The evening stretched ahead of her—too many hours until she could reasonably go to bed, but not enough hours before she’d have to drag herself out of another nightmare and face another shift. The TV drone on about something that didn’t matter, and the house settled around her with familiar creaks and sighs. Zeus watched from his bed, ever patient, waiting for her to stop pretending.
Maddox set her empty beer bottle in the sink and rubbed her face with both hands until her cheeks felt warm and raw. Riley was right. It was getting under her skin. And tonight, when the nightmare inevitably came for her, she’d be alone with it except for Zeus, who couldn’t do anything but press close and remind her she was still breathing.
Good enough, she thought grimly. It had to be.
Maddox knew better than to fight sleep. Exhaustion always won eventually, dragging her under whether she wanted it or not. She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, listening to Zeus’s steady breathing from his bed on the floor beside her, and waited for the inevitable.
When her eyes finally closed, the nightmare she’d been dreading was waiting for her.
Four months ago, late October, the kind of cold that bit through tactical gear and settled in your bones. Dispatch crackled in her ear: “Suspect fled on foot into the warehouse district. All units pursue. K-9 units respond for building clear.”
Maddox and Zeus were three blocks away when the call came through. She pulled up to the old cannery building that had been abandoned for years and had structural damage visible even in the dark, windows broken and boards rotting. Backup was scattered across the district, casting shadowsthrough alleys while the suspect disappeared into the building like smoke.
“Zeus, with me.” Her voice was even and professional. She’d done this a hundred times.
The warehouse smelled like rust and decay, the air thick with something organic and wrong. Her flashlight beam cut through the darkness, catching on broken machinery and water-stained walls. Zeus moved ahead, his nose working and ears swiveled forward, alert. Then he stopped at the base of a stairwell, hackles rising.
“Show me,” Maddox commanded.
Zeus looked back at her, those brown eyes catching the light, and she saw it—the moment of assessment, the question. His training said go, but his instinct said danger.
She made the call. “Zeus, search.”
He climbed the stairs, and she followed, weapon drawn, every sense on high alert. The steps groaned under their combined weight, the wood softened with rot and decades of moisture. Above them, she heard movement: footsteps, heavy and panicked.
Zeus’s warning bark split the air, sharp and urgent. Then shouting, the suspect’s voice high with fear. “Get it off me! Get it away!”
Maddox took the stairs faster, her heart hammering against her ribs. The second floor opened up into a vast space of rusted equipment and gaping holes where the floor had given way. Zeus had the suspect cornered near a broken window, circling him with controlled aggression and keeping him from bolting.
The suspect was young, maybe twenty-five, wild-eyed and desperate. He had something in his hand. A knife, the glint of the blade catching her flashlight beam.
“Phoenix Ridge PD! Drop the weapon!” Her voice came out strong despite the adrenaline flooding her system.
He swung the knife erratically, keeping Zeus at bay. Zeus dodged, snarling, but the wooden floor beneath them groaned, a deep, ominous sound that Maddox felt vibrate in her chest.
“Zeus, back!” she commanded, but it was too late.
The floor gave way with a shriek of splintering wood. Not a full collapse, but enough. A section near the window broke apart, both Zeus and the suspect sliding toward the gap. The suspect grabbed for anything to stop his fall, and Zeus scrambled for purchase, his claws scraping against wood that was already crumbling.
The suspect still had the knife, Zeus was sliding, the gap was widening…
Maddox’s world narrowed to a single point: Zeus’s vest, just barely within reach if she lunged.
And she froze.
Just for a second, maybe less, but in that second, she wasn’t in a warehouse in Phoenix Ridge anymore. She was overseas in a different building with a different dog. It was sand instead of salt air. Titan was ahead of her clearing the room she’d sent him into.
The explosion, his body thrown sideways, her too far away to help, too far away to reach him, his eyes finding hers as the life left his…
“NO!”
The word tore out of her as she broke through the freeze, lunging forward and grabbing Zeus’s tactical vest with both hands. His weight pulled at her shoulders, threatening to drag them both over the edge, but she dug her heels in and hauled him back. The suspect’s scream was distant then cut short; he’d fallen through the gap, but not far. The floor below had raced up to catch him.
Zeus scrabbled onto solid ground and pressed against her leg, both of them breathing hard. Backup thundered up thestairs, their flashlights cutting through the dark, voices calling for the situation status.
“Suspect down, lower level,” Maddox reported, her voice somehow steady despite the shaking in her hands. “K-9 assist successful. No injuries.”
The officers moved past her to secure the suspect, and someone clapped her shoulder. “Hell of a job, Shaw.”
