AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Just saying.”
I could hear Ward trying unsuccessfully to smother a giggle on the other side of the dumpster wall.
I looked at the dog, whose big brown-and-white eyes stared back at me. “I hate them both,” I told it.
The dog’s lips lowered a fraction, although it clearly still wasn’t a fan.
“Look, bud, I don’t know who you are or what the fuck happened to you, but if you’re hurt, we need to get you to a damn doctor. And Doc over there is the wrong kind.”
I watched the dog look up at Doc’s face where it stuck over the edge of the dumpster, then back at me.
“He’s a historian,” I explained to the dog. “Can’t do shit for you.” He was an EMT, so he probably could have helped a little, but he wasn’t an MD. Or a vet, for that matter.
The dog’s lips lowered, and it tilted its head sideways. Then I realized that it was probably turning its head because it was looking at me with its one good eye.
“I heard that,” Doc said.
“No shit you heard that. You hear fucking everything.” The dog stared at me. “He’s an orc.” As though his big green face hadn’t already made that obvious. “You might have him beat in the hearing department, but nobody else does.” My hearing was damn good—better than humans’—but Doc’s was a few steps sharper than mine. Our new doggy friend’s huge bat-ears were undoubtedly even better.
The dog blinked at me. Then whined.
I tried holding out my hand again, low and slow, so that the dog could sniff me.
I got a warning half-growl, but no teeth this time, and it tentatively touched the cold end of its nose to my fingers, leaving a smudge of blood.
But it almost immediately slunk back into the corner.
Then it whined again.
“Look, I don’t want to hurt you, but I also can’t leave you in a fucking dumpster, so, one way or another, I’m going to have to get you out of here. I’d rather not have to hog tie you to do it.”
The dog growled.
“I get that, but you see where I’m stuck here, bud. I can’t leave you in here, and you won’t let me close enough to figure out whether that blood is yours or our victim’s or somebody else’s.”
The dog whined.
“Look, if she was your friend, I’m sorry. I’m going to do my best to figure out who killed her—and I could probably do more if you helped me out there.”
Another whine, this one longer and what sounded like sadder, although I wasn’t sure if I was actually hearing emotion in the sound or just ascribing something to it that wasn’t there.
I tried holding out my hand again. “Work with me here, doggo.”
I got another tentative sniff, then a whine. Uncertain about where that left me, I shot a look up at Doc, who gave me a nod.
Hoping I was interpreting that correctly, I carefully inched closer to the dog, trying both not to scare it and not to step in something that would land me on my ass in a particularly unsavory patch of garbage.
The dog kept watching me, ears and head still down.
Closer, I could tell that there was a lot of blood mixed in with whatever else was on its body—and I wasn’t sure there was much fur there.
“Hey, Doc.”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t dogs supposed to have fur?”
“Xoloitzcuintli are mostly hairless, so no, our friend here probably doesn’t have much.”
