Page 20 of Echo
“You let Ranger outside?” I scrambled to open the door, and Ranger bolted between my legs as soon as the door was cracked.
“I didn’t touch your damn dog.” Yeah, right. He grumbled, “I wish I would have known he was outside.”
Maybe he was right. If he’d known Ranger was outside, he’d have taken the chance to get his hands on me.
Ranger was covered in dried… mud? I hoped it was mud.
“What did you get into?” I grabbed a hand towel and rubbed it over him, but the brown crust was not going anywhere. How the hell could it be that dry? I’d seen him twenty minutes ago.
I sighed and sat on the cold hardwood. “Not anymore than what I’ve gotten myself into, that’s for sure.”
I put both hands on each side of his face to anchor myself to a calm I didn’t feel, closing my eyes, so it was only me and him. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get rid of him. I don’t know what to do, Ranger.”
He stepped into me, and put his head onto my shoulder, as if he were comforting me.
I hugged him. “Don’t let him hurt me, okay?”
A deep growl rumbled in his throat as if to threaten anyone who would dare to threaten me. I sniffled. “I’ll do my part too, and shut the fuck up for once in my life.”
His growl grew as if he didn’t like the idea of me burying pieces of myself.
“Just until we figure out how to get rid of him.” I pet him, and realized his fur was silky soft, not crunchy like I would have expected. But his coloration was definitely off. I tilted my head to get a better look as I ran my fingers through his fur.
If anything, his fur was softer than normal.
Footsteps came into the room behind me. “You’re burning the food.”
The smell of burning finally hit me, and I jumped up to turn off the burner and stir the food. “Shit.”
“Honestly, Madison, it’s amazing you haven’t burned the house down.”
I gritted my teeth. “I cook every single day, and I haven’t started a fire yet.”
“Because you’re lucky.” He scoffed. “Everyone knows you can’t take care of yourself.”
I eyed the knife block at the end of the counter.
“Remember what I said, my love.” He chuckled into my ear. “If I die, you spend the rest of your life in a padded cell.”
His fingers glided over my shoulders, and I wanted nothing more than to yank away and press his face to the burner.
“I’ll get all the fight out of you, eventually.” He backed away, and I shook my body, hoping to get his touch off of me. “I want chicken parmesan, and you don’t need that much rice.”
“Tough titty.”
He grabbed my hair, but Ranger was already running up, nipping at his leg, forcing Mark to retreat. “Stupid fucking dog.”
Ranger barked, and something about the sound made my blood run cold. I stared at him as he gave two more warning barks.
It almost sounded like there was a slight echo in his throat. Like he was barking through a microphone. It plucked atsomewhere deep inside of me that made me suddenly too aware of everything.
Ranger sat and looked up at me with knowing eyes. His stare seared into me in a way that made my skin too small and sweat to gather at the back of my neck.
“This isn’t Ranger, Mark,” I breathed out. I could swear amused approval filled the dog’s brown eyes, and his muzzle lifted into a fucking smirk. My heart pounded in my chest. “It’s not my dog.”
“This is the shit I’m talking about, Madison. You’re fucking crazy. That’s your damn dog. I know. He has only bitten me a hundred times.”
“And this is what I’m talking about. You aren’t even looking,” I yelled back.
