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Fucking dog.
I ran my free hand over one of his bat-ears, running the smooth and silky skin between my fingers while I tried to keep my voice under control. The last thing Ward wanted or needed was my fucking emotional shit.
And then I’d called Elliot back and did an absolutely terrible job of keeping those emotions under control.
The really awful part came when he asked me what I thought she was doing for those three years.
I knew what had happened, well, the the sketchy outline of it, anyway, because River hadn’t wanted to go into details. And I couldn’t tell him that his cousin had been trafficked and spent those three years being treated like fucking garbage, abused, and probably addicted to multiple drugs just to deaden the pain.
I told him I didn’t know. Technically, I didn’t. Maybe she’d found a nice client who treated her well or maybe she’d found friends who made it bearable. And maybe I shit rainbows.
Fuck.
I also didn’t tell him that she’d been beaten before she was shot or that she’d begged Ward to make sure I didn’t tell her parents what had happened to her. Just that she was dead.
So I lied to Elliot for probably the first time in my life and said I didn’t know.
And then I laid on my floor and stared at the ceiling, my phone next to me while I tried to wrap my head and heart around the fucking horror that was the world.
The damn dog had started shoving his face at mine, whining, until I rolled on my side, deliberately putting my head on him to get him to leave me alone.
It didn’t work. He’d stopped squirming and just let me use him as a pillow, his nose stuck in my hair and his stupid blue cast sticking out in front of my face.
I gave up.
I’m not sure how long I stayed there. Time gets funny when your whole chest hurts from the fucked-uppedness of the world. But time is one hell of a fucking drug, and, after a while, breathing got easier.
I sighed and patted the dog on the butt.
“What the fuck do Icallyou, bud?” I asked the Xolo, whose torso was surprisingly comfortable.
He whined a little.
“I really can’t just keep calling you ‘doggo’ all the time,” I pointed out. “It’s not dignified.”
He snorted.
“Okay, you’re Aztec or some shit, right?” I pushed myself up on my elbow, taking my face off his flank.
The sound that came out of him was odd, like a mix of a huff and a growl, but not really. His expression was mildly exasperated.
“Uh. Okay. Not Aztec?”
Chuff.
“What’re the other ones… Inca?”
A soft growl.
“Olmec?”
Another growl.
I started at him, knowing there were more that I was missing. Probably several more. I tried to run through what little I knew about Central American history. “Maya?”
Chuff.
“Well, what do you fucking know, Doc was wrong about something.”
