Chapter Twenty-Five Mateo
“A dam!” I nearly shouted. “Adam, thank you for picking up! I need you! Bessie’s run off again into the storm and I can’t find her!” I paused, realizing how it sounded, but I was desperate, and my breath was coming in shallow gasps. “I… I found blood in the house, and I’m worried she’s badly hurt!”
“I’m close by,” he replied, his voice suddenly firm and serious. “I’ll be there in three minutes.”
“Please hurry,” I begged. “I… I can’t lose her!”
“We’ll find her, Mateo. I promise.”
Silence.
“I have to hang up now, okay?”
“O-Okay…”
The phone line went dead, and I was left in my condo alone with nothing to do but worry and panic for the next few minutes.
No less than twenty minutes ago, I’d realized Bessie was gone. She’d snuck out through the sliding door just as the rain was coming in. Thanks to the rainfall, I never heard the door open. However, I did notice when it was suddenly louder and more crisp than it should be. That’s when I found the door standing open. And that’s when the panic began.
At first, I called and called for her, trying to get her to come back to the house. When nothing happened, I shut the door and began to search the house. After all, she couldn’t be somewhere inside without me knowing. I searched the entire place top to bottom, but it wasn’t until I came across her dog bed that I found the blood.
The coppery smell was easy to recognize. And the bed was saturated enough that it threw me into a frenzy. I felt around, looking for some sign of broken glass or damage. But there was nothing. However, that didn’t make me feel any better.
I spent a crazy few minutes running around the house before I finally gave in and called Adam. In hindsight, I could’ve asked one of the neighbors for help or even called the police. But Adam was already close, and he knew Bessie. In fact, she seemed to really like him. If anyone had a chance of helping me find her, it was him. He’d done it once, and I knew he could do it again.
It was an awkward favor to ask after our text conversation, especially when he’d made it such a point never to see me face to face again. But all that mattered at that moment was Bessie. Whatever damage I did, I’d try to pick up the pieces after we found her and made sure everything was okay.
God, I was so fucking terrified that she was lying outside and bleeding out. Unless she made a noise or something, she could be ten feet away and I’d never know it. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I needed Adam’s eyes to help me save her.
I heard the tires squeal to a stop outside my condo in less than three minutes and I threw the front door open, knowing it had to be him. He must have driven like a madman to get there so quickly. If I hadn’t been so worried and scared, my heart might have leaped for joy to hear his voice.
“I’m here!” he called, jogging up to the front door. “Show me what’s going on.”
I waved for him to follow, charging back through the house. “I found blood on her dog bed. It feels like there’s a lot. I think she got out the slider somehow.”
A sharp pain shot through my hip as I ran into one of the side tables. Several things tipped and crashed to the floor as I swore loudly. In my panic I’d forgotten to count my steps and I took the corner too soon. However, Adam’s hands shot out, grabbing me around the waist and steadying me.
“Breathe,” he said, his voice a forced calm. “We’re gonna find her, okay? I don’t need you to get hurt in the process too.”
“Right,” I nodded, pulling him into the living room. “Her dog bed is over there.”
Adam left my side for a moment, his shoes making an odd squeak against the carpet. I heard him crouch, but he said nothing.
“Well,” I asked, impatient for an answer. “How bad is it?”
“There’s not that much blood, actually,” he replied. “But the bed is definitely wet.”
“Did she pee in it or something?”
“I don’t know.” I heard him stand once more. “I’m not really familiar with dog things. But there’s not a trail or anything through the house, so I don’t think she’s in danger of dying before we find her.”
“Why would she be bleeding though? Is anything broken?”
“Not that I can see.”
“I… I don’t understand.”
There was a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay,” Adam cooed, guiding me back through the house. “She probably just ran into something when she got scared and has a little cut. I’ll do a sweep through the neighborhood before we go out on the road, okay? There’s no thunder or lightning, so I don’t think she’s gonna run off very far.”
“You’re right,” I said with a nod, trying to see reason even though I was terrified. I held out my arm. “I’ll go with you.”
“There’s no reason for us both to get wet–”
“Adam,” I said sternly. “She’s my dog and I’m going with you.”
He tensed for a moment before he slipped his arm under mine. “Alright,” he said, holding me tight. “We’ll go together.”
“Thank you.”
Arm in arm, we went back through the condo and out the front door into the rain. The cold seeped through my clothing almost immediately. I’d forgotten to grab my umbrella. But by the time I thought of it, I was already drenched. Ignoring the cold, I kept my arm tight around Adam as he pulled me down the sidewalk.
We spent the better part of twenty minutes slowly working out way around the condo complex. Wherever there might be a place to hide, we explored it. Adam pulled me toward a hedge more than once so he could get a look underneath, figuring she might be hiding from the rain and the cold. But there was no sign of Bessie.
I was starting to lose hope as we rounded back toward my condo with no results.
“I’ll get the car and we can go look out on the road, okay?” Adam said, stopping me in front of my condo. “The rain’s letting up a little bit, so we’ll be able to find her easier. Maybe she’ll even come home by herself.”
I nodded numbly, allowing him to extract his arm from my grip. He left me there for a moment feeling as hopeless as I possibly could. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, that the blood meant Bessie was in danger. I believed him that it wasn’t enough for her to bleed out, but she never made messes in the house. She’d been trained not to from a very young age. So why was today different? What was going on with her? I mentally kicked myself for not going to the vet the day before. If I had, maybe none of this would’ve happened.
Just then, my ears perked up as I caught a whine on the wind. I turned toward the sound, hearing the familiar high-pitched whine that Bessie used when she needed me.
She was close by!
“Adam!” I yelled. “Adam! Come here!”
Running footsteps approached, splashing through the puddles. “What? What’s wrong?!”
“I hear her,” I said, fumbling until I got a hold of his shirt. I lifted my arm, pointing toward the noise. “That direction. She can’t be that far.”
“I don’t see anything,” he replied, but he took my arm anyway. “It’s just bushes and stuff, but let’s take a look.”
He led me over and I could hear him moving branches aside and looking, but clearly coming up with nothing.
“Are you sure you heard her?”
“I’m certain.”
The whine sounded again.
“There! Did you hear that?”
Adam grabbed my arm. “Yeah. I did.” He paused, pulling me over a few feet. “Wait, it’s your neighbor's backyard and… and there’s a shed with the door open!”
“Bessie?!”
“This way!”
Adam dragged me toward the sound, gripping my arm tightly. I managed to keep my feet under me as we charged through the bushes. Branches whipped at my face and arms, but I didn’t care. I had to get to Bessie. She just had to be okay.
We finally broke through the shrubs, ran an easy ten feet, and I heard the squeal of rusty hinges as Adam pulled the shed door open. And then he gasped.
“What?!” I barked, tears threatening already as I smelled the blood in the air. “What’s wrong?! Is she hurt?”
He squeezed my arm, and I could hear him smile. “No.”
“What’s going on then?!”
“She… She had puppies.”
All the emotions I was storing inside me suddenly fell away and all that was left was confusion.
“She… she what?”
“Puppies,” Adam repeated as he counted under his breath. “Eight of them.”
Bessie made another high-pitched whine and Adam gagged.
“Oh… oh god,” he groaned, pulling away from me. “Nine.”
I just stood there with my mouth hanging open in shock. Finally, there was only one thing I could think to say as I turned my gaze down in Bessie’s direction.
“You little slut.”