Tiny cuts between the pads.
A raw stripe under the collar.
Old scar over the left shoulder.
Fresh bruising along the ribs hidden under fur.
His tail was low, but not tucked.
His mouth was closed.
His breathing was shallow.
A biting dog looks at your hands.
A terrified dog looks for where pain comes from next.
Titan was looking at Maddox.
“Has he eaten today?” I asked.
Maddox blinked. “What?”
“Has he eaten today?”
“He eats when I feed him.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
The lobby got colder.
Maddox stepped closer.
He was bigger than me by at least eighty pounds.
He wanted me to notice.
I did.
Then I looked past him at the dog.
“Titan,” Maddox snapped.
The Malinois didn’t answer.
Not to the name.
Not to the leash.
Not to the man.
Something moved in my chest.
A memory I had buried so deep it had stopped feeling like memory and started feeling like bone.
A desert dawn.
A training yard.
My brother laughing with a black-and-tan puppy hanging from his sleeve.
My brother saying, “Maya, don’t use his call name around brass. They’ll steal the good ones.”
My brother’s voice in a video message three days before he died.
“If anything ever happens to me, remember the word.”
I had not spoken that word in four years.
Not once.
Not even alone.
I looked at the dog again.
There was a crescent scar under his right eye.
Small.
Pale.
Almost hidden.
My hand went numb.
No.
It couldn’t be.
That dog had died with my brother in Kandahar.
That was what they told us.
That was what the Navy sent in a folded letter with a flag and a sealed box.
That was what my mother believed until her heart gave out six months later.
Maddox snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“Hey. Scrubs. You deaf?”
I looked at him.
Calm.
Still.
“Where did you get this dog?”
His smile disappeared.
“Classified.”
“Dogs aren’t classified.”
“Mine is.”
Dr. Price said, “Commander, we’ll need full records before—”
“I gave you records.”
“These are incomplete.”
“They’re complete enough.”
Titan’s front paws shifted.
One inch toward me.
Maddox felt it and tightened the leash until the leather bit into the raw skin beneath the collar.
The dog didn’t yelp.
That broke something in me more than a yelp would have.
I took one step forward.
Dr. Price whispered, “Maya.”
