Chapter Seventeen
Draco
It’s been a couple of strained days since the dinner—Charity slipping between the cottage and the main house with careful neutrality, her parents pretending everything is fine while making it painfully clear that nothing is.
She told me last night they’ve asked twice whether I’m still "occupying" her cottage. She answered yes both times. Proudly.
I’m pondering this, somewhere between awake and asleep, when Lucky's whining breaks through my thoughts shortly past midnight.
It’s not his usual "I need to pee" whine or his "pay attention to me" whine. This is different—high-pitched, desperate, the kind of sound that makes every instinct I have snap to attention.
I roll off the couch and find him in the corner, pacing in tight circles. His belly looks wrong. Swollen. Distended in a way that makes my stomach drop even though I don't know why yet.
"Hey, boy." I crouch beside him, reaching out slowly. "What's going on?"
He tries to lick my hand but whines again instead. Then he makes this awful retching sound—like he's trying to vomit but nothing comes up. Just dry heaves that shake his whole body.
Shit.
I've seen enough street dogs die to know when something's very wrong. This isn't just an upset stomach. This is bad.
Lucky's pacing gets more frantic. He keeps looking at me with those brown eyes, pleading, like he's asking me to fix this and I have no idea how.
My phone's in my hand before I consciously decide to call her. It rings twice before Charity answers, voice thick with sleep.
"Draco? What's wrong?"
"It's Lucky." I keep my voice calm even though my pulse is hammering. "Something's wrong with him. His stomach's swollen, and he keeps trying to throw up, but nothing's coming out."
I hear her sit up sharply, sheets rustling. "How long has he been like this?"
"Just woke me up. Maybe five minutes."
"I’m grabbing my emergency cash—I’ll be right there."
She's there in less than three minutes. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, and it looks as if she’s wearing the clothes she had on yesterday, with a coat thrown over them. The second she sees Lucky, her face goes pale.
"Oh, no." She kneels beside him, hands hovering over his distended belly without touching. "This looks like bloat."
"What's bloat?"
"Bloat. GDV—gastric dilatation-volvulus." She's pulling out her phone, fingers shaking. "I Googled everything about dog emergencies after we got Lucky. The stomach fills with gas and can twist on itself. It's deadly if we don't get him to a vet immediately."
The bottom drops out of my stomach. "How do we—"
"There's a 24-hour emergency vet clinic. SilverPoint on West 15th Street." She's already tapping her phone screen. "We need to go. Right now."
I scoop Lucky up as gently as I can. He whimpers, and the sound cuts through me like a blade. This dog chose us. Trusted us. Limped into our lives with his three good legs and his street-survivor instincts and decided we were pack.
We can't lose him.
"Taxi. Uber. Something now." I'm already moving toward the door.
"At midnight?" But she's already tapping her phone. "Okay. Okay. There's an Uber three minutes away. We need to meet it at the back gate. Otherwise, they’ll never get the right address. They won't know where to find us on the property."
She looks up from the screen and her expression grows even more serious. "Draco, we’ll need money for this. Big money."
I know where she’s going with this and have no reason to argue when she darts into her bedroom and comes back as she slides a fat stack of cash into the inner pouch of her purse. She looks as though she’s expecting me to scold her, but I breathe, "Good thinking," as we hurry out the door.
Those three minutes feel like hours. We hurry through the dark estate grounds, Lucky heavy in my arms. His breathing is getting more labored, each inhale a struggle. Charity has her phone out, watching the little car icon creep closer on the screen.
The back gate is wrought iron and ancient, set into the stone wall that surrounds the property. A discreet bronze plaque reads "Pembroke Estate," but there's no visible address from the street side.
"Come on, come on," Charity mutters, staring at her phone.
A silver Toyota pulls up. The driver—a tired-looking guy in his fifties—rolls down the window and takes one look at Lucky in my arms.
"No dogs," he starts.
"Please." Charity's voice breaks. "He's dying. We'll pay triple. I'll give you a hundred dollars cash right now, and more when we get there."
She pulls out a hundred dollar bill, keeping the rest of her wad hidden from sight–smart girl.
Money talks. It always does.
"SilverPoint Vet on West 15th," the driver says, unlocking the doors. "Get in."
I climb into the back seat, Lucky cradled against my chest. Charity slides in beside me, pressing the money into the driver's hand before he can change his mind.
"Make it fast," she says. "Please."
The driver's eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. He sees Lucky. Sees our fear. Nods once and hits the gas.
Through the window, I watch the mansion recede—all those perfect rooms where Charity's spent her whole life, and none of them matter right now. Nothing matters except this limping stray who chose us.
"How far?" I ask.
"Ten, maybe twelve minutes this time of night," the driver says.
"Five," Charity says firmly. "Please. I'll pay whatever you want."
The driver doesn't answer, just presses harder on the accelerator.
The car tears through empty streets, not stopping for red lights. They blur past in streaks of color. Charity has her hand on Lucky's head, murmuring reassurances that I don't think any of us believe.
"We're almost there," she keeps saying. "Hold on, baby. We're almost there."
I count his heartbeats against my palm. Count the blocks flying past. Count the seconds until we can get him help.
Less than eight minutes later, the driver pulls up in front of a building with blue neon that reads SILVERPOINT EMERGENCY VET CLINIC. I'm out of the car before it's fully stopped, Lucky in my arms, pushing through glass doors into fluorescent brightness.
A woman in scrubs looks up from the desk, takes one look at Lucky's distended belly, and hits a button.
"Possible GDV," she calls out. "I need a vet stat."
Two more techs appear with a gurney. They lift him off my arms with practiced efficiency and disappear through double doors.
