The Beast on Her Leash novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Hold Still

There was one question I wanted to ask, and it was pinned to the wall behind him.

I looked at him standing there with blood on his collar, scared out of his mind, and I made a choice.

"Sit down," I said. "How did you get Moose?"

Something went out of his shoulders.

It might have been relief, and it might have been grief, and I could not tell which.

"That's what you wanted to ask?" he said.

"It's the first thing. Sit."

He sat on the cot.

I fetched the first aid kit from my car, because I always keep one for dogs.

It had butterfly strips, skin glue, gauze, and a half-eaten sleeve of crackers.

I pulled the desk lamp close and tilted his chin up with two fingers.

Bram went completely still.

"You said nobody touches you," I said.

"I know what I said."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No."

His voice was lower than I'd heard it.

I cleaned the cut.

His eyebrow was split to the bone, and his skin was hot under my fingers.

"Moose," I said. "Talk. It'll keep your face still."

He took a breath.

"I was seventeen," he said. "The river flooded the impound lot on Neville Island in March. Forty cars under water."

"I remember the flood."

"They'd left a dog chained to a pipe in a shed."

"The guy who owned the car owned the dog, and he'd gone to a motel."

My hands stopped.

"He was a year old and the size of a pony. The water was at his chest. He didn't bark."

"Dogs don't, when they've decided nobody's coming."

He looked at me quickly.

"Yeah," he said. "That's what it looked like."

I pressed the first strip down along his brow.

"Lyle was there?"

"Lyle said to put him down. Said he was dead weight, big dogs cost money, and he'd have the vet come by."

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