ground, Jenna standing beside him.

Jenna whispered to him. “Balto, you do notice, all of them are foamers, right?”

“Yeah, just don’t let them draw blood.” He whispered back.

“Ah, another female, when we kill your man piece, you’ll be ours too, just like this one.” The second rat motioned to Addy.

“She isn’t yours; leave now if you don’t want to get hurt.” Balto warned.

The rats looked at each other, and burst into laughter, they began to mock Balto. He started to growl, but Jenna had already made her move, she leapt at the rat that was mocking Balto, and pinned him to the ground, she landed six blows in seconds that knocked the rat unconscious. She glared at the other, who simply stood there in astonishment. Addy ran from behind the rat, and stood behind Jenna.

Jenna growled at the rat. “If you don’t want to have ever bone in your body broken, I strongly suggest that you pick your two pals here up and get lost.”

The rat could barely speak. “Lady….what’s wrong with you?”

Jenna growled louder, “I don’t like being spoken to like that.” The rat quickly lifted his two heavy friends onto his back and scampered off. Jenna turned to Addy.

“You alright?” She asked. Addy didn’t respond, she was shivering violently; tears welled up in her eyes. She shook until she couldn’t hold it in any longer, and broke into a fit of sobs, digging her head into Jenna’s shoulder. All the while she cried out, “Thank you, thank you, oh god.” Jenna rested her chin on the back of Addy’s neck. Balto was still in shock of what Jenna just did, he was needless to say, amazed.

Chapter 3

Addy wiped the tears from her eyes as they walked back towards the barn. “I’m…I’m so sorry. For, for the…oh. Why can’t I even finish a sentence without my phobias kicking in?”

“What do you mean?” Balto asked.

“I have a fear of, everything you could imagine, and I hate it!” Addy almost broke into tears again. They just kept quiet until they reached the barn. Great, now they probably think you’re a creep. When they reached the barn, Addy reluctantly fought through her phobia of talking for a long time, and began her story.

“About a year ago, my parents abandoned me and my brother, it was a cold winter, and they thought we probably wouldn’t survive. After walking for days we came upon Nome, I’d never seen anything like it before. We decided to stay there for a while, hide in the shadows, but a few days after we found an alley to stay in, a musher found us one day, and took my brother in. He didn’t even try to fight, and he was nearly a year older than me. As he walked off with the musher, he called out, bye sis, have fun with the freezing winter. I’ve been on my own since, barely keeping myself alive.” She got a look of rage in her eyes.

“My god, do you know what happened to your brother?” Jenna asked.

“Yeah, he went on to become some big famous sled racing dog, he probably doesn’t even remember who I am.” Her rage turned to sadness.

“He’s a sled racer, maybe Balto knows him, what’s his name?” Jenna asked.

“His name was Nyogo, but as they walked off that night that they left me, the musher called him something that I’ve only heard him get called since.” Addy’s rage returned.

“What is it?” Balto insisted. Balto’s curiosity turned to shock as she uttered the name of her brother.

“Steele.” Addy started to growl.

THE END

(for now)