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thirteen
“Holy crap,” Pete whispered. “You’re serious.”
“Did you think I was kidding?”
“No.” Pete shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I need your strong hands,” Sunny said. “Cut it.”
Pete grunted and cursed. The chain dropped to the ground.
“You can still turn back,” Sunny said as he rested the bolt cutters against the wall of the kennel. She grasped the door handle. “I wouldn’t blame you.” Despite her agreement with Callahan, Sunny just couldn’t let another day go by knowing that beagle was stuck inside this grimy, freezing kennel. It was Thanksgiving, dammit, and she was going to set him free.
“I’m not letting you do this alone. Maybe we should both turn back.” Pete looked around in the darkness, but everything was still.
“Janice is never here for Thanksgiving.” Sunny noted the slur in her speech and regretted having that last glass of champagne. Constance had gone straight home after her trip to the gym, so Sunny and Pete had drunk a little more than their share. “It’s the perfect time to get the beagle out. Besides, we’ve already cut the padlock.”
Pete puffed out a heavy breath from his nostrils. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
The door creaked as Sunny pushed her way inside. She shone her flashlight around, just a pencil beam to mark her way, and a couple of critters stirred in their cages.
Most of them were empty, but Sunny could make out two figures in the metal structures. One appeared to be a Maltese, who should’ve been white and silky, but the matted layers of dirt made the animal’s fur rough and brown. So, Janice had “restocked” since she’d been here last. The Maltese had not been here on the previous raid. It took Sunny a moment to even realize the creature’s breed because she was so matted with grime. Worse was the smell. Deep inside this kennel, with a couple dozen cages stacked like egg crates, the ammonia burned her eyes and choked up her throat.
Sunny brought the back of her hand to her nose and blinked rapidly. The Maltese barked and snarled, but when Sunny opened the tiny, rusted cage and reached, it pressed itself into the rear corner. The dog whimpered. Sunny sank to her heels and drew a calming breath into her shaky lungs. “C’mere, girl,” she said, her voice going soft and singsongy. She clicked off the flashlight and let her eyes adjust to the darkness.
The Maltese whimpered again, so Sunny hummed a little song under her breath.
“There’s a beagle over here,” Pete said. “A very small one. I think it’s the one you’re looking for.” He reached into the cage and pulled out a squat little creature. The dog looked like a Popsicle, so stiff and hard at Pete’s touch, but it was soon wrapped in the blanket he’d brought and held close to Pete’s chest. “I’ll take him out to the carrier, and be right back.”
A wave of relief rolled over Sunny. Pete had found the little beagle, and had gotten him out much easier than her last attempt. She turned her attention back to the only other dog left in this shithole, the Maltese, and hummed some more. Soon, the little dog pattered closer. One step up, two steps back. The dog went like that for a minute or more before she finally bumped her muzzle against Sunny’s knuckles. The dog’s beard was sticky. She smelled like piss and shit and vomit and her whines were a deep, primal noise that blipped beneath everything else like a heartbeat. Sunny wondered, as the stench of urine seared her throat, if the dog could even see. The fumes from the waste and muck were enough to burn out her eyesight. “That’s it,” Sunny sang, enticing the dog into the blanket in her other hand. She scooped the Maltese against her chest. The dog bucked and whimpered, but Sunny held fast.
A man’s voice burst out, splitting the room. “Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?”
Sunny’s head whipped around. She peered at the shadowy figure in the darkness who stood by the open doorway. He marched toward her at a determined clip. Sunny backed herself into a corner, her arms tight on the Maltese. Just as the figure reached for her, something swept the man’s feet, clipping his ankles. He hit the ground, on his back, in a big poof of dirt, but didn’t even have time to wallow or catch his choked breath before Pete was on top of him. Pete slipped his arm under the man’s neck, shoved his thigh up under the stranger’s and pinned it across his other leg. With Pete’s full weight over the man’s torso, he reached up from beneath the man’s neck and grasped his own bicep, squeezing his face into his shoulder.
A long, choking moment passed before the man started to squirm. Pete released his own arm, brought it over the man’s chest, to the other side of his head, and planted his elbow on the floor, pinning his arm against his neck and the side of his face. As if on autopilot, Pete’s other arm came from beneath the guy’s neck and grabbed him by the wrist. He tugged on that wrist, pulling the guy’s body in one direction and pressing his neck in the opposite.
The man sputtered and choked curses as Pete kept his weight braced.
Holy shit, Sunny thought.
The man grunted and tried to thrash, but he was trapped. Finally, he stilled.
Pete released him and stood up. “He’ll be out for a bit,” he said, his voice coming in short gasps. “We better get moving.”
Sunny didn’t have to be asked twice. She took the Maltese outside and watched as Pete closed up the kennel behind him, then collected the carrier that held the beagle, along with the bolt cutters. He stopped next to Sunny, who felt frozen to the ground.
“Well, c’mon,” Pete hissed. “Let’s get these poor dogs back to your place.”
Sunny and Pete shared the bathtub, each taking one end, with the beagle and the Maltese. Sunny got the beagle, the little dog she’d been after for weeks. As the grime and stench washed away, and the little dog’s shivering subsided, she regretted not getting him out the first time. He looked like he had only one good eye, the other squeezed shut, and his tongue stuck out between his teeth from dehydration.
“They need Dr. Winters,” Sunny said. “Stat.”
“Yeah,” Pete agreed. “I can see their ribs.”
He got the dogs dried and comfortable while Sunny texted the vet. She arrived within the hour, asked no questions and had them settled in her mobile van quickly. “I’ll keep them overnight. Maybe longer.”
Once she was gone, Sunny turned to Pete. “Okay. Where’d you learn the cage match moves?”
