Page 10 of Bender

I wanna hear them happy, just like this, all the time, so I make myself a solemn vow. I’ll keep them smiling and laughing forever.

Chapter

Nine

GREY

“When I pull up to the house, stay in the truck. Don’t be scared. No one is going to hurt you here.” Konrad turns to look me in the eye as the truck rolls slowly down a gravel driveway past the tall, metal gates.

“Will they be mad?” I ask. I don’t want to be scared, but the serious look on his face is making my stomach quake.

“Mad about what, Peanut?” He winks at me, and it settles the shaky feeling a little bit.

“Mad about you bringing people here?” This place looks like a fortress. Not like how master’s mansion was, all showy and fancy. More like, a place that could survive a zombie attack. Thinking about zombies makes the sick feeling in my stomach come back. The same kind of sick feeling I remember getting when I was really little and someone, I don’t remember who it was I lived with, was playing scary video games on a television.

“You ain’t people, Peanut. You’re mine. I get that you don’t know what that means yet, and it’s okay. But nobody gets to say or do anything to make you scared or sad without dealing with me. You got it?” A new feeling is in his voice now. Kinda a cross between when he is bossy and when he’s mad, but not at us.

Men are scary, but Konrad hasn’t been anything but nice to me. When he gets the angry sounds in his voice, it’s not menacing like when master was mad. It makes the wobbly feeling in my tummy feel kinda good. Like maybe, something really great is about to happen.

“Blu, too?” I ask. She’s not scared of Konrad, either, I don’t think. Usually, she’s a total sass mouth, even if it gets her beat. She says it’s a coping mechanism.

I didn’t know what one of those was until she explained she’d rather get beat on for something she did than for just for existing. It’s never made much sense to me, but I’m not smart like she is.

If she thinks it’s okay to be nice to Konrad, and I think she does, because she’s not sassing him, then I think it’s okay, too.

“Peanut, you and Jellybean are a matched pair. I think trying to pull you two apart would be like trying to separate the moon from the sky.” Konrad picks up Blu’s hand in his and reaches them both over her to rest on my knee.

His fingers are so thick and long that her hand is almost totally hidden under his. I can feel the strength in each finger where the tips of them press through the shiny silver blanket covering my leg.

“Am I clear, Boy?” he asks.

I nod because I think I get it. We don’t belong to master anymore. Now, we’re Konrad’s. Maybe, that should scare me, but I don’t think I’m going to mind being his boy. It’s already way better than being master’s mutt.

Konrad gets out of the truck once he’s parked and carefully shuts the door behind him. I hear the beep of locks engaging, but instead of the stifling way being locked up in our kennel made me feel, this feels like safety.

There’s a loud bang and the front door of the enormous building flies open. I’m not sure whether it’s the noise or the number of giants that storm through the doorway that spooks Blu. She wraps around me, and I wrap around her as a boy with green hair and sparkly painted eyes runs up to the window.

He taps at the glass and grins before spinning with a hand on his hip to face Konrad. I don’t like the way my stomach flips when Konrad smiles at him with his whole face.

“Most people bring home goofy T-shirts and lame-ass keychains to give everyone after a trip. Only you would think it’s okay to bring home actual people as souvenirs.”

The boy is sassy and confident, and Konrad’s smile gets even bigger.

“Don’t be a brat, kid. I see none of the rest of you can listen worth a shit. Where’s Blakely with my clothes?” Konrad looks and sounds like a whole different person with all these people around.

“I don’t know about this, Blu,” I whisper. There are a lot of people here. Way more than we ever saw hanging around master. What if they don’t want us to stay with Konrad? What if they think we really are animals like master said?

“If it’s not good here, we’ll run away.” Blu presses her face against my ear, so no one can hear what she says or even read her lips.

“Okay. Swear we stay together and we only run if both of us can get away. Right?” I talk real quiet and tip my face down, so no one can see what I say, either.

The only woman in the group walks over to Konrad and hands him a big basket piled with clothes. Behind her is a man with a bushy beard and mean-looking eyes. I shrink down in the seat and try to push Blu into toward the footwell to hide. Konrad takes the basket from her and leans in to give her a kiss on the cheek.

That makes the scary man growl like a bear and shove Konrad back a few steps. Then the man smiles a wolfy smile that bares his teeth and wraps Konrad in a hug. I think that means they’re friends?

“Okay, you assholes need to stop gawking and get the inside. Arlo, man, since you couldn’t be fucked to stay in the house like I asked, would you at least make some food for the three of us? Something that won’t upset their stomachs, please.” Konrad runs down a list of demands while he herds all of them back through the door they came out through.

When the last giant goes inside and the door shuts behind them, he finally turns to us with an apologetic look on his face. He sets the basket of clothes on the ground by the truck and comes to open the door on my side.

---