Balto.

‘I don’t care,’ she told herself. Instead, last night Chase had tried to ask Jenna, but had stopped herself when she saw how sick Jenna looked. Even now Chase doubted her mother had even heard the question her daughter had asked her. Jenna had stared at Chase through dull, unfocused eyes for a few sickeningly silent seconds, then announced she wasn’t feeling very well and was going to bed early. Chase remembered Jenna’s goodnight kiss on her ear before the motherly husky left the room. Heat had seemed to radiate out from Jenna’s body, and the kiss was fleeting and so weak that Chase had barely felt it on the dark red fur of her ear.

Worry leaked into one tiny corner of Chase’s heart for her mother, but she quickly pushed it away and stood tall. She wasn’t going to be weak, whether it was physical or mental or emotional.

“Steele,” she muttered, and found herself beginning to pad towards the darkness. She slipped through the passageway and others after it, listening carefully. It didn’t take her long to find Steele’s alleyway again, and she stood outside for awhile, thinking. What exactly was she going to do when she went in there? Walk up to Steele, go “Hi,” like they were the best of friends, and then start shooting insults off at him? The thought made her grin rather wickedly, but she decided against it. She would act as an observer off to the side, watching Steele and how he would handle this plan of his. Shrugging, she lifted her left front paw to step inside.

“Uh, Chase!”

Chase froze, then whipped around to gaze in surprise into the youthful brown face of the mutt who had been the first to give his loyalty to Steele yesterday. He looked to be part German shepherd and part husky; his ears stuck up straight and he was brown all over, with a darker brown saddle spread over his back. He was slightly bigger and taller than Chase, but then most dogs were, since she had been small for her age since her birth. His fur looked as if it should have been shaggy and thick, but pink irritated bald spots paraded all over him, and strands of fur seemed to literally be hanging by a hair to his skinny body. His eyes were brown with tiny flecks of green swirling through them, and now those eyes contained a warning message for Chase. She stared at him, and he gazed earnestly back. “What are you doing back here?”

“None of your beeswax,” she snapped, and prepared to go through the entranceway again.

“Wait!” the dog cried, and pulled her back by her left hind leg so violently that she almost fell flat on her face. Chase glared up at the mutt, and she guessed she looked about as mad as she felt, because the strange dog took one step back in alarm.

“What do you want?” Chase said.

“Sorry about that,” the dog mumbled, “But…Chase, you’re not among friends here. Well, yeah, most of us street dogs like you for standing up to Steele like you did, but he’s got us under his control now. I don’t know how he did it, but…he’s taken over everything. We can’t even go through a dumpster looking for food without one of his ‘commandants’ coming to see that we don’t take too much.” Chase gave an impatient low growl. The mutt winced, and started to pick up the pace of his story. “I’m going to be seriously clawed for being out here when it’s not on an errand, but I had to warn you. Steele’s out to get you. I don’t know what he’s planning to do, but none of us want to see you get hurt or killed.”

Chase only half-believed what this guy was saying-he was from Steele’s army-and she hated getting told what to do. She held her head high and began to pad into the alley. “Let him try.”

The dog groaned. “Chase!!”

She spun around, baring her teeth. “Shut it!”

“Don’t you get what I’m telling you? Steele is going to kill you! So vamoose! Scram! Make like a banana and split!” With every exclamation he nudged her away from the alley with the tip of his muzzle. Chase drew back and snarled. She had had enough!

“Who ARE you?” she yelled.

He shushed her, and they were both silent as he listened for the footsteps of any dog coming out to investigate Chase’s shout. There were none.

The mutt looked at her with a curious expression on his face. “My name’s Ketchikan,” he hissed, “But most dogs call me Ketch. Now let me get this straight: you’re going in, even though you know Steele’s going to kill you?”

“I don’t care, okay?” she snapped.

