I stare at him as he stares back at me, face completely deadpan. “Alright. Shepherd, I like you the most when you’re asleep because I can put a pillow on your face and pretend you’re not there.”
A smile explodes on his face and I can’t help but feel like it’s contagious. “I like that.”
“Me too,” I say with a grin as I hold out my hand.
He glances down at it before sliding his fingers between mine and squeezing them gently. “We’re going to be alright. We’ll break free of this, I promise.”
“I just can’t handle you getting hurt again,” I admit.
“I know. That’s why we’re going to get in that car and go so far away we’ll never be traceable.”
I suddenly hear a crashing of leaves and brush as I turn quickly. Shepherd instantly grabs me before throwing me behind a tree like even half dead he’ll protect me. I pull my gun out, knowing I’ll need to help him but unsure of how. I peek around the corner and point my gun, ready to poorly shoot something, when Shepherd holds his hand up.
“It’s not… wait… I think it’s Bear. Bear?”
I see a dark spot in the distance a moment before Bear comes crashing onto the scene. He’s so happy to see us he’s whining, his entire body wiggling as he rushes up to me but before I can pet him, he rushes to Shepherd, then back to me, like he can’t decide who needs his love first.
I kneel and he slams into me as I give him a hug. “Hey, buddy. I was scared something happened to you.”
“I thought you didn’t like him,” Shepherd says.
I hesitate with my arms wrapped around the dog that’s staring at me with love in his eyes. “I… don’t. But… shut up. Bear, don’t listen to him, he’s just being mean to me.”
“Yes, horribly mean,” Shepherd jokes as he kneels down to pet Bear who scoots closer to him so he can be loved on some. As he does that, my eyes drop to the blue collar that Shepherd bought him. There’s something stuck to it, probably a burr or dirt. I reach out and grab the edge of the collar before sliding it around, realizing that it’s something square. I pull his collar off so I can look at it closer.
“Shepherd…”
“What?” he asks as he turns to look at me.
That’s when it hits me what it is. “He has a tracker on his collar. Bear led them straight to us,” I say as I tear it off his collar and drop it onto the ground before pulling my knife out.
“Oh fuck,” Shepherd says as he stands and looks around to see if anyone’s close. I ram my knife repeatedly into the square tracker, breaking it as best I can as Bear falls into my legs, wanting more love and belly pats, oblivious to what he’s just done. “We have to run.”
I nod as I turn to Shepherd who is scanning the area. “Do we head for the car?”
“We’re about three miles from it.”
“Can you run?”
He nods, but I know that he would try no matter what. It doesn’t matter how hurt he is, he’d keep moving forward. But right now… right now, we have to try.
We start running. I’m aware it’s making more noise but if they weren’t right on Bear’s trail, we need to put some distance between us and the last mark on that tracker, and this might be the only way to do so. There’s the possibility of leading them straight to the road the car is on, but once we’re in the car, they should lose us.
It doesn’t take long before Shepherd is covered in sweat. He’s struggling to keep up with me even though on a normal day he’s not far behind.
“Shepherd, what if we’re heading straight toward them? They have to know we’ll be heading to the nearest road, right?”
“I don’t know, Killian. I really don’t,” he says as he slows for a moment. “Let’s… go off path. We’ll hang a right here, there’s a road out this way that we can hit and then maybe we can hotwire a car instead.”
I turn right and keep moving while wondering how much more I can put Shepherd through. “Are you okay?” I ask.
He nods but he looks pale again, so I dig out a bottle of water and hand it to him.