My Pet Sold Me novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Oxygen Cage

I had my fingers on Tobin's throat before I decided to move.

There was a pulse, thready and fast.

His lips were going blue, and the left side of his chest wasn't rising.

"His lung's collapsed," I said. "Dane, get the door.

"Penny, the car.

"Nobody put him on his back."

Dane lifted him and carried him down the stairs to the Honda.

Penny ran every red light on Foster, and we reached the clinic before the dogs stopped panting.

I unlocked the back door with shaking hands and turned on the surgical lights.

The only oxygen cage big enough was the one we kept for Great Danes.

Dane laid him in it on a folded blanket.

I took a long needle from the crash tray, found the space between his ribs, and put it in.

Air hissed out, and then Tobin dragged in a breath so loud it echoed off the tile.

"There you are," I said.

His eyes came open.

They were glassy and green, and they found my face.

"Lara."

"Don't talk."

"The post," he said. "Sable's post. I saw it on the sentry's phone."

"I said don't talk."

"I got in the truck bed under the tarp. I couldn't let them..."

His voice went to nothing, and I taped the needle down.

Penny stood in the doorway with the three dogs, who had followed us in and were now lying across the clinic hallway.

"Is he going to live?" she said.

"He's a fox. They're tough."

"He's in a dog crate."

"It's the only one with oxygen."

Tobin gave a faint, wet laugh and winced.

"I was never in a cage before," he said.

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