7.02

Bitch led the way through the Docks, her dogs, Brutus, Judas, and Angelica, trotting beside her. She seemed more at ease here, away from people and social complexities. Her usual tension eased, revealing a comfort in her element. I was intruding, a fact made clear by the irritation in her eyes.

Angelica, excited by the barking of other dogs, strained at her leash. Bitch, with practiced ease, commanded her to lie down, repeating the process until Angelica obeyed. “How long have you had her?” I asked. “Five months,” she replied, adding that dogs learn from their pack.

We reached a partially constructed building, a haven for a dozen or more dogs of various breeds. The building itself was incomplete, with three walls, a partial second floor, and an open exterior. Bitch fed the dogs, and a fight erupted between a new black lab, Sirius, and a smaller dog. I remembered the time Bitch set her dogs on me, and felt a surge of unease.

“Let me know if he draws blood,” she instructed, as I focused on my power, seeing the dogs against the backdrop of the neighborhood. I felt a mass of bugs, not fleas or ticks, but a denser, unsettling presence, moving inside Sirius.

“Worms,” I explained, describing their location in his chest and arteries. “Heartworm,” Bitch identified, blaming the shelter’s negligence. She decided we would help Sirius, using her power to heal him.

I grabbed a heavy chain, looping it around the base of a crane as Bitch prepared to use her power on Sirius. He grew, muscles rippling, and yelped in fear and rage, restrained by the chains. “Couldn’t we maybe get him tranquilized, first?” I asked. “No,” she said, “My power would burn away the drugs.”

Judas and Angelica intervened as Sirius lunged, holding him down. I focused on the worms within him, feeling them churn and dissolve. “Almost gone,” I reported.

Bitch explained that heartworms release bacteria when they die. Her power would kill both the worms and the disease, leaving Sirius healthy by the next day.

She had used her power to keep her dogs healthy, but Sirius was the first she’d made this large since her core trio and another dog, Rollo, who I suspected was her first and the one with a body count.

“I don’t need you here,” she said, suggesting I pick up dog shit. “Fuck you,” I retorted, surprising myself. I came to help, not be a slave. I’d help clean if she worked beside me. She threatened me, reminding me I’d given her permission to hit me if I pissed her off. “Yeah, but if you do it here, for this reason, I’m hitting back,” I countered, maintaining eye contact, important in dog dynamics.

Sirius whined, and Bitch turned away. I asked if she wanted me to get lunch while she stayed with Sirius. “…Fine,” she conceded. I asked her to tell me where a Greek food stand was, crossing my fingers she wouldn’t see it as an order. Preoccupied, she gave me directions. “Anything with meat,” she requested.

I left, shaking hands in my pockets, heading to get our lunch, leaving Bitch to tend to the monster in chains.