My hands close around air. My chest feels all wrong.
Charity’s hand finds mine. "They know what they're doing."
"What if it's too late?" My voice is rough. "What if we were too slow?"
"We weren't." She squeezes hard. "You woke up. You called me. We got him here. That's all we could do."
The woman at the desk—her name tag says "Nicole"—gestures us over. "I'll need some information. Your name?"
"Charity. Charity Pembroke." Her voice is steadier than her hands. "And this is Draco."
Nicole's fingers pause over the keyboard. Her eyes flick up to Charity's face, widen slightly. Recognition. "The… Charity Pembroke? From the—"
"Yes." Charity cuts her off, not unkindly. "But right now I'm just someone whose dog is dying. Can we focus on that?"
Nicole nods quickly, professional mask sliding back into place. But I see her glance at her phone on the desk. See the calculation in her eyes.
Great. Even here, even now, Charity's name means something.
"Of course. I'll need information about the patient. Dog's name?"
"Lucky," I say, pulling focus back to what matters. "Age maybe four or five. Medical history: stray we found a few weeks ago. Three good legs. Survivor."
Nicole types efficiently. "And how long has he been showing symptoms?"
"Twenty minutes, maybe." Charity leans against the counter. "He was fine when we went to bed. Draco woke up to him whining."
A vet emerges from the double doors—young, competent-looking, with kind eyes and blood on her scrubs. My stomach clenches.
"Your dog has gastric dilatation-volvulus," she says without preamble. "His stomach has twisted. We need to operate immediately to untwist it and tack it in place so it can't happen again. Without surgery, he won't survive the night."
"Do it," we say together.
"The surgery will cost between eight and twelve thousand dollars. We'll need a deposit to begin–at least half up front. Four thousand dollars."
"I’ve got cash." Charity's already digging in her purse.
"Here." Charity pulls out the bills, quickly counts out exactly four thousand, and sets it on the counter in a neat pile. "Start the surgery."
Nicole takes it as though people hand her stacks of hundreds every day.
"Thank you. We’ll update you as soon as he's stable."
Charity sags against me, shaking. I wrap an arm around her shoulders.
"You okay?" I murmur.
"Terrified."
We collapse into plastic chairs to wait. The clinic is starting to fill up with other emergencies—a cat with labored breathing, a dog that ate something it shouldn't have, a rabbit with a broken leg. All these animals depending on their humans to save them.
Time crawls. Twenty minutes pass. Thirty.
A vet tech comes out, sees our anxious faces. "Lucky's stable. Surgery is progressing well. Dr. Lopez will update you when she's done."
Relief comes, but the fear stays. Stable isn’t saved.
Another forty minutes. Charity dozes fitfully against my shoulder, exhausted from the adrenaline crash and the stress of getting here. I stay awake, watching the double doors, counting the minutes.
Finally, Dr. Lopez emerges. Her scrubs are different—clean now—and she's smiling.
I shake Charity awake. "She's coming."
We stand together as the vet approaches.
"Surgery was successful," she says, and I feel Charity sag against me with relief. "We untwisted his stomach and performed a gastropexy to tack it in place. He'll need to stay for observation for at least 48 hours, but barring complications, he should make a full recovery."
"Can we see him?" Charity asks.
"He's in recovery right now, still under anesthesia.
But once he wakes up, absolutely." Dr. Lopez consults her tablet.
"The final cost came to ten thousand, eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.
You've paid four thousand already, so the remaining balance is six thousand, eight hundred and forty-seven. "
"Here." Charity pulls out more bills from her coat pocket, counts, and hands it over. "This should cover it."
"When he wakes up," I say, "can we see him?"
The vet's smile softens. "Absolutely. In fact, familiar faces will help him recover faster. You two brought him in quickly enough to save his life. You did everything right."
After she leaves to process the payment, Charity and I sink back into our chairs.
"We did it," she whispers.
"Yeah." I pull her close. "We did."
We sit in silence for a moment, the weight of the night settling over us.
"I've never been so scared," Charity admits quietly.
"Me neither." I kiss her temple. "But we didn't fall apart. We got him here. We saved him."
Around noon, a vet tech approaches. "He's awake. And asking for you, in his way."
We follow her through the double doors into recovery. Lucky lies on a padded table, IV in his leg, cone around his neck, looking groggy but alive. So beautifully, impossibly alive.
His tail gives a tired little wag when he sees us.
I press my forehead gently to his, careful of all the tubes and monitors. "Hey, survivor. You scared the hell out of us."
Charity's crying as she strokes his head with gentle fingers. "We've got you, baby. You're safe now."
Lucky's tail gives a relieved wag, stronger this time.
"You can stay for a few minutes," Dr. Lopez says. "But he needs rest, and by the look of things, so do you."
We stay until Lucky falls asleep, his breathing steady and even, his body relaxed in a way it wasn't this morning. Then we stumble out into the afternoon sunshine, exhausted and emotionally wrung out… and together.
"I need food," Charity says. "And coffee. And maybe to sleep for twelve hours."
"Food first." I put my arm around her shoulders. "There's a diner two blocks from here."
"How do you know that?"
"I know where all the diners are. Street performer survival skill."
She laughs, and it sounds slightly hysterical. "We just spent twelve thousand dollars saving a slightly crippled stray dog."
"Best money we ever spent."
"Agreed."
We walk toward the diner. The November sun is weak but welcome after the fluorescent harshness of the vet clinic. People pass us on the sidewalk—a woman with a phone, someone walking their dog, the normal flow of city life.
We walk into the diner holding hands, order coffee and eggs, and for a brief moment, we let ourselves breathe.
Lucky is safe. We're together. Everything else can wait.