quickly stood and scooped Robin and Silver onto his back, and Gail ran beside as he dashed toward his sister and his enemy. “Hold on, Kaila!” he breathed, “I’m coming.” 

Despite Kaila’s efforts, Lucas had her pinned. Kaila’s gaze crackled as she glared up at him. “Why did you kill him?”

“Why?” Lucas snorted. “He was after my girl; Kira. And now you know entirely too much.” His claws curled around her throat, and he pressed her down hard. “Any last words?”

“Leave my sister alone.”

Kaila turned in shock to see a dirty, flea-bitten dog she didn’t recognize padding purposefully towards them, and his face said he was mad and out to kill.

Using Lucas’ distraction to her advantage, she flung Lucas onto the snow, which he hit with a groan. She scrambled upwards and studied the stranger as he stepped closer and closer. She knew he had heard his voice somewhere, and his scent was familiar, too…She squinted to try and see the fur coloring underneath the snow and grime, and when she saw the red flecks on white she thought her heart would burst. “Dusty?”

For an answer, the dog grinned and brushed his head against hers in a hug. Kaila froze, but belief slowly spread through her, and a smile split her face as two small tears graced her cheeks. “Dusty!”

“Hi, Kaila,” he said quietly, backing up and taking in her joyful, confident face, the face he hadn’t seen in months. Kaila had been his guardian, his teacher. And he had her back.

“But how did you-” Kaila gasped.

“Aren’t you supposed to be DEAD?” Lucas yelled.

Dusty looked at Lucas with a cool, penetrating gaze. “It wasn’t as far to fall as it looked, or felt,” he said, “The worst I got was a huge bruise all over one side of my body. Even so, I know I was lucky.” He scowled. “But Kira wasn’t.”

“Oh, I get it,” Lucas chuckled, “Instead of you dying, like I wanted, she did. Don’t you just love irony?”

“She died due to injuries from child birth,” Dusty said through gritted teeth, “Injuries from giving birth to YOUR pups.”

“Boo hoo?” Lucas said, raising an eyebrow, “And what do you want me to do about it?”

“I want you to leave and never come back.”

“You know what’s so annoying about you?” Lucas remarked conversationally, “You’re constantly going blah, blah, blah about what’s right and good, and all that other fun stuff. Let’s see you fight for once!” Lucas leapt at Dusty, and the two tumbled over and under each other, making the snow fly.

Dusty gathered all the strength and cunning he had learned over the past few months and thrashed out at Lucas, clawing and biting. He wasn’t just fighting for himself now; he was battling for Kaila, and Kira, and any other female Lucas had hurt during his life. He dug in his claws and pitched Lucas over to the side, where the gray mutt lay still.

Dusty hurried over and pushed his paw down on Lucas’ neck. The mutt’s eyes bulged the slightest bit as Dusty choked him. “Everyone would be better off with you dead,” Dusty told him.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t be better off with me dead,” Lucas said peevishly.

Dusty felt sick: sick of Lucas, sick of fighting, sick of conflict. If Lucas was gone, everything would probably go back to normal, which was exactly what Dusty wanted, so he could forget. He narrowed his eyes and forced his paw down on Lucas’ throat.

“Any last words?” Kaila taunted from the side.

“Kaila, are you all right? What’s going on?” Balto rushed up with Jenna in tow, along with other dogs who had come to help or see the action. “We saw the whole thing from Nome-” His eyes widened almost in unison with Jenna’s. “Dusty?”

“Our father wouldn’t approve of this, would he, Balto?” Lucas said in raspy tones, “I mean, my own nephew, killing his own uncle?”

Balto froze, along with everyone else. He studied the situation intensely, then looked Lucas right in the eye. “What?”

“When you mentioned Scout in your speech in the boiler room, I remembered what my mother told me about my father,” Lucas said, pushing himself to his feet. Dusty was so shocked, he let him up, and Lucas’ voice returned to normal without the pressure of Dusty’s paw on his neck. “His name was also Scout, he was also a mail dog in Nome, and he too had a friend called Ranger. Scout had an affair with a gray mutt in the alleyways-my mother, Leah- and me and my litter were the ‘accidental’ result. After I was born, my mother abandoned my litter, and Scout went on a mail run, never to come back to Nome.” Lucas grinned sadly. “So I guess we’re half-brothers.”

