about him was a shade of gray, somewhere in between good and bad, or something that would be labeled bad anywhere else but here was instead thought good. The abusing of the street dogs was one such circumstance. Anyone else would call beating up the alley dogs, and punishing them physically, cruel, but Steele tossed that off, saying the excursion and physical fight made the dogs stronger. And the creepy thing was, Steele was right. The dogs had gotten stronger since they had had to have trainings and beatings regularly.

Chase constantly felt like another eye had opened up somewhere inside her to show her this strange world where anything could be twisted around to make it look good. Chase was starting to see an even darker side of the world than before, even with all her anger against the world. She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not. Hate, anger, and misfits were welcomed here, but so was might over right, war, and blood. Ooh, the blood! Chase had never seen so much blood in her whole life before the days spent with Steele’s army. It was constantly oozing down the backs of the street dogs, whether from fights or illness, and she had to learn to harden herself completely against the bright crimson liquid that repulsed her so much.

She and Ketch exchanged quick glances daily. Somehow a sort of agreement had come between them: ‘I’ll watch your back if you’ll watch mine.’ They looked out for each other. Ketch would slip out of his battalion for short periods of time to show Chase ways to strengthen her crippled leg, or several techniques that would increase her chances of winning a fight despite her leg. Chase would help him up every time he fell from a weakness he had obtained from some virus that had penetrated his body through the sores on his bald spots. They both nodded to each other to warn each other when Steele was approaching either one of them. They were in this together, and with each passing day Chase felt herself moving away from the world of her frustrated father and sick mother and rejection, and moving into the world where she had control, where she was strong.

That day Chase was doing a routine check-over of one of the stronger battalions. The commandant, a young female St. Bernard, sat at attention to the side, awaiting Chase’s critiques.

Chase’s brown eyes wandered over the crowd before coming to rest on the first small mutt in line. “Alright, let’s see how strong you are,” Chase said to him. The small dog stepped forward, and before he could even breathe Chase launched herself onto him with a silent snarl.

She could feel the writhing body beneath her and smell the dust and mud in the thin fur rubbing against her face, and closed her eyes against it. ‘I’m doing this to make this dog strong. It will make me stronger, too. Fighting this dog is for a good cause: the dog, me, the army, Steele…’ With this thought, Chase plunged her nails downwards into the rolling ball of fur and bones beneath her, and when she heard the yelps and felt and smelled the sticky blood she jumped off and stared down at the tiny creature huddling itself into the dirt. Stripes of scarlet crisscrossed its shoulders and chest, but besides that it seemed unhurt. Whimpers reached Chase’s ears from the furry bundle at her paws.

“Get up,” she commanded. The mutt sniveled for a few more seconds, then raised itself up and scrambled back into line with its head down. “I’ve done you no kindness by stopping the fight early. If you don’t get stronger you’ll be worthless to Steele, and the army as a whole…Be strong. Do you hear me?”

The mutt nodded almost fearfully, and Chase moved on to the next dog. She didn’t hit the mutt in the face like the commandants would have done; she never hit any of the dogs after a fight if they had lost. She figured they had already learned their lesson by losing.

The next dog was much more of a challenger, an agile Akita who could evade any attack Chase made and still be beating her up at the same time. The fight went on for quite some time with the two of them dancing back and forth, jabbing and pushing and dodging and growling. Chase had learned to use her twisted leg as a shield for the back half of the right side of her body since it wasn’t much in attack, and when her crooked leg began to throb Chase knew she had to stop or she might collapse. Before the Akita could make any sign of another attack, Chase flipped over on her back to show the white fur of her underside. It was the white flag of surrender.

The Akita stopped stock still and looked quite pleased with himself. Chase got up and nodded to him as he slipped back in line, and then she called, “Good. Who’s next?”

Almost immediately she was whirling through a vortex of brown and green. The colors dizzied her for a few seconds, then she blinked a couple times to find herself locked into Ketch’s hazel eyes. He stared at her intently, and she knew he was the next dog in line; he was her challenger for this next fight.