Ketch’s expression hardened, and his hazel eyes went cold. “Fine. Go and get yourself killed. And maybe it’ll make you happy to know, while you’re dying I’ll be getting what’s left of my tail whipped because I came out here to save YOUR tail. Guess it was all for nothing.” He bowed his head and shook it, then he slipped away into the alley, and left Chase to stand on her own.

Bemused and not as confident as before, but still not wanting anyone to have the satisfaction of bossing her around, Chase peered after Ketch, then poked her head inside. She found herself creeping along the edge, startled by what she saw.

Wounded and weak dogs stood at attention in rows and rows that swept to fill the whole alley. Stronger, less ill dogs were either pacing up and down in front of a certain group of dogs, or going through and testing the strength of their group by having a short fight between them and one of their dogs. All the dogs that lost the fights were hit in the face with the claws of the stronger dogs, and the weak dogs would get back in line with their heads down. Chase guessed the stronger dogs were the commandants.

She looked over the army before her. It was pretty pathetic right now, but Chase also sensed an amazing amount of harshness and cruelty in it. How could Steele abuse such poor dogs?

“Impressive, huh?”

Chase recognized the cold, hard voice in an instant, and slowly turned her head until she could see the whole menacing form of the grinning malamute looming behind her. Steele sauntered up to her and stood at her side. Chase stiffened up as she had done with her father only yesterday, and she could almost taste the waves of self-confidence and pride and power radiating from Steele. He continued to grin in a repelling, yet strangely alluring nature so Chase had to force herself not to stare at him.

“It didn’t take me long to get them like this. They’re all so weak in mind and in strength, it’s like putty in my paws. We just have to make sure they stay weak in mind, but don’t stay as these pathetic little bundles of meat and bones like they are now. You know why they let me do this to them?...Well, do you?” Suddenly he rounded on her furiously, and she was careful to keep her gaze away from him as she shook her head. Steele stared at her steadily, then slunk back into position beside her and continued his rambling. “They know almost nothing of the world outside their alleyways. They’ve never heard of armies or losing your social status, because they have none. They’re also much weaker, and it’s easier to lead a group if you’re stronger than the rest. Am I right?” Chase felt his gaze searing her face, and again she focused her eyes on something far away and said nothing. A thin thread of annoyance came into Steele’s hard voice at Chase’s silence. “And now I-”-he chuckled despite himself-“I am their only hope of escaping their alleyway ‘home.’ They think I’m their leader, which I am, and that I know what’s best for them.” He laughed as if he found that utterly amusing.

Chase mustered up all the courage she had in her and swung her head round to look right into Steele’s sharp-edged face. He seemed to be studying her, considering something. She fired her gaze into his cool eyes and locked on to them to show she wasn’t afraid, though her heart was jumping in her ears. In fact, she couldn’t remember any time she had ever been more afraid, with this huge dog sitting here TALKING to her, and he was supposed to be out to kill her!

“You know, you could be mistaken as an alley dog yourself, with that leg of yours,” Steele said amiably, nodding to her crippled leg. An angry muscle stretched taut in Chase’s face, and her dark red ears slicked back in defiance. Steele went right on talking, not even seeming to notice her tightening stature. “But you’re not. You couldn’t possibly be, not with your attitude. All these other mutts have faced so many troubles they don’t fight anymore. But you haven’t given up. I’ve never had anyone stand up to me like you did yesterday…Well, maybe once.” Steele’s eyes glinted at the memory of a beautiful red and white husky reprimanding him for being a ‘glory hound’, a husky who Chase looked so much like. “But you’ve got guts. I respect that. YOU could be keeping these dogs in line, YOU could be helping control this whole operation…What do you think, Chase?”

Chase’s eyes never left Steele’s thin, proud face. She tried hard to grasp what he was offering, or indirectly commanding, and unconsciously her dark eyes ringed with pale golden brightness widened in realization. “You want me to…” She shook her head and her brow furrowed in suspicion. “Forget it, Steele. I could never be one of your ‘commandants.’ You’re just a pile of lies with a bunch of fur and a brain the size of one of the fleas on your back. Find someone else to help