here.”

“You’ve been unconscious for almost a day, my girl,” Jenna said, her red-brown eyes wide, “We were worried about you.”

“Rosy’s father was one of the people to come to your rescue,” Balto said, jerking his head over his shoulder, “He’s busy paying the bill.”

“What bill?” Chase asked, her thinking getting garbled for a second.

“For your hospital stay,” Balto said too quickly, then cleared his throat. “Of course.”

Chase raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing about his weird behavior. “Oh, yeah…Of course.”

A small, nervous silence followed.

“I wonder how all those dogs knew where you were, or even when to show up,” Balto said. He paused to think. “…Chase, didn’t you say something about a signal?”

“Yeah,” she replied, wondering why her brain was feeling so loopy all of a sudden, “It was a howl. I think Steele meant it to be yours, Dad, when he hurt you while you were fighting, but I accidentally howled when Steele started hurting my leg…” She turned her head to see what her crippled leg looked like, and froze.

It wasn’t there.

Her leg was gone, replaced by a thick white bandage wound around a small stump. She stared at it, speechless, then tried to move the stump. It couldn’t move, but it hurt wildly all the same. She spun her head around to glare fiercely at her parents. “NO!”

“Chase, Rosy’s parents decided to do the operation,” Balto explained anxiously, “Listen, this was going to happen sooner or later. They’ve wanted to get you in here and do the operation for a long time, now. But since you’re always on your own and you only slip into your mother’s late at night, they could never find you. This was their only chance.”

“To do what??” Chase yelled, “To humiliate me and take away-”

“The one thing that’s been holding you back your whole life!” Balto exclaimed. Jenna placed her paw on top of his and motioned for them to go, but Balto wasn’t finished. “As soon as you get your balance, Chase, you can run! You won’t limp! You’ll be able to do things you never thought possible! I want that for you. Don’t you?”

With a frustrated cry Chase turned away from her parents. Of course she wanted it. Of course she didn’t. Why couldn’t they understand? She wanted her leg back, to show the world she was still an individual even if her leg slowed her down. It had given her motivation, something to live for. Now what was left?...And yet, another small part of her had always wanted to run, to be normal in at least that way. Now what was holding her back? Maybe she had become too used to the idea that she would always be the dog on the outside edge. Now that would be over, and what would she do?

“Leave me alone,” she whispered through gritted teeth. When she heard no movement, she growled, “GO!” and immediately felt worse.

There was hesitation, and then paws tapped across the shiny floor and back to Rosy’s parents. Chase smacked her paw down on the table limply, and suddenly felt a twinge of pain near her new stump; near, because she suddenly felt as if her leg was back and it was tingling painfully as if it was being stabbed with thousands of glinting silver needles. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the pain, but it kept attacking and seemed to have teamed up with her guilt and hate. They all mauled her viciously, and she felt like she was drowning in a sea of dark, deep water and doggy-paddling for dear life. She didn’t know if she was going to drown or not.

Nine days later, Chase was restless. She hated the doctor’s, mainly because there was nothing to do. She was bored out of her skull. The first couple days had been the worst, though, and she hadn’t been bored at all. She had been in too much pain to be bored. She had kept having phantom pain, and sometimes it felt like she had a huge itch on her twisted leg, but she couldn’t bite at it because her leg wasn’t there.

Almost as bad as the pain were the nurses. They talked to her like she was a puppy in high, fake-happy tones, and they seemed to be experts at humiliating dogs and people. The first three days Chase couldn’t move at all, not even to go outside to ‘go’, so they had slipped a few sheets of newspaper under her and made her ‘go’ on there. Chase felt it was the most undignified experience she had ever gone through. What would Ketch and the other dogs think of if they saw her now? Definitely not the arrogant, stubborn wolf-dog that had trained them to fight almost without mercy. Chase daily felt ashamed at her current position, and was determined to get out of the doctor’s as soon as she could limp; yes, limp. Not walk; limp. She was that desperate.

