Dedication

Chapter 1: Defenseless

“Something’s wrong with that dog,” said Katie.

Amy stopped drawing and looked up from her iPad. She had been trying to ignore her little sister since Dad had gotten off the highway to avoid the accident a few miles up. The traffic had already been bad coming back from their weekend at the shore, and the crash ahead had only made things worse.

Katie had started talking about anything they passed, mostly to hear her own voice. Look, a motel. It says it has a pool. Someone threw a pizza box out of their window. There’s a rude word written on that stop sign. Amy had been doing a good job of avoiding her up until then, focusing instead on brainstorming for her science fair project.

But Katie got Amy’s attention this time. Dogs were her weak spot.

“Wrong how?” asked Amy.

Katie had her serious face on, her six-year-old brow knitted and her mouth pulled into a tight line. She pointed out the window, and Amy followed her finger to the dark shape sitting by the chain-link fence.

At first, Amy didn’t know quite what she was seeing … and then she felt a cold prickle up the back of her neck.

“Dad, pull over,” she said.

Her father glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Amy, how many times did I tell you to pee before we left—”

“They did something to its eyes!” she blurted out, louder than she meant to.

Dad frowned, and he and Mom finally looked out the window. “I give up,” he mumbled, and surprised Amy by pulling over to the shoulder.

“Be careful!” cried Mom, but Amy was already out of the car, jogging through the knee-high grass by the side of the road. The closer she got to the dog, the more she saw and the sicker she felt in her stomach. When she reached the fence it was tied to and knelt down beside the animal, she felt a gasp leave her mouth, and she thought she might cry.

It was a German shepherd, its fur as black and shiny as freshly laid tar. A rusty chain was looped tightly around its neck and clasped with a padlock; another lock held the makeshift leash to a stretch of chain-link fence that seemed to exist for no real reason. A blindfold made from a dirty rag was tied tight over the dog’s eyes, and a thick loop of duct tape had been wrapped around its muzzle, holding its mouth shut.

“Oh, you poor thing,” muttered Amy. She reached out and petted the dog’s neck; she expected it to flinch away, but the shepherd just let her stroke its fur and whined softly.

Behind her, she heard Mom, Dad, and Katie come walking up.

Mom made a noise in her throat. “Oh my … that’s so horrible. Look at that, Mitch. How could someone do this to a defenseless animal?”