Page 58 of The Lair

Died.

My best friend, our family dog of ten years, wasdead.

“W-Why?” My hands started shaking, and my eyesight got blurry. “You said he was okay.”

Milo had been throwing up nonstop for the past two days, but my parents had said it was just a bug, and he’d come back from the vet feeling better. I didn’t think I would never see him again.

“He died?” Johnny asked, looking up from his tablet. There were no tears in his eyes. “Oh. Well, he was really old.”

I resisted the urge to yell at him that ten years wasn’t that old, that his age didn’t matter anyway. Milodied. We’d never get to play with him again or feed him treats or jump with him in the pool. He was gone forever.

As I looked at the dry faces around me, I wondered with no short amount of rage if I was the only one who cared. Faith had left to play with Cindy in her bedroom, my father was scanning the fridge, Johnny took his racing game to the garden, and my mother was fiddling with her recording camera.

Is this a joke?

I went up to her. “Was Milo scared?”

Despite my tears, I was able to see her distinct frown. “How am I supposed to know that, Allison? He was a dog. He didn’t know what was going on.”

Wetness rolled down my cheeks. “You didn’t say he was going to die.”

Die. The word tasted bitter in my mouth. Ugly, dirty, poisoned.

She kept adjusting the settings on the camera. “We didn’t know he was that sick. He had a tumor in his throat, and the vet said he wouldn’t live much longer anyway.”

I sniffed, not caring about the snot running out my nose. “I wanted to say g-goodbye.”

She rolled her eyes. “Dogs don’t understand human behaviors. It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Her cruel words sliced my chest open wider. And then she poured salt into the wound by pointing the camera at herself.

The rapid way in which her demeanor changed from cold to distressed was… pure evil. There was no other way to describe it.

“Hi, everybody,” she started in that fake voice she always used whenever she wanted to invoke sympathy. “I have some sad news today.”

She took a deep breath and shut her eyes, pretending to rein in tears that weren’t there.

“Our precious boy Milo passed away today,” she told the camera. “He’d been with us for ten years, so we’re all very upset right now. You probably can’t tell, but I’ve been crying nonstop in the car on our way here, and I’ve only just forced myself to stop so I can film this for you guys.”

Her words sounded practiced, calculated. Why was she pretending to be sad in front of the camera?

“Please send your prayers our way.” She sniffed, dabbing at invisible tears under her eyes with a French-tipped finger.“It was so sudden, we couldn’t say goodbye how he deserved. Allison is very upset, as you can imagine. Allison, come here?—”

“Stop.”

It took me a second to recognize my own voice. It had never sounded as cold and cruel as my mother’s.

She glared at me over the camera, her stare murderous, while she kept aiming it at me. “Behave, Allison. Tell the people how you’re feeling. I have to edit this video for tonight.”

“You’re not even crying,” I accused her, rage swirling inside of me. My hands started sweating when I balled them into fists, my tears falling. “Stop pretending to care when youdon’t. And stop filming me. I don’t want to be on camera right now. Ineverdo.”

She rolled her eyes like I was some big inconvenience. “This is my job, and the very thing that pays for those expensive concert tickets you love so much. Now let me film this, or you won’t be getting any dinner tonight.”

Before I knew what I was doing, I snatched the camera from her grip and sprinted to the other end of the living room.

“Allison!” she bellowed after me.

“No!” I shouted back, using the dining table as a buffer between us. “You’re aliar. You don’t care that Milo died or that you couldn’t say goodbye. You weren’t even crying. And I don’t want to be in your stupid videos. Stop forcing me!”

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