“Building’s clear so far.” Lieutenant Morrison’s voice crackled through the radio, tinny and distant. “K-9’s up. Shaw, send him in.”
It was the standard protocol, one they’d done a dozen times, maybe more. When there was a suspected IED inside a structure, potential insurgent activity, and civilian reports of a weapons cache, they send the dog in first to detect explosives, then follow only once he gave the all-clear or marked a find.
She looked down at Titan. His dark brown eyes met hers, waiting and trusting. Her hand moved to his vest, checking the familiar weight of it. “Ready?”
His tail swept once through the dust.
She gave the command. “Titan, seek.”
He surged forward, powerful and sure, disappearing through the doorway into the building’s shadows. She counted his steps in her head: five, six, seven. Her breathing stayed even and controlled as she watched the doorway and waited for his bark or return.
The explosion was light first, then sound, a flash that whited out her vision followed by the punch of percussion that knocked her back two steps and left her ears ringing.
She was moving before the thought came up. Someone grabbed her arm—Morrison, maybe, or Kemball—but she shook them off. Titan. She had to get to Titan.
The doorway hung wrong now. Smoke poured from it, thick and dark, and the acrid stench of burning chemicals mixed with something worse underneath. Her boots hit debris, chunks of concrete and twisted metal, but she kept moving forward.
He was down just inside the entrance, not moving. She hit her knees hard enough on the wooden floor hard enough to feel the impact through her tactical pants, her hands already reaching for him. “Titan. Hey, boy. Hey.”
Blood, far too much blood, everywhere. His breathing came in wet, rattling gasps that meant bad things—things even combat medics couldn’t fix in the field. One of his rear legs bent at an angle that wasn’t natural, and when she touched his side, her hand came away slick and dark.
“I’ve got you,” she said, and her voice sounded steady, even though her hands were shaking. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
His eyes found her face, brown and warm and trusting despite the pain that had to be tearing through him. His tail tried to move, but he barely managed a twitch.
Medics pushed past her—when had they arrived?—and their voices cut through the ringing in her eyes.
“Too much damage…”
“...internal bleeding…”
“Nothing we can…”
She kept her hand on his head, fingers buried in his fur, feeling each shallow breath. He was trying so hard, fighting to stay, and she could see it in his eyes that he was scared but he trusted her to make it better.
“It’s okay,” she lied. “You’re okay.”
His breathing slowed. Each inhale took longer to come, and she felt the moment when his body finally gave up, when the tension left his muscles and the light went out behind his eyes.
The weight of him in her arms was unbearable.
She’d given the command; she’d sent him in; she’d killed him.
The dream looped and started over. The heat, the building, the command, the explosion, his dying eyes, the guilt crushing her chest, nothing she could do to stop it from looping again and again?—
Something warm and wet dragged across her face.
Maddox jerked awake with a gasp that burned her lungs. Darkness surrounded her—the wrong darkness, no smoke—and for a disorienting second, she couldn’t place where she was.
Not on deployment, not the desert.
Home, her bedroom, Phoenix Ridge.
The wet warmth came again, this time across her cheek, and she turned her head to find Zeus’s face inches from hers. He whined, low and worried, his front paws planted on the mattress beside her pillow.
“Off,” she managed, but her voice came out wrecked.
He ignored the command entirely and climbed onto the bed, all seventy-five pounds of him pressing against her side. His nose pushed into her neck, and she felt his breath hot against her skin.
