Chapter Twelve Christmas Is Going to the Dogs #2
The Labrador pup spun in a frenzy of affection, tail a metronome of joy with Jonathon trying his best to tame her.
But Chaos stood sentinel at Aaron’s side, unmoved, ever-watchful.
As if he knew Aaron was struggling here.
Kenny had suggested the pet as a therapy dog.
Aaron hadn’t realised how therapeutic Chaos could be.
“Aren’t they magnificent?” Wynter crouched beside the Labrador, tickling under her jaw.
“So kind. So loving.” He laughed as she pressed in closer, tail wagging furiously, nose straining towards his face.
When she tried to lick him, he stood, brushing down his cassock.
“I run the shelter here.” He adjusted his glasses.
“Offer a little spiritual guidance when it’s wanted. You know how it is.”
He looked between Aaron and the dogs.
“Our missions aren’t so different, really. Your dogs. My sermons. We’re all tending to lost souls in our own way, aren’t we?”
Aaron said nothing.
Wynter clapped his hands together, the sound sharp and sudden.
“Right then! We’ll get a few photos, show how the dogs love even those the world forgot.
A bit of human interest for the press. Helps with donations, you understand.
” He turned towards the annex with a sweep of his arm.
“Come through! We’ve got eggnog, mince pies, and reindeer biscuits for the good boys. Should warm the spirit nicely.”
Aaron glanced to Blackwell. He nodded. So Aaron and Jonathon followed, the dogs trotting ahead, Chaos ever steady, the pup a blur of enthusiasm.
The warm air hit as they stepped inside.
Thick with spice and disinfectant, a layer of cinnamon trying to cover the decay.
Laughter rang from the far end of the annex.
Folding tables groaned under trays of mince pies and cartons of eggnog, someone had strung tinsel between the ceiling beams like garland in a children’s nativity.
A battery-powered speaker crackled out a too-cheerful rendition of Let It Snow.
Aaron paused inside the threshold, tightening his grip on Chaos’s lead.
The retriever leaned into his leg without prompting.
Eyes were already on him. Maybe it was the stupid jumper?
But some were curious. Some hollow with exhaustion.
A few sparked faintly at the sight of the dogs.
Quick flickers of joy before retreating behind the usual armour.
These were the people life had sanded down.
Men and women who’d slipped through too many cracks and landed here, trying to stitch themselves back together with donated biscuits and battery lights.
Everyone was only a few bad months from the edge. Aaron had always known that. But he’d been born closer to it than most. A childhood without a safety net, with no one to call his own, meant he’d learned early what falling looked like.
Now Kenny was all he had.
And standing here, beneath fluorescent lights and the weight of strangers’ eyes, he felt that truth in his bones. If Kenny ever let go, if that hand ever slipped, he didn’t know what would remain.
“So you know this place?” Aaron asked Jonathon beside him.
“Yeah. I volunteer here, too.”
“Course you do.” Aaron was pretty sure Jonathon volunteered at every charity on the island. He didn’t know why the bloke didn’t just get paid for what he did. Then again, who was he to talk?
Behind him, Blackwell gave instructions to the photographer.
Angle towards the lights, keep the dogs close to the tree.
Human interest, all very festive. Aaron exhaled through his nose.
The dogs weren’t props. These people weren’t props.
But he knew how it would look when the piece ran: hope in a time of hardship.
Compassion wrapped in faux fur and pine scent.
A volunteer appeared beside him, tray in hand, cookies shaped like stars stacked neatly on paper napkins. “Happy Christmas.”
Was it?
Aaron took one anyway. “Thanks.”
She startled as he straightened, fluttering her hand briefly to her chest. “Oh, my! You look a lot like someone who used to come through here.” She turned around him to Jonathon. “Don’t you think, Jonny?”
Jonathon looked at her. Then Aaron. He shrugged, then was yanked away by the puppy to go explore. Aaron stilled, biscuit hanging in the air for a beat before he bit into it.
“Poor thing,” the woman added vaguely, then drifted off before he could ask what she meant.
Moments later, he was roped into helping with the photo setup, despite making it clear he didn’t want his face or name in anything.
He helped anyway. Eased Chaos and the puppy into laps.
Watched guarded faces crack open into shy grins as warm tongues met cold fingers.
There was something in those reactions, the unfiltered and unscripted, that relaxed him, if only a little.
