave my mouth, the thing steps out of the shadows, and I catch it in the beam of the flashlight, and my entire body fucking freezes.
Holy. Shit.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bruiser?
Star
O h. My. God.
I’ve never seen anything like this.
I thought for sure that the way Ash had tensed up, the way his eyes had darted back and forth across the yard, searching, meant that he was going to turn to me and tell me to get in the house and call animal control. But when his eyes landed on the creature, his grip on my arm didn’t tighten, and he didn’t start pulling me back to the car. Instead his grip loosened until his hand fell from my arm to hang limp at his side, and his eyes turned into dinner plates.
He murmured something and shot forward, through the back gate, straight toward the animal. I opened my mouth to stop him, to scream, to do
something.
But instead of growling or snarling or backing away—or any number of things the animal could have done—it let out a series of high pitched barks and then raced forward, straight into Ash’s arms.
Holy. Shit.
I’m on the back porch now, but even from here I can see the look on Ash’s face. He’s laughing but at the same time he looks like he’s about a second and a half away from bawling his eyes out. He turns and buries his face in the dog’s neck, even though its dark brown fur is filthy and probably stinks just as bad as anything we’ve found in the yard. He’s on his knees in the patchy grass, the still-damp fabric sinking into the dirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He just wraps the massive dog up in his arms, and starts squeezing it like there’s no tomorrow.
The dog, on the other hand, is the image of pure joy. It’s squirming in Ash’s arms like all of its Christmases have come at once, and just the sight of it is making my eyes start to burn.
Fuck.
I didn’t cry when CPS knocked on my mother’s door and took me away. I didn’t cry when I got the call that my mother had died. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to start crying over whatever the
“Whoa, are you fucking serious?” I ask. I have my hand flat against her stomach, and I keep my arm extended, keeping her well behind me. I can feel her muscles jump beneath my fingers. I take a careful step forward, trying to see into the backyard while still keeping my distance. But it’s too dark. I can’t see. The only light out now is the glow from the streetlights, and it isn’t quite making it to the backyard. Fuck.
I realize I’m still holding the grocery bag, so I hand it back to Star. She takes it without a word, and together we edge closer to the backyard. We’re almost at the gate when, out of the corner of my eye, I see something move along the back fence, disappearing into the shadows under the oak tree. “There!” Star hisses, reaching out and jabbing a finger toward the shadow. “Did you see it? It was right there?” She takes a step forward, and I reach out and catch her by the arm, pulling her back.
“I saw it,” I say. “At least, I think I did.” It is too dark, too fucking dark. I can’t see anything clearly. My free hand darts out, and snags the flashlight out of the box that we’d dumped by the side of the house. I flick the switch and a beam of light shoots out. I flash it over the fence, scanning the light back and forth, gazing hard into the darkness.
Where is it? Where the fuck is it?
There!
My eyes catch on it. Yes! I inch closer, squinting at the dark shape, Star’s question about wolves looping over and over in my mind.
“Hey!” I yell out, waving the light back and forth, trying to get its attention. “Get out of here!”
But as the words leave my mouth, the thing steps out of the shadows, and I catch it in the beam of the flashlight, and my entire body fucking freezes.
Holy. Shit.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bruiser?
Star
O h. My. God.
I’ve never seen anything like this.
I thought for sure that the way Ash had tensed up, the way his eyes had darted back and forth across the yard, searching, meant that he was going to turn to me and tell me to get in the house and call animal control. But when his eyes landed on the creature, his grip on my arm didn’t tighten, and he didn’t start pulling me back to the car. Instead his grip loosened until his hand fell from my arm to hang limp at his side, and his eyes turned into dinner plates.
He murmured something and shot forward, through the back gate, straight toward the animal. I opened my mouth to stop him, to scream, to do
something.
But instead of growling or snarling or backing away—or any number of things the animal could have done—it let out a series of high pitched barks and then raced forward, straight into Ash’s arms.
Holy. Shit.
I’m on the back porch now, but even from here I can see the look on Ash’s face. He’s laughing but at the same time he looks like he’s about a second and a half away from bawling his eyes out. He turns and buries his face in the dog’s neck, even though its dark brown fur is filthy and probably stinks just as bad as anything we’ve found in the yard. He’s on his knees in the patchy grass, the still-damp fabric sinking into the dirt, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He just wraps the massive dog up in his arms, and starts squeezing it like there’s no tomorrow.
The dog, on the other hand, is the image of pure joy. It’s squirming in Ash’s arms like all of its Christmases have come at once, and just the sight of it is making my eyes start to burn.
Fuck.
I didn’t cry when CPS knocked on my mother’s door and took me away. I didn’t cry when I got the call that my mother had died. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to start crying over whatever the
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