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“K-Kelly?” Ben calls. “You in there?”
“Let’s just look,” I grunt.
Ben takes a step back. “This place is goddamn terrifying.”
“Wait here,” I tell him, clapping him on the arm. “Keep guard.”
I walk into the hallway before he can respond. I want to make it seem like I gave him no choice, so he can still look at himself in the mirror later. Just because he’s scared, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve to have pride.
Following the music, I carefully move down the hallway, checking rooms as I go. Most are empty and depressing. Dirty mattresses on the floor, grime all over the walls, needles everywhere. It reeks of piss, sweat, booze, weed, and a thousand other things. I arrive at what would’ve once been the living room.
There she is—Kelly. I knew her when she was just a little girl, a bright-eyed, excited thing flitting about the place. She was always practicing her flips and jumps. She’s passed out on a scraggly couch, wearing just her underwear, her hair across her face. Her chest is moving, at least.
Five men sit on a floor couch, but four hardly look like men. They’re skeletons with sunken cheeks. They’re husks. I feel bad for them, and I hate the fifth man. He looks well-fed and human, broad at the shoulders, with a bald head and a healthy red hue to his cheeks. The music is pumping so loudly that they don’t spot me at first.
I’m wondering what to do—sucker punch the prick?—when the actual human-looking one leans forward and reaches under a coffee table. I think it’s glass, but it’s covered in bottles, tobacco, needles, and powder, so I can’t be sure.
“Where are you?” the man grunts. “Come here. Don’t play games with me.”
Suddenly, I hear a yap—a dog’s yap. It cuts right through the music.
I rush into the room and stand over the man. He looks up, snatches his hand from under the table, and goes for my throat. I dart my hand out, grab his arm, and really squeeze. I squeeze with the strength of a man whose forearm curls eighty pounds regularly.
“What the fuck were you going to do to the dog?” I roar in his face. “And what the fuck have you done to the girl?”
The man reels back and tries to headbutt me while going for my throat with his other hand. I grab his other wrist, squeeze it, and crush it again.
Motherfucker. That was a dog’s bark. I hear it and look at the state of Kelly.
The man gasps. My vision wavers and I realize his headbutt connected. I’ve got his arms now, and I’m gripping him firmly. The other four just sit there. One is slowly turning as if trying with all his might to look at us, but it’s taking forever.
“Tell me.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Tell. Me.”
He whines when I apply more pressure. I’m bursting from the inside like a busted geyser. I’m struggling not to hurt this man seriously.
“Was going to have a little wrestle. Same thing with the bitch. She likes to wrestle too.”
He laughs, flashing a gold tooth. He’s younger than me. Physically, we’re on similar ground, but that doesn’t make what I do fair in the traditional sense. I’ve already got him beat.
He was going to hurt the dog. He probably already hurt my friend’s daughter. I drag him from the couch and throw him to the ground. He yells and tries to spring up, but then I kick him in the gut. Hard. I do it again. Three times, and then he rolls onto his side and starts wheezing.
Leaning down, I look under the table. My heart breaks. My mind flashes. Guilt stabs at me. The poor beast is only a tiny dog. I think it looks like a Chihuahua. I never dealt with them very much. Its fur is patchy and bald in places. It bares its teeth, snarling at me. I reach under, but the dog snaps, leaping away. Dammit.
Standing, I go to Kelly. She moans softly as I drape my jacket over her and gently lift her into my arms. Ben is walking down the hallway as I emerge. It’s only been a minute or so, maybe not even that. Clearly, he couldn’t just stand out there.
“Oh, Kelly,” Ben moans. “Oh, God. My poor baby.”
I carry her out to the car. Ben opens the back seat, and I lay her down softly.
“D-Daddy?” Kelly murmurs, struggling to sit up. Her eyes are half-closed, but she’s awake, alert, and alive.
“Where are you going?” Ben asks me.
“I won’t be long.”
When I return to the living room, the four men are in the same place, but the fifth is on his feet. He has the dog in his hand, held to his chest. The dog growls and trembles, its tiny, patchy-furred legs shaking.
“You ain’t taking my dog,” the man says. “You already took my girl. Not my dog too.”