Then came Blackwell, perfectly placed beside the twinkling lights and a cardboard donation box, his voice polished and ready as the camera rolled.
“This time of year reminds us that no one should be alone. At Pawsitive Futures and here at the shelter, we believe companionship saves lives. Whether it comes on two legs or four.” He smiled, eyes appropriately earnest. “Tonight, it’s not about where someone’s been.
But where they go next, and who’s waiting for them when they get there.
With your help, we can keep opening doors, offering hope, and reminding every soul, human or canine, they still matter. ”
He signed off with a gentle pat to the Labrador’s head and Aaron stood off to the side, arms folded, watching the whole thing with faint cynicism.
But he had to admit, the man could sell a cause.
And as the camera panned out, Chaplain Wynter stepped into the frame, his cassock catching the light, hands folded as if he’d been waiting for his cue.
Blackwell turned towards him with a politician’s smile, and they met at centre stage for the practiced gesture of a handshake.
“The secular and the spiritual,” Wynter said with a chuckle, loud enough for the microphone.
“Two halves of the same heart. What we offer here isn’t just shelter or sustenance.
It’s dignity. Recognition. A reminder that no one is beyond grace.
” He glanced towards the dogs, then to the camera.
“And sometimes, the purest love walks in on four legs and doesn’t ask questions. ”
Blackwell gave the camera his best benevolent nod. “Connection and second chances. That’s what Christmas means to both our charities.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. Subtle, but not subtle enough that Chaos didn’t glance up at him.
The golden retriever shifted beside his leg as if sensing the rising static in Aaron’s chest. He glanced away.
Over to the Christmas tree. Not a real one like the one he and Kenny had pulled out of the ground and made their own.
But a fake one. Borrowed. Donated. And crouched low beside that sad, lopsided tree, half-swallowed by tinsel and shadow, sat a girl.
The puppy jumping up at her while Jonathon tried to pull it off.
“Should we rescue her?” Aaron asked Choas, watching Jonathon crouch in front of the girl and try to catch the puppy.
The girl was laughing but Aaron could sense more beneath her.
Small frame. Hollow cheeks. Hoodie sleeves too long.
Skirt barely covering bruised bare legs.
She couldn’t have been older than fifteen.
Definitely shouldn’t be here. Not at a shelter.
Not tonight. She should’ve been anywhere else.
A living room with a tree that wasn’t plastic with someone’s worn-out arms around her.
Even a half-decent foster home. A halfway house, at the very least. Somewhere with rules and walls and a bed that didn’t fold up when the lights went off.
So when Jonathon finally got the puppy away and moved back over to somewhere else, Aaron clucked his tongue to Chaos and made his way over.
“Hey.” He kept his voice level. Calm. Measured. Kenny’s voice, really. Developed through osmosis and borrowed for situations like this. “You like dogs?”
Her smile barely surfaced, but she nodded, reaching the back of her hand for Chaos to sniff. He did, leaning into her touch, and she stroked him as if he was the first safe thing she’d touched in weeks. As if he steadied her.
Aaron knew what that was like.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Skye.” She pushed her hair back behind her ear as her hood slipped. “She/her.”
Aaron nodded. “Got it.” He scratched under Chaos’s chin, who huffed and leaned into the touch. “I’m Aaron. This is Chaos. And, no offence, seriously, but you look young.”
Skye said nothing.
“I mean… young enough, you should be home right now. Somewhere warm. That doesn’t smell like desperation dressed in tinsel.”
“I’m eighteen.”
“You’re not.”
That got a pause. Something shifted in her posture. Not fear. Closer to recognition.
“If I say I’m eighteen, they let me stay. Give me food. A place to sleep.”
“And if you tell them the truth…”
“They send me back.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He’d said the same once. Lied about his age to slip into places he had no business being. Foster care. Curfews. The wrong man. The wrong flat. The night he stopped pretending safety was something the system could give.
The memory made his stomach turn. He looked away. “It’s shit. But I get it.”
Chaos licked Skye’s knee, tail thumping once. She let out the faintest laugh and it cracked something open in him. A hairline fracture, but enough to keep him there, crouched beside her longer than he should’ve.
Across the room, Wynter’s voice rose over the background noise, warm and ringing like church bells dipped in syrup. “We’ve set up a grotto for the run-up to Christmas. Come see Santa! He’s got gifts for all you good boys and girls.”
Skye snorted. “I was never a very good boy,” she muttered, more to herself than him. “So I stopped trying.”