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She was not.
She looked toward the window, and the paranoia from the night before flooded her mind. She wanted to huddle back under her covers and disappear from the world, but she couldn’t. The dogs needed to go outside. They needed food. She couldn’t ignore them just because she was feeling like shit.
Besides, feeling like shit was par for the course nowadays. When was the last time she hadn’t woken up in a tangle of sheets soaked with fear sweat?
So long ago, she couldn’t remember.
She clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms and forced herself to stand up. The hardwood floor was cold on her bare feet, but she welcomed the sensation. It grounded her in the present.
She shuffled to the closet and grabbed a robe, wrapping it tightly around herself as she walked out of her bedroom to the front door.
“Okay, Reb,” she said to the bigger dog, her palms slick with anxiety on the door knob. “Please be good again like you were last night. Don’t run away.”
The dog sat and eyed her, then the door, and then her again. Almost like she was saying, “Are you gonna open it or what?”
Veronica drew a deep breath and held it. Here goes nothing. She opened the door just wide enough for Rebel and Alfie to slip through. Alfie went right to the yard to lift his leg on an overgrown bush, but Rebel… didn’t.
Once on the porch, Rebel glanced back with a doggie grin and a naughty glint in her eyes.
“Rebel! No! Don’t you even think about?—”
It was too late. The Doberman vaulted off the porch and disappeared into the woods. Alfie watched her go, then looked back at Veronica with a question in his sweet eyes.
“Alfie, come back inside,” she pleaded, close to tears. She couldn’t let him run off, too. At least Rebel was muscular and powerful and could handle herself if she ran into any dangerous wildlife, but Alfie was only eight pounds, and most of that was fluff. He was tiny and fragile and used to being pampered. Dr. Firestone had always treated him like a prince, putting charming bowties on him and carrying him around in her tote bag.
If he went into the woods, he’d be lost. Veronica would never see him again.
She grabbed a freeze-dried chicken treat from the bag Hank Firestone had left and held it out to him. “C’mon. Be a good boy. Come inside with me.”
Alfie sat and stared at her, head cocked.
Dammit, she should just walk out there and scoop him up. He was ten feet away. She could go ten fucking feet.
Just as she was psyching herself up to take her first step outside in months, Alfie stood and trotted toward the words.
“Alfie!” Her voice came out too high with panic. “Stay!”
The tiny dog didn’t listen and dove into the underbrush.
Oh, God. She couldn’t breathe. It was like the air had turned to water. No matter how much of it she sucked into her lungs, she was still drowning. Her head buzzed with static, and the world spun around her.
She had to get Alfie back. She couldn’t let anything happen to him. Not after everything else she had lost.
With shaking hands, she grabbed Alfie’s leash and stuffed her feet into tennis shoes she hadn’t worn in months. Back at the door, she hesitated.
She could do this.
She had to do this.
She took a deep breath and stepped out onto the porch. The fresh morning air hit her like a punch to the face, and she stumbled back, gasping as her lungs constricted again. She gripped the porch railing until her knuckles turned white.
She couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t.
But she had to.
Alfie was out there.