Her leg had begun to heal, and she could stand up now without falling over. Walking and running would be a problem, though. She knew she put most of her weight on her back legs, and when she was walking or running she pushed from her back legs to get going, too. She realized with only one back leg she would always move in a funny, lopsided way. More than once she wondered if it would have been easier just to leave her leg as it was instead of having to limp through the rest of her life.

That day, Chase rustled around on her table and growled softly, hoping she would get somebody’s attention. One of the newer nurses slipped over and bent down until she was face to face with her patient. “Today’s the day you can go outside. The doctor says you’re healed enough.” The nurse gently lifted her from the table and set her on the floor. Chase wobbled, then got her balance and tried to figure out how to walk. Experimentally, she raised her left front foot and set it down. Step One.

She raised her left back leg and set it down. Step Two.

Finally she raised her right front leg and set it down. Step Three. She had moved a whole step forward without falling over. She knew it was a pathetic thing to be proud of, but at least now she could move.

She continued to walk in this laborious fashion until eventually she came to the door. The nurse pushed it open, and Chase hobbled outside onto the cold patch of ground in the back of the doctor’s. The wind filtered through her fur, and she shivered. She had been inside for so long, she’d forgotten how cold it was in the outside world.

The nurse stood watch inside the building with her pale face looking out the window, having shut the door so no cold air could get inside to harm the other patients. Chase sluggishly sniffed around the area, and almost immediately regretted it as snow flew up her nose and almost froze the insides of her nostrils, and then it melted and dripped out of her nose as lukewarm droplets. Feeling stupid, Chase wiped her muzzle with her tail as the wind blew yet another wintry gust her way.

“Chase.” She quickly looked up and around, wondering where the whisper was coming from. The voice sounded oddly familiar…“ Pssst. Chase. Over here.” Her eyes swiveled to the pile of pine logs stacked at the side of the yard, and what she had at first thought was the pile’s shadow moved slightly forward, and a brown paw popped out to beckon her. “C’mon,” the husky voice murmured again.

Chase tentatively limped towards the dog in the shadows, and when she came close to the log pile she could make out a face in the dark. “Ketch?” she asked, straining forward. He nodded, and she stopped in her tracks to study him; plus, she didn’t know how to sit down without keeling over, so standing awkwardly seemed to be the only other option.

“You never told me you were Balto’s daughter,” Ketch accused her, getting straight to the point.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Chase huffed.

“Hi,” Ketch said, “You never told me you were Balto’s daughter.”

Chase shrugged. “There wasn’t much time for talk, was there? It wouldn’t have mattered, anyway.” Ketch said something else, but Chase interrupted him. “Where’s Steele?”

“Somewhere out on the frozen Alaskan tundra,” Ketch replied with a serious face but a mischievous gleam in his eye that was new to Chase, “Me and the rest of the dogs chased him out of town, and then we went pretty far into the wilderness, too. Some of the dogs lost interest after awhile and went back to town, but most of us were having the time of our lives making Steele run for his. We all eventually ran out of steam, though, so we all stopped and watched Steele run like a scared pup into the wilds until we couldn’t see him anymore. Where he is now, nobody knows, but knowing him he’s probably made it to another town and having the time of his life with all the attention of a lost dog…Did I leave out anything?”

“No, I think you’re okay,” Chase answered, shifting around as the cold began to get to her again. She found Ketch staring at her new stump, and sighed and narrowed her eyes at him. “You might as well ask, though I know nothing’s going to stop you.”

“This is a question I didn’t think I’d have to ask,” Ketch commented, looking away from the stub for the time being, “What happened?”

“I guess Steele scratched up my leg so bad I had to get it amputated,” Chase explained, realizing now that that was probably the other reason she had got it cut off, remembering how Steele had attacked it so savagely, “And also my mother’s owners have been after me for awhile to