“Rex,” I call out. “Wake up, boy.”
He doesn’t appear. I kneel down, looking into his indoor kennel space. His bed is empty. The water bowl has been flipped upside down. I curse under my breath. “Are you seriouslyoutside in this rain?” I say, heading back outside. Thunder booms across the sky and I trudge through the wet grass to the fence. Rex isn’t here. I shout his name, wishing I’d brought a flashlight. But with each new burst of lightning, the yard becomes as bright as day for a split second, and there is no dog in this kennel run.
But there is another hole in the fence.
“Shit. REX!” I call out, cupping my hand to my mouth. I run straight to the garage and grab a flashlight, yelling for Rex the whole time. The beam of light is fractured by the pouring rain that casts glittering bursts of light everywhere.
“Rex!” It’s so hard to see anything in this rain. Where would he go? Somewhere dry.
I head to the barn, but he’s not there. I look under the cars, trees, even in the bushes around the back of the house. There’s a ton of land here but only so many places he could be hiding. The rain is unceasing, and I can’t do this alone.
My brothers join me, and soon there are five people calling for Rex, five flashlight beams scanning over the entire property, and zero sign of the only dog under the care of my nonprofit.
“Let’s check the perimeter fence,” Max says. “Maybe there’s a hole somewhere.”
“He can easily leap the fence,” I shout. All you can do is shout out here in the storm. I am soaked head to toe and my raincoat is doing nothing by this point. “Where the hell could he be?”
“He’s here somewhere,” Leo says. “He probably got scared and is hiding. He’ll come back out when the rain stops.”
“I can’t wait that long.”
chapter nineteen
Charlotte
There’s a giant dog in my backseat.
Correction: there’s a giant, soaking wet dog in my backseat.
This would be a great time to have leather seats that wipe clean. Alas, my SUV has soft cloth seats, the cheapest option, and the only one I could afford. In the dim dome light of my car, I can already tell his muddy paw prints have made artwork all over the cloth.
And the smell.
“You smell terrible,” I say, still standing beside the driver’s seat. Rex is in my car, panting, tongue flopping out, tail slighting tapping against the seat. “Then again, I probably smell bad, too.”
I am soaked. I don’t even think my body gets this wet in the freaking shower. I take a deep breath, tasting rainwater which I try to wipe off with the sleeve of my shirt, but that too, tastes like rainwater. Okay. You can do this.
My teeth dig into my bottom lip, and I slowly slide into the driver’s seat. Rex doesn’t do anything. I grab the door handle and slowly close it. Now I’m inside my car with a scary dog. A scary dog known to have aggression issues. What am I thinking?
I couldn’t just leave him on the side of the road. He could have been hit by a car. He could get lost and never find his way back to Caleb’s.
Caleb! I open the glove box and find a couple old fast food napkins, which I use to dry off my hands and arms and face. Then I try my phone again. One tiny little bar of signal appears every so often, and it’s chosen this moment to stay hidden. I heave a sigh and try calling him anyway. Nope. Doesn’t work.
Rex’s breathing is loud against the sound of the storm outside. He’s panting heavily, looking kind of like a deranged hyena with his big eyes and matted down, drenched fur. Usually he’s fluffier and slightly more cuddly looking.
“Are you okay?” I ask him. He doesn’t appear to be bleeding or injured. That’s good. He leans forward and I jump. He keeps going, head coming closer and closer and oh my God, he’s going to eat me—wait…no…he sniffs my face. It’s probably only a few seconds but feels like forever. I close my eyes, holding very still, hands on the steering wheel, trying not to move like I’m in the Jurassic Park movie and there’s a giant velociraptor tracking me down. He smells all over my face and then lays down.
I exhale. “Good boy,” I whisper. “Let’s get you back home.”
With trembling hands, I drive toward the Alden’s. Just be cool, I tell myself. No sudden movements. In the backseat, the smelly dog relaxes. He’s still panting pretty heavily, but he looks like he can finally rest.
“How long have you been out here?” I say softly. His head turns toward me and I shut up. Just be cool, Charlotte. If I call too much attention to myself, he might decide to bite me. What am I even supposed to do if he does start growling? Jump out of the car and run?
Oh gosh. I am so in over my head. I slow down, carefully turning onto the county road that leads to Alden Brothers K9. My headlines shine on something massive in the roadway. Inthe space my wipers clear off every two seconds, a giant pine tree is revealed. I squint through the rain. The wind has knocked over the tree, which is blocking the entire road. I slow to a stop. There aren’t any other cars out here and I haven’t seen anyone else stupid enough to be driving since I dropped mom off at her house. I don’t need to get out to know I’m not strong enough to move the thing. It’s freaking huge, with giant branches sprawling out all over the road. The branches are longer than my car. The ditches on either side of the road are filled with water, so there’s no driving around it, not that my SUV could do any off-roading.
I check my phone again. I call Caleb even though there’s no signal and of course it doesn’t go through. Okay. Deep breath. I’ll take the long way around.
Rex watches me just as intently as I watch him in my rearview mirror. I slowly back up, turn around, and try to turn down another road that will loop back to the other side of this road, only it’s blocked with even more downed trees. The main road that led me here is much wider, so no trees have blocked the path, but all these little county roads are rendered completely undriveable.
