Page 1 of Protected By Razor

CHAPTER 1

DARCIE

The alarm goes off at six, and for a split second I consider staying in bed and letting my life fall apart on schedule.

I don’t, obviously. I never do.

I swing my legs out from under the covers and press my feet into the floor. My apartment is the size of a postage stamp and it’s always cold in the mornings because the building is ancient and the heating is a suggestion. I pad through to the bathroom in bare feet and stare at my reflection while the water runs warm.

Twenty-six years old. Top of my class at veterinary school. Three months out of a relationship with a man named Daniel who was perfectly nice and perfectly kind and perfectly incapable of making my stomach do flips when I saw him, in the way that loved up couples are supposed to have. Daniel wanted to get married. Daniel wanted a dog and a Tuesday night curry tradition. I don’t know what I want, but I know it wasn’t him.

Kate called me a coward for ending it. Kate is allowed to call me whatever she wants. She’s been my best friend since we were fourteen and she’s seen me through worse than a breakup.

The truth is I’m not a coward. I’m just efficient. I knew by month four that Daniel wasn’t going to rearrange my internal furniture the way I needed someone to rearrange it, and I stayedfor another five months out of politeness. That’s not cowardice. That’s the exact opposite, actually. That’s my entire personality.

Do the thing. Do it properly. Don’t make a scene.

I brush my teeth. I twist my hair up off my neck. I pull on scrubs and a jumper and check my phone for the weather and for the fifteen texts from my mother I haven’t answered. I will. Later. Probably.

The kettle goes on. I eat half a piece of toast standing at the counter because I don’t trust myself to sit down this early. My placement starts at seven-thirty and the clinic is a ten-minute walk if I try.

I grab my keys. I lock the door twice, because I always lock it twice. I go down the stairs instead of taking the lift, because the lift smells like someone’s been living in it.

Out on the street, Tucson is already waking up. Dry air, that particular desert smell that never quite leaves this city, the sound of a bike somewhere in the distance. I don’t let myself think about the bike. I never let myself think about the bike.

I put my head down and walk.

The dog comes in at eleven.

I’ve been on my feet since half seven, and I’m halfway through a mug of cold coffee when Marissa sticks her head round the door of the back office and says, “Darcie. Up front. I need you.”

Something in her voice.

I put the mug down.

The waiting area has one client in it — a man in his mid-thirties, stocky, wearing a grey hoodie with the hood up even though it’s warm inside. He’s got a pit bull on a short lead at his feet. Young dog. Muscle across the shoulders, narrow at the hips, short brindle coat.

I clock the dog before I clock the man.

Fresh stitches down one flank. Badly done, pulled tight, the skin puckering where someone’s used fishing line instead of sutures. A healed tear on the left ear, another one that hasn’t healed, weeping at the edge. Scars on the muzzle, on the chest, on the inside of the forelegs where you wouldn’t see them unless you knew where to look.

My stomach turns over.

“Hi,” I say, and my voice comes out level. I’m proud of it. “I’m Darcie. I’m going to be helping Dr. Patel today. Do you want to come through?”

The man gets up. The dog follows him on a tight lead, and I can see the way it’s holding its back leg, barely putting weight on it. The dog’s name on the chart is Bruno. The man’s name is Mike.

I ask Mike what happened.

“He got into it with another dog,” Mike says. “At the park.”

“Which park?”

“Down the way.”

“Uh huh. When was this?”

“Couple days ago.”