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Back Atlanta Burns Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. PART ONE: SHOTGUN GRAVY
  6. Sometimes she wakes…
  7. CHAPTER ONE
  8. CHAPTER TWO
  9. CHAPTER THREE
  10. CHAPTER FOUR
  11. CHAPTER FIVE
  12. CHAPTER SIX
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. PART TWO: BAIT DOG
  19. CHAPTER TWELVE
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. PART THREE: THE FARM
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. PART FOUR: KISSING FIRE
  38. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  43. PART FIVE: BAIT GIRL
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  48. EPILOGUE: THE MESSAGE
  49. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  50. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Someone reaches in, someone invisible, starts feeling for her teeth, starts pulling them out of her gums real easy, like they’re weeds with shallow roots in loose mud. Someone starts removing her T-shirt, too, cutting it with a knife. Greasy hand feeling along her bra. Fingers working their way past the edges. Into her jeans and panties. The smell of cigarette breath and stale Rolling Rock. A voice in her ear, male, a voice too familiar:

“Your mother shouldn’t know about this.”

The dream ends, and she awakens cold and slick. She goes downstairs and eats cheap pretzel sticks with trembling hands until the sun comes up, a cairn of salt and crumbs piling before her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY

It’s like diving headfirst into a filthy pool. Dirtier and darker the deeper you go. Every link she clicks, every news story or website she reads, it just ruins her day that much more, until the moment comes where she feels like she’s coming off a days-long stomach flu and she’s not sure if she’ll be able to eat anything ever again.

All the people around her here at the rinky-dink Maker’s Bell Library, they don’t know. They’re going about their morning like it’s nothing at all, taking out their bestseller books, bringing their kids to story time, searching for jobs or playing Solitaire or Candy Crush on the computers.

Earlier she’d thought, well, fine, Shane’s not on her team this time, so it’s time to act like him. WWSLD. What Would Shane Lafluco Do? He’d go Google something, that’s what he’d do.

So, Atlanta went and Googled.

Search term: “Bait dog.”

She started reading and sliding down that slippery slope, and now she sits, queasy.

Atlanta’s learned more about the subject than she cares to admit in just a half an hour.

Bait dogs, like Tressa said, are meant to teach the other dogs—the fighters—to grow bloodthirsty, to go for the weaker animal, to go for the kill. Teaches the bigger dogs confidence. Teaches them how to be mean. If they don’t go for the bait, they get hurt. Prodded. Poked. Shocked. Punished.

Little dogs make good bait dogs. Puppies, too. Plus cats or any other small animal.

Folks like Bodie and Bird steal the dogs from people’s front lawns and backyards. Others answer ads in the paper—free to a good home. Puppy mills sometimes sell unsold dogs for just this purpose.

Seems, too, that some fighter dogs end up as bait dogs. A fighter loses a fight, gets mauled, sometimes the owner kills the dog. Other times he uses him as prey. Fighter dog won’t go for a bait dog, he might end up as bait instead.