Balto stood still for a long time, his mouth hanging open and his eyes wide as if he was trying to figure out where he was and where reality had gone. He looked from Lucas to Dusty to Kaila to Jenna, and when Jenna shook her head in disbelief his expression hardened. “So you’re saying my…our father…was a two-timer?” he whispered.

“Like I said, it was an accident,” Lucas said with a shrug, “But I’m still family.”

“What kind of an excuse is that?” Kaila cried, “Dad, Lucas pushed Dusty out of his harness and down the cliff! And the only reason Lucas didn’t hurt me is because Dusty got here!”

“Dusty,” Balto murmured, turning to his son, “Is that what happened?”

“Yes,” Dusty said firmly, “Yes, it’s all true!”

Balto’s golden eyes seemed to flicker with a steadily feeding fire. He turned on Lucas, who at the look on Balto’s face tried once again to worm himself out of a bad situation. “Look, it was all an accident,” he tried, backing up as Balto advanced on him, “Dusty was falling already! And Kaila, she attacked ME! She was so grief-stricken by Dusty’s, er, death that she blamed it on me, and started attacking me! What was I supposed to do, stand there and let her claw my eyes out? It was in self defense!” When he saw Balto wasn’t buying it, Lucas got a desperate glint in his eye. “Listen, Balto, I’m your half-brother!”

“You’ll never come near my children again,” Balto growled, stopping when he had Lucas backed up near the broken bottles.

“Oh, c’mon, get over it already! It was all a big misunderstanding,” Lucas pleaded, “I’m family!”

“Well, not to me!”

A black and white blur crashed out of the dark and into Lucas, smashing him onto the colored bottles of the polar ice caps. The shattered shards pierced his heart, and with an agonized cry he fell limp. A few drops of his blood dripped down to coat the glass. His body blocked the light from the lantern, and the Northern Lights flickered and faltered, dying to become broken bottles covered with the blood of a predator.

The black and white dog lifted her head from on top of Lucas, and her whirling green eyes met Dusty’s. “Hey, Dusty.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Lucas…is dead,” Kira said shakily. She gestured forcefully with a paw. “Then who is this guy?”

“Kira?” Dusty breathed, padding closer. Kira picked herself up and trotted over to him, wincing when her crooked leg hit the ground. “But-but you’re supposed to…! How did you…!”

“I had some help,” Kira said, looking over her shoulder as if she could still see her rescuer, “From Brenner. The wolf that chased us, remember? He’s actually okay. He says he’s sorry about what he did.”

“Mama?” a tiny voice squeaked.

Dusty looked over at a small, shadowy hideaway between two large snowdrifts. “You can come out now, guys,” he called, “It’s safe. And you can guess who’s here to see you!” The three pups scrambled out of the dark and ran to their mother, whimpering happily. Kira smiled and cuddled and kissed them all.

“Dusty.” Jenna stepped forward with a warm smile. “Although it’s kind of crazy right now, well, I just want to say…It’s good to have you back!” She bounded up to him and hugged him with such force that it almost knocked him over.

He grinned gently after he had gotten his wind back. “I missed you too, Mom.”

“What the heck’s going on here?” a man’s voice shouted. Some of the townspeople had come to see what their dogs were up to. Julie had followed the crowd, hoping, just hoping, that maybe her dog could have come back…

“Dusty?” Julie breathed, kneeling in the snow. Dusty immediately ran to her, but the expression on her face stopped him. She didn’t recognize him.

‘Oh, please let her know it’s me!’ Dusty prayed to whoever was listening. If Julie didn’t know who he was, nothing could ever be the same.

Julie slowly raised a mittened hand, her palm facing Dusty. Her long black hair blew into her brown eyes as she stared at him intensely. Dusty wondered what in the world she was doing.

“High five?” she asked softly.

Memory exploded through Dusty’s brain. Immediately he leapt up and slapped his paw into her hand, and with a cry of joy Julie wrapped her arms around him. “Dusty!” He licked her face thoroughly, and she laughed and buried her face in his fur. Dusty felt Julie’s hair tickle his face, and her