Chapter 6
chapter six
Christine wiped the sweat from her brow, the warm scent of hops and yeast still clinging to her skin. The brewery was ready. Prepped. Everything in its place. She clipped Gruit’s leash with a soft sigh. One last walk before the night kicked into high gear.
Outside, the streetlights buzzed gently as they brightened with the uptick in foot traffic. In the distance, the skyline shimmered, ads shifting across glass towers like the city couldn’t decide what it wanted to sell today.
The Warehouse District was still finding its identity, somewhere between grit and gentrification.
Brick buildings stood like worn-out giants, their faded murals barely visible under years of grime and graffiti.
Half the warehouses were flipped into lofts or start-ups with annoying names like “NovaByte” or “Synergex”—places where no one seemed to actually work.
The air was a weird mix of car exhaust, fryer grease, and a hint of stale beer from the previous night.
Christine didn’t mind its strangeness. If anything, it matched her mood: tired, sharp-edged, but still moving forward.
Gruit padded happily beside her, his nails clicking against the concrete, his breath coming out in rhythmic little huffs. He was in his element—nose to the ground, tail wagging, always searching for treasure in the form of discarded food.
They meandered through the district, letting Gruit choose the route. Christine’s phone buzzed in her pocket with an automated city advisory. Another surveillance drone calibration scheduled for 2 a.m. She swiped it away without reading the details.
Gruit pulled her toward a garbage-strewn alleyway where a forgotten hot dog lay like an offering from the universe.
Before Christine could react, he snapped it up, swallowing it whole.
“Ugh.” She wrinkled her nose. “You are disgusting.”
Gruit, deeply unbothered by her judgment, panted happily in response.
They continued down 5th Street, past an old loading dock where graffiti sprawled across the rusted metal doors, bright reds and blues starkly contrasting with the gray sky. A new message stood out among the layers of street art and protest slogans, stenciled cleanly in black ink:
GOD IS HERE
Christine gritted her teeth, forcing herself to look away.
The street was mostly empty, just a few cars rolling by and a handful of pedestrians wrapped in winter coats, heads down, moving quickly.
That’s when she saw them.
A man stood just ahead, glued to his phone, utterly oblivious to the world around him. His dog, a sizeable tan-and-black mix with a thick, muscular build, was sniffing the ground, tail still but ears perked.
Gruit stiffened.
Christine felt it before she heard it: the subtle shift in his posture, his head lowered, his body tensed, and a low rumble that vibrated through his chest.
A growl.
“Shit.”
Christine instinctively tightened her grip on the leash, her pulse spiking. The other dog must have sensed it because his head snapped up. His body went rigid. His tail rose, ears pinned forward, and in an instant, the air shifted.
Predatory.
Christine barely had time to react before the dog lunged, his leash slipping quickly out of his handler’s grip.
The sound was primal. Snarling, snapping, the clash of teeth and claws against the pavement.
Gruit reared onto his hind legs as the other dog barreled into him. The force yanked Christine forward, her boots skidding against the reinforced sidewalk.
“Hey! HEY!” she shouted, yanking hard on the leash, but it was useless.
The other dog’s owner finally caught up, wide-eyed and fumbling with the leash. “Shit…shit, hold on!”
But hold on to what?
The dogs were a tangle of muscle and fury, spinning in tight, frantic circles. Gruit’s teeth flashed as he snapped, missing by inches. The other dog lunged for his neck but clipped his ear instead, the impact forcing a yelp from Gruit that sent panic lancing through Christine’s chest.
The leashes twisted. Christine’s breath came out in ragged gasps as she fought to separate them, but it was impossible. It was pure chaos, untamed and unhinged.
And then, a snarl. A blur of movement.
The other dog’s teeth sank again into Gruit’s front leg.
Gruit let out a high-pitched yelp, a sharp and wrong sound that Christine never heard from him before.
“Oh my God,” she gasped, pulling with everything she had.
The other owner finally got a solid grip on his dog’s collar, yanking him backward with a rough jerk. The dog snarled but relented, panting heavily, hackles raised like a bristling warning.
Christine dropped to her knees beside Gruit, her hands shaking as she reached for him. His biometric tag flickered red, sending a silent injury alert to her phone. He looked up at her, wide-eyed, ears back, his whole body trembling.
He lifted his paw.
A soft whimper.
Christine’s vision tunneled.
A small spatter on the sidewalk, bright against the dull gray.
Blood.
The other owner was saying something. Apologizing, maybe? She barely registered it. Her pulse was a deafening roar in her ears.
She forced herself to breathe, to push past the sickening knot in her stomach.
“You okay, buddy?” Her voice was hoarse, unsteady. She ran her hands over his leg, feeling for the wound. It didn’t look deep, but he favored it, raising it as if uncertain whether it could hold his weight.
Gruit licked anxiously at the air, his tail giving one hesitant wag.
Christine swallowed hard and fumbled for her phone. The nearest vet popped up, offering an urgent care option three blocks away.
She stood, tightening her grip on the leash. “C’mon, bud. We gotta go.”
Gruit hesitated, then took an uneasy step forward.
Christine squared her shoulders, her grip tightening on the leash as Gruit limped beside her. The adrenaline still pulsed hot beneath her skin, but she forced herself to focus—one foot in front of the other, one breath at a time.
The city moved on, indifferent. Sunlight bounced off of glass high-rises, drones zipped overhead, and the hum of traffic filled the streets.
Pedestrians flowed past, lost in their own worlds.
But to Christine, everything felt sharper—the crunch of her boots, Gruit’s unsteady breathing, the phantom echo of snarls still curling in her mind.
She glanced down at him, at the tentative wag of his tail, at the trust in his dark, worried eyes.
“You’re okay,” she murmured, more to herself than him.
Then, with a steadying breath, she pressed forward.
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