Guardian

They brought me to my new home when I still had a hard time walking. My paws were too big for my legs, and my tail was always getting in the way. The first thing the man and woman did was bring me into my girl’s bedroom and place me on the bed. She hugged me and made happy noises, and I knew I’d found my forever home.

“What do you want to name her?” the man asked my girl as I licked her face and was rewarded with giggles and laughter.

“Lexi,” my girl sputtered between laughs.

My girl grew up with me, and for years we were as one. Except for when she left on the big yellow beast, we were never apart. Even when she went on the yellow beast, I waited every day for her to come home. Then one day instead of coming home on the yellow beast she came home in a small black beast with a boy.

“Lexi,” my girl said bringing the new boy to me, “this is Damon.”

I didn’t like the boy. He smelled bad. The smell of the boy reminded me of the bad raccoons who stole the trash and made the man very mad every spring and fall. But for my girl, I was nice and didn’t growl and let the bad boy into our home.

I remember the man talking to my girl the morning it happened.

“Kiri, I don’t want that boy here while your mother and I are out,” he said, and he sounded mad. The kind mad that he'd been when I’d been a pup and went potty in the house instead of outside.

The girl promised but I heard it in her voice, it was the tone she used when she took an extra dessert for me from the table without asking. My girl was up to something, something the man and woman wouldn’t approve of.

The man and woman left and short while later the boy arrived. My girl made me stay in the kitchen while they went into the man and woman's bedroom. They left the door cracked, and I could hear and smell everything. I wasn’t concerned until I heard my girl scream and the smell changed from one of excitement to one of terror.

I ran into the bedroom barking and ready to fight. The bad boy was on top of my girl, neither of them wearing much clothing, and he had a knife.

“You’ll do it if I tell you too!” he yelled not noticing me despite the barks.

“Lexi help!” my girl screamed, and I jumped onto the large bed.

The bad boy kicked his foot out toward my head but I was too fast. He missed me as he retreated off the bed and to the other side of the room.

I was now between my girl and the bad boy.

I growled and loosed a series of rapid barks. I had to announce my intent to attack before I struck because it confuses and scares the enemy. The bad boy may have been bigger than me, but I could smell the fear and rage blasting from his body. My girl had cared for me when I was a pup, now she was mine, and nobody would ever hurt her as long as I drew breath.

“Lexi no!” my girl screamed, her hand trying to pull her clothes back over her nakedness.

I’ve never understood why humans cover their bodies up. How do they mark their territory if they’re covered in fabric?

“You want a piece of me you fucking mutt?!” the bad boy exclaimed holding the blade out in front of him.

The bad boy was a threat, and I was no longer a young dog, but he’d have to kill me to get past me. My hackles were up, and a growl I’d never used rumbled in the cavern of my chest. My hind legs rose as my forepaws lowered in preparation to spring forth off the bed. This was war, and I wasn’t playing. The bad boy would die with my jaws locked on his throat, or he would push that blade in me, and I would spend eternity in the light and the green fields of the other world—the one I’d dreamed of as I waited for my family and my girl to join me.

The bad boy charged a moment after I launched myself at him.

“Lexi!” my girl screamed the fear in her voice clear.

Only one of us was walking away from this.

The bad boy lunged forward a fraction of a second after I launched myself up and toward him. He was unstable and unable to match my speed and accuracy. That’s the problem with humans—the two legs make them fast, but they also make them very easy to knock down.

My head slammed into his chest as the blade slipped into the flesh of my shoulder. The pain was white hot, like the time when I was a pup and stuck my nose into the hornet's nest behind the man's garage. The pain had been so bad they took me to see the nice woman in the white jacket who put stuff on my nose that made the pain go away. But there was no nice woman in a white jacket now.

My teeth clamped down on the bad boy's shoulder and blood flowed.

“Kiri get this fucking dog off me!” the bad boy screamed at my girl letting go of the knife which was still buried in my shoulder and trying to pry me loose with no success.

I don’t know what I expected my girl to do but breaking a lamp across his head was not on the list. The bad boy collapsed in a lump on the floor. He was still breathing but he wouldn’t be fighting anytime soon.

“You stay away from my dog you son of a bitch!” my girl yelled, and at that moment she sounded more like the man than anyone else.

I was so proud of her.

“Come on Lexi,” she said stroking my head. “Let’s call the police and get you some help.”

The End