Didn’t Guy say something about dogfights? Up on Grainger? “You don’t put little white terriers in a gol-dang dogfight. That doesn’t make a lick of sense. You use . . . I dunno, pit bulls and Rottweilers and—”

“Those dogs aren’t for fighting. They’re bait dogs.”

“What the heck is a bait dog?”

Tressa tells her, and things start to add up.

Atlanta’s shaking, the baton end quivering as it points accusingly toward Tressa.

“How much they pay you?” she asks.

“A hundred,” Tressa says.

“Hundred bucks. That’s it. That’s how much the animal’s misery is worth. How much your soul is worth.”

“I told you, I’m not involved—”

“You better run,” Atlanta seethes. Her voice barely sounds like her own. “You better run right now, because if you keep sitting there I’m going to knock your teeth out. Maybe break your fingers. Sell you to someone horrible for five twenty-dollar bills so they can do whatever they want to you. How’s that sound? Huh? How’s it fuckin’ sound?”

Tressa backpedals like a panicked crab, manages to stand. “I’m sorry.”

Atlanta whips the baton an inch in front of Tressa’s face. Had it connected, it would’ve shattered her cheekbone, maybe cracked the porcelain bone protecting her temple. Tressa barks a sob, then turns and clomps away, clutching the can of Monster Energy like it’s all she has left in the world.

This is what Tressa said about bait dogs:

They take the dogs and sell them to the humans who run the fights. The stolen dogs are worth more if they can’t hurt anybody, so Bodie removes the teeth and claws with pliers. Then the little dogs—or sometimes cats if they can grab those, but they’re worth less as bait—end up in an open cage or dangling from a rope or just thrown into a pen with the fighter dog. The spilled blood, the animal’s cries—that’s meant to rile up the fighter dog, get him thirsty and mean for the fight. The bait dogs train the fighter dogs to fight. And to kill.

Bait dogs go for a hundred bucks a pop.

A bait dog is bait. It’s right there in the name.

And it makes Atlanta sick in a place far deeper than her stomach.

Atlanta runs through clouds of gun smoke. Through a field that’s somehow also a swamp. A big moon overhead, bigger than you ever did see, pink like meat and fat like a pregnant woman’s belly.

She chases a dog whose howls of pain echo over the grass.

The dog runs ahead of her. A white flash. Leaving wet blood on the grass.

Atlanta’s foot steps into a hole as she runs. The ankle twists, snaps as she falls.

She cries out, and her cries are the dog’s cries.