newcomer was, my blood ran cold. The huge black and tan dog with gleaming brown eyes went over to Shelby and greeted her reverently. Unable to control myself and against all my good sense, I stepped right out into the room. Shelby’s mother, a white husky, let out a soft cry when she saw me.

“You’re the dog that put me through the worst years of my life” I uttered coldly.

At first shocked, Rex’s eyes lit up with remembrance.

     “You’re that brat I sent out of town” he said.

“I thought you said he was out cold Blizzard!” I heard Shelby’s mom whisper.

Blizzard, Shelby’s father, didn’t answer her. He seemed kind, but he was still shocked by my sudden appearance. Meanwhile, Shelby just stared, but in a different way then her family. At first it was hard to ignore her, but when Rex stood up and walked toward me, I bared my teeth too and crouched. He opened his mouth to say something but I never gave him the chance. I pounced right on him and knocked him over. But Rex wasn’t some poor fighting stray. He kicked my bandaged leg and with a smothered yelp, I fell on the floor right next to him. Shelby’s mother started to bark for her humans and Blizzard shielded his daughter from the fight. Rex was up on his feet in an instant and trying to hit my hurt leg only to get kicked in his face, but then the humans crashed through the door and gasped when they saw me. They didn’t care about how I had gotten out. But they did care that Rex had “caught” me.

     “Good boy” said the male human, patting the grinning Rex on the head. Then he went out the door and a few moments later returned with a rope. I growled softly. The man scowled and slipped the rope over my neck as careful as he could without getting to close to me. Then he yanked me back to a different room right next to the front door. This time, he tied me to a table and left me in there. I sighed and plopped down on the floor. I could tell from where I was that this door was thicker anyway. I was stuck. Although I could still hear the human voices and dogs voices still chattering excitedly, I let my heavy eyelids droop. I wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon…

     The next thing I knew, my eyes flashed open. What woke me up? A soft scratching noise came from behind the door. Slowly, very slowly, I rose to my feet and hid in the dark corner as far as the rope would allow me, just in case I needed to launch a surprise attack. The door finally swung open and the only light that streaked across the door came from the fireplace. It must have still been night… A faint shadow moved across the floor. It looked like a dog’s but it was too dark to see clearly. Then the last dog I’d thought would ever come into the room came into view: Shelby.

“What do you want?” I sneered.

     “You should be a little nicer to me” she scoffed. “I’m your only hope now”

I narrowed my eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

     “My humans said that he’s going to get you put down… so I’m going to help you escape”

“Why would you do that?” I shot back, still a bit riled.

     “I’m a nice dog” she smiled pleasantly. “I just need a little help escaping myself and I think you could help me”

I narrowed my eyes again and stiffened. 

“Okay, here’s the plan: we can go through the front doggie door and you can escort me into the wild! Then I can find a wolf and he can be my mate! I’ve always wanted to lead my own wolf pack! I’d be so good at it!”

I opened my mouth to tell her how self absorbed she was, but before anything could come out, I jammed it shut. Then I just grinned. I doubted she could keep up with me anyway… and she wouldn’t last that long with a wolf even if she could make it out of town.

     “Okay” I replied, watching her through half closed eyes. “Let’s go escape!”

With a huge smile, Shelby slipped the rope off my neck and I shook, happy to finally be free of the itchy thing. Then Shelby cautiously led me to the front door. We stepped out and a fresh burst of cold air rushed into me. 

     “Well what are we waiting for?!” Shelby whispered excitedly.

“Good question… so this is where we part”

Before Shelby’s happy face could turn to shock, I leapt off the front porch and hit the frozen ground running. I let out a short laugh and ran as fast as my feet could carry me. I didn’t stop running until I had safely made it into the woods. Shelby, being purebred husky, didn’t stand a chance out here. However, my mother was half wolf and I was sure I had some hidden instincts buried in my head. I took a short break, smiling and panting, to take one last look back at the town. I didn’t believe it! Not more then a few feet back was Shelby! I gritted my teeth and dove into the maze of trees. Surely she’d give up then…

I dived under branches, weaved through tree trunks and used up any reserve energy I had left. A few minutes later, my leg was throbbing and I finally pulled up to a stop, carrying my left hind leg off the ground. I grinned at my own cleverness and panted happily again. Something crashed behind me. There was no way…

     “I can’t believe you!” shrieked Shelby.

I grimaced and sat deliberately on the ground. HOW?!

     “I saved your life! If I wasn’t as fast as you, you would’ve left me behind!”

“I’m injured. I could have easily lost you if you hadn’t dropped those human tools on me. So I think you owe me” I mumbled.

I picked myself up and dragged myself over to the small creek I had been running alongside. Shelby followed me and watched me suspiciously as I drank. Her blue eyes widened in surprise as she spotted the dog tags.

     “You’re an army dog?!”

I paused for a second, deciding whether or not to talk about it.

“Honorably discharged” I muttered sarcastically.

     “I don’t believe you. I’m smarter then that you know... I’m purebred... no dog that-”

“Are you really that self-absorbed or are you acting?! Does the whole world just revolve around your little purebred mind?”

Shelby’s eyes smoldered.

     “I have never-!”

“See! Every time something comes out of your mouth, it has to do with you! Now why don’t you go home to your purebred parents”

I stepped into the creek and sat down in the cool water, letting wash over my injured leg. Shelby struggled for a good comeback but nothing clicked. Finally she scoffed.

     “Well you’re a far cry from that pup I knew when I was little! I think you deserved to be sent to that place even if it didn’t fix you”

“I never deserved that!” I growled. “You deserve to be left out here”

Shelby whipped around.

     “You have no idea how hard my life is!”

“How hard could your life be?” I laughed dryly. 

     “How would you like to have everything in your life set up for you before you were born?! My owners are actually running a race to see who the fastest dog in Alaska is so that they can buy him to be my mate so I can have puppies for the rest of my life!”

“Not my problem” I snorted. “Why did you even try to get me of all people to help you anyway? I tried to attack you! For all you know, I could have tried something worse!”

Shelby shrugged. I was losing interest.

“Just go home. You can’t last out here anyway” 

Shelby started to walk away, then suddenly turned around with a coy smile. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

     “Well there is something else in this for you…”

She walked back loftily.

“None of that girly crap is going to work on me” I snapped as she got closer.

Shelby shrugged, but her eyes flashed back to mine again as if she had another idea.

     “Well... you obviously don’t like Rex for whatever reason…” she said softly, pretending not to care. “Well if I chose to be with some half- blooded, supposedly dangerous criminal over you, wouldn’t you want to pull your fur out?”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you in the first place” I muttered under my breath.

     “What?”

“Fine. You can follow me around… but I’m not catching your food, I’m not protecting you and I’m sure as heck not going to be friends”

     “Have it your way” she said, finding a good place to sleep in the frozen grass.

With that done, I plopped onto the ground and closed my weary eyes.

     “What was that?!” Shelby shrieked suddenly.

I opened my eyes and lazily looked at the frantic silver husky.

“I don’t know. Go to sleep or I’m leaving you behind tomorrow”

Shelby threw me a dirty look and lay back down; this time a little closer to me. Not a second later, she was back on her feet again.

     “There was something moving right over there in those bushes!” she yelped.

“I hope there was” I moaned.