The dog snarled at us, but it never even slowed down. Drool and slobber spewed from its mouth, and its eyes had a crazed, intense look I had never seen on an animal before.
Without any provocation, it suddenly lunged at Jack. He held one arm behind him, trying to protect me more from the dog, and he held his other arm in front of him, using his forearm to block the attack.
The dog latched on it with a loud crunching sound that made my blood curdle, and I screamed. With one swift movement, Jack whipped his hand around, grabbing the dog by the back of the neck.
“Go back to the car!” Jack shouted.
He had pinned the dog to the ground by kneeling on its back and wrapping his hands around its neck. There was blood streaming down his arm, and all the while, the dog was snapping and growling viciously.
But I stayed frozen, gaping at Jack and the dog.
“Alice! Go back to the car!”
“Why?” I felt nauseous, but I didn’t want to leave Jack. If I did, I knew that something bad would happen, although I didn’t even know what that meant.
“Alice! Just do it!” Jack growled.
Adrenaline surged through my body, and my feet were happy to comply when I started running back to the car.
Before I had even made it there, I heard the dog yelp, and my stomach dropped. My heart pounded erratically in my chest, and I wanted to throw up.
I made it to the car, and I fought the urge to just keep running. I collapsed on the pavement next to it, gasping for breath.
When I saw Jack walking towards me, I stood up and hurried towards him, but I stopped sharply before I met him.
Part of me really wanted to hug him, but another part of me knew what he had done, and it scared the hell out of me. Irrational tears streamed down my cheeks, but I tried to ignore them.
“Jack, what did you do?” I wiped at my eyes to erase the tears. “What’d you do with the dog?”
“Alice…” He closed his eyes, as if it would hurt him too much to watch me react. “I didn’t have any choice. You saw him. He was going to kill somebody! What if you had been here by yourself or with Milo?”
Everything he was saying was true. The dog had looked insane and probably rabid, and even before I left him, I knew that Jack would kill the dog. But it didn’t change anything.
Hurting any animal for any reason would always reduce me to tears, especially when I had been some part of it. He had killed that dog to protect me.
“I don’t care!” I cried harder, and I wished I would just stop.
It seemed unfair to me that I would be angry with Jack for saving my life, but I couldn’t help it. He moved awkwardly, as if he wanted to hug me, but he knew that I would push him away if he tried.
“Alice,” Jack breathed deeply, looking away from me. He had this agonized expression on his face, and he took a small step back from me. “Everything just got so much more complicated.”
“What are you talking about?”
I felt something shift, and a whole new fear ran through me. As upset as I had been over the dog, I hadn’t hated Jack, or even really been mad at him.
“This!” Jack shook his head and walked past me. “Everything! This is so stupid. I am so stupid.”
“What are you talking about?” I ran after him, wondering what I had done that had been so terrible. I reached out for him, but he pulled his arm away before I even got close to it.
“I’m taking you home.” We had reached the car, but he stood outside of it, waiting for me to get in. I had stopped in front of it and refused to go any further.
“No!” I insisted. “Why?”
“Why?” He laughed, but it was humorless and sent nervous shivers all over me. Then he reeled on me, his face stone cold, and his voice harsher than I had ever imagined it could be. “I killed a dog – to save your life – and you look at me like I’m a monster!”
He rubbed his temple, and I saw blood covering his hand. Somehow, I’d managed to forget that the dog had bitten him.
“Jack, I don’t think that you’re a monster,” I explained softly. “I just don’t like it when things die.”
“Nobody does, Alice,” Jack replied icily. He bit his lip and shook his head, then mumbled, “The damn thing was probably rabid. It was gonna die anyway.”
“I know that,” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what I did that upset you so much, but I’m sorry. I never wanted to offend you. And I don’t think it’s fair that you’re going to cut me out of your life because I cried over a dog.”
“It’s not because you cried.” He softened a little, but he still wouldn’t look at me. “It was the way you looked at me.”
“I’m sorry!” I insisted. “I was in shock! The dog just charged at us and attacked you and then… I don’t know. I’m sorry. It was just because it was a dog. Remember when you beat up those people in the parking garage? I didn’t cry then.”
“No, you didn’t,” Jack agreed, and he finally seemed to be relenting. I took a step closer to him, eyeing up the ragged holes in his sweatshirt and the blood on his hand.