Page 7 of Bender

Seven

BLU

“We’re safe, Blu. You were right. It really happened. A superhero came and rescued us,” Grey whispers.

Waking up with Grey’s eyes inches from mine is normal. Waking up wrapped in something warm, with hot air from a vehicle’s vents blowing on my cheek, isn’t. I crane my neck to look around. My head bounces on the hard muscles of a man’s leg next to a steering wheel while he drives what I think must be a gigantic truck.

The rest of me is swaddled in something kind of scratchy but very, very warm. A seatbelt is cinched over my tummy, pressing on my screaming bladder, and nothing makes sense. Grey’s words start to sink in, and in shock, I squint up at the man above me.

My superhero came to rescue me, and what? I slept through it? This is so unfair!

I wiggle and buck against the seatbelt-and-blanket trap that has me all tangled up, trying to get upright, and the truck swerves as the man works to control the vehicle and me. Logically, I know I need to calm down, but that’s not happening. I’m too mad to be calm.

“Easy there, Jellybean.” The man’s voice is familiar.

His arms stretch above my head to hold the steering wheel steady, blocking all but his chin from my view.

“Lemme up!” I demand.

“Just hang on a little longer, Sweetheart. We’re almost there.” The man reaches his right arm above me to tug Grey back to where he’d been draped over my body, his face coming into view right over mine again.

“Calm her down, Peanut. She’s scared, and I don’t want her passing out again.” He bosses Grey with a casual familiarity and affection that’s impossible for me to miss. How the heck long did I sleep?

“Grey, I gotta pee! Like really, really need to go,” I whisper-shout.

“Can we stop, sir, please? Blu needs the bathroom, and she’ll be real, super sad if she pees the curtain.” Grey must really trust the man if he’s telling my secret to him.

So many times, when master shoved us in our kennel while I was passed out, I woke up with my own pee soaking me and Grey. He always swears he doesn’t care, and we’ve been bloody and dirty all over each other more times than I can count.

I care, though. I hate it. Hate being a dirty animal just like master says I am. Whenever master comes home and finds I’ve made a mess in the kennel, he throws buckets of cold water on both of us until the stink is gone. Then we go thirsty because master says I wasted our drinking water because I’m disgusting and dirty.

Grey never complains about that, either.

“Sure, just up ahead. There’s a pull off we can use that’s private enough for a quick pitstop.” He doesn’t sound angry about having to stop.

The truck slows, and it gets bumpy as he pulls off the road. There’s an eternity of dips and sways until it finally stops and the man throws the vehicle into park. I feel both of them working to unfasten my seatbelt and tip me upright, and then I finally get my first real look at the superhero.

He doesn’t look kind or gentle, but then master didn’t look like a monster, and he was. Flashes of memory from when the stranger found us replay in my head, and I struggle to remember what happened.

“Where’s master?” I ask Grey.

“Dead. Super dead. I saw his head splattered all over that stupid carpet and everything.” Gray and I hated that carpet more than any other floor in the house. It looks all soft and pretty, but the rough texture of the fibers left rug burns so bad the sting could make us cry for days. Master thought it was funny seeing the patches of raw skin, so he made us kneel on it a lot of the time.

“That’s enough of that talk, Peanut. She doesn’t need to be scared worse than she already is.” The man uses a firm voice, and I watch to see Grey’s reaction. He lived with master a lot longer than I did, and men scare him even more than they scare me.

Grey’s not scared of Superhero, though. He actually smiles at him and gets cheeky!

“I think some scares are good ones, sir. Seeing master with his brains all mushy on the floor is the best good scary ever.” What he’s describing is gross, but I agree. I’m mad I didn’t get to see it, too.

“I told you to call me Konrad, Peanut. You don’t have to call me sir. I’m not the boss of you.”

I wonder if he wants me to call him Konrad, too. Grey grins at the man and sasses him. I’ve never seen Grey smiling and sassy before. Maybe, I was asleep even longer than I think I was.

“You’re awfully bossy for a superhero who says he’s not the boss of me,” Grey teases.

Konrad’s only answer is to pull his shirt over his head and tug it down over me. The soft cotton is warm and smells like soapy trees and smoke. I sniff loudly, and both of them laugh at me as I work my arms through the sleeves and let the body of the shirt fall down over my curtain wrapped torso.

He opens the truck door, and a blast of frigid air startles the breath out of me.

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