Her mouth went dry, and she ran her pink tongue over her mouth to free her words, but none would come.

“Do we have a problem here, Second Commander?”

Steele’s voice rang out behind her, and she almost jumped out of her skin.

“Aah!-I mean no, there’s not problem,” she said hurriedly, angry at herself for yelling in surprise. She should know by now that Steele could be creeping up behind her at any moment, and that she should not sound surprised, for that would mean showing weakness for that one second in time. She had to be strong, always.

“Well, what’re you waiting for? Get moving,” Steele commanded, sitting down to watch the fight.

‘Oh, great,’ Chase thought, and rolled her eyes when her back was turned to Steele. She tensed herself up and crouched, ready to spring, as Ketch stepped out of line and came out to face her. She squeezed her muscles and tried to jump forward, but something stopped her. Frustrated, she tried again, heaving her slight body forward, but again she couldn’t attack. Something was holding her back.

She tried again and this time almost made it, but she made the mistake of looking up at Ketch as she sprang forward. His hazel eyes were puzzled, but he wasn’t trying to attack either. Chase found herself skidding to a halt at his paws. She got up, turned to face Steele, and said boldly, “I can’t fight him.”

“And why not?” Steele grunted irritably.

Chase was careful to keep her gaze steady on Steele. “He’s my friend,” she said, “And I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Really,” Steele said, almost laughing, “And what do you say to this, soldier?”

“I can’t fight her either,” Ketch said in a low, firm voice, “Same reason.”

Chase’s heart swelled so much she thought it would burst out of her chest and slither to the ground at her feet. She had never had any friends, only family, and those relationships had always been distant. Now she had a real friend for the first time…or was Ketch doing this just as a creative way to annoy Steele? Chase quickly looked up at Ketch’s face, and could see his words were true. His jaw was jutted and set, and his eyes narrowed until they sparked, but there was something so honest about his expression that Chase knew he was doing it out of friendship. She glanced back at Steele, cursing herself for doubting Ketch.

“How sweet,” Steele snickered, “A commandant and my second-in-command refusing to follow orders. Well, you’ll regret it soon enough.” He turned to the female St. Bernard still at attention next to her battalion and barked, “Commandant! To the stone wall. Eight hits each.” He arched an eyebrow at Chase and Ketch. “It would’ve been only five, but our little friend here owes me a couple from last time. Right, soldier?”

Ketch growled. Chase could feel the sound resonating from his throat and tingling through her tense body. The St. Bernard seemed to hesitate, and Steele shot her one of his specialty icy-hot death glares. She winced and pattered over to Chase and Ketch, and before Chase knew what was happening she had been picked up by the scruff of her neck and was being dragged toward the wall. Chase tried to fight her way free, but then she remembered Ketch’s punishment last time when she had saved him, and knew trying to escape was pointless. Her little rescue mission to save Ketch seemed to be pointless now, too.

She was flung into the air and came crashing into the stone wall, and slid to the bottom as limp as a rag doll. Pain exploded through her head as it hit the stone, and her skin and bones burned as she scraped down the wall to the dirt. Fire seemed to have consumed her, and all she wanted to do was cry out in either defiance or anguish; she wasn’t sure which.

She winced when Ketch landed beside her, his skull knocking against the wall. She was dazed, and yet had never felt so much in her life: pain, confusion, shame, and more pain. She could see Ketch’s hazel eyes were half-open and spinning into her own, and she wondered how many times he had been up against this wall before.

A blazing knife opened up the skin on Chase’s back. She howled before she could stop herself, and then bit her tongue so hard it felt thick and rubbery inside her mouth. The pain was so much more than she could ever have imagined. She felt the tearing nails of the St. Bernard being plucked out of her flesh, and winced as a muffled groan came from Ketch as the sharp nails dug into his back, too. One hit down, seven more to live through.

The nails came back to torture Chase, scratching scrimping digging dragging…It