VOICES:

-Dakota: Zac Efron

-Anyu: Claire Danes

-Sitka: Ashley Tisdale

Dakota

Sitka

Anyu

            Tail twitching, I stared ferociously into my attacker’s green eyes. He bared his teeth and lunged. I dove and rolled, knocking his feet right out from under him. Before either of us knew what was happening, I was sitting on him, pinning him to the ground.

“And that” I snorted “Is why I’m the leader”

Tanner struggled for a few seconds then finally went limp.

            “Yeah yeah now get off of me before I suffocate!”

With a grin, I helped my best friend back on his feet.

“You’re getting better… that fight lasted longer then the last one. A few more weeks and we’ll be ready”

We broke into a trot and headed to the tiny excuse for a creek where the rest of our small pack was dozing in the shade. When we arrived, Sasha was the only one awake enough to greet us: her two younger and darker siblings were sound asleep. Tanner’s eyes flitted across his younger siblings and a smile spread across his face.

With one huge bound, Tanner jumped right into the water, sending it spraying everywhere… including over Melora and Diego.

            Melora screeched, Diego scrambled around and darted away from his screaming older sister. Tanner, Sasha and I all laughed. Shaking with fury, Melora stormed over to Tanner.

                        “What is wrong with you?! We were trying to sleep you know!! You are so immature!!”

            “Well you should have been more careful” Tanner grinned. “After all, Dakota says we’re supposed to be training!”

Not sure what to say, Melora just snarled and shook all the water off onto Tanner.

            “Who’s the immature one now?” Tanner mumbled.

Diego poked his head through the branches.

            “She’s stopped yelling you can come out now” Tanner called.

Diego smiled and came back out.

                        “I was getting hot anyway” he said as he shook off the water.

I stretched out and plopped on the ground.

“Aren’t we all…?” I moaned. “It’s not even spring yet but it’s so much warmer then winter… I almost miss it”

            “Let’s just sleep it off”

I closed my eyes and rested my head on my front paws. Truth be told, I hadn’t had a good sleep in a long time. Three months. Three months since I had lost my younger sister. I never let it show on the outside but on the inside, I hated myself. I had two sisters and I only needed to look after one. But now, I had no idea where she was or if she was alive. And the only person I could blame was myself for not watching her more closely. However, it did give me a little push towards what needed to be done…

            Now the only thing on my mind was to train. For the three months Sitka had been gone for, I had been working on conditioning my pack to save my original pack. Boss had messed up things too much and he needed to be stopped. I had to be the one to stop him.

            The sounds of human feet reached my ears and woke me up. The fur on my back and neck stood on end and even though I couldn’t see him, I growled. The blanket covering my cage was yanked off, revealing a shabby, dirty and pale man. I snarled and refused to let my eyes leave his. In all the months I’d been here, he was the only thing that I hated.

            Three months ago, I had been captured by him in the wild and taken away from my new pack. After a long ride by train to another town full of people, I discovered I was going to be a fighting dog. But as soon as I reached my new “home”, I realized I was actually going to “make” fighting dogs. This man already had a champion and wanted to breed wolf into his dog. There was NO way I was going to let that happen and when the champion dog came to see me, I fought him instead. The unbelievable part was that I won.So now I was a fighting dog. Three months and dozens of fights later, I was still undefeated.

             “Shut up you stupid animal” the Man yelled over my snarling. “Or you’re not getting your food”

I quieted down but never stopped showing my teeth. The Man chucked some type of food scraps at me and I ate them hungrily, always keeping my eyes on the Man.

            “Better save up that energy” he snapped. “Cause you’re fighting something you’ve never fought before and I bet all my money on it… so it’s either you win or I’m getting rid of you”

He threw the blanket back over the cage and once again, I was thrown into darkness. My cage was set behind the Man’s house even though I rarely saw it because of the blanket. I shared this side of the house with two other caged dogs. One was a kind hearted Rottweiler named Ren who was never going to be a fighting dog. I didn’t even know why the Man still kept him. The other was my almost mate, Stone. He was a scarred, cold- hearted husky, once brimming with confidence but after his defeat, was afraid of me. Each of us was also chained to the ground so that the Man could just open our doors and run around for exercise. But we could only be let out one at a time or else we’d fight each other.

                                    *                                  *                                  *

            Later on that night, I heard the Man’s footsteps coming back to me again. Before he opened the door or whipped off the blanket, I knew what he was coming for and what he was holding. The blanket was whipped off but it was still dark outside. And there was the Man with his stick with a loop at the end so that I couldn’t bite him. He opened the door a crack and slipped in the pole. I growled softly as the loop slipped over my neck and tightened.

            “Alright Killer, let’s go” he drawled as he dragged me out.

            I slowly opened my eyes and soaked up the early morning feeling. Birds chirped and the leaves were rustling. Jax shifted next to me, making me take my chin off his back and set it between my paws. I tried to close my eyes and think about what had happened three months ago.

“Mackenzie, I think I love you…” I said shyly. The look on his face changed from confusion to horror. The happy feeling I had inside disappeared and my smile faded.

He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

“What’s wrong?” I asked worriedly.

            “I don’t love you…” he finally managed to choke out. “I can’t love you”

“Oh” was all I could say.

Mackenzie stood up and started to back away.

“Please no” I begged.

            “Ace would…” he started.

I stood up to follow him but he stood up and broke into a run, leaving me at the pond.

Someone’s nails clicked on the rock floor. My eyes flew open and my head snapped up.

“Mackenzie?”

Mackenzie did a double take and hurried out.

I moaned and let my head fall between my paws again. Mackenzie didn’t want to be around me any more. Jax opened his eyes and yawned.

            “Mornin’ sunshine” he drawled with a grin. Then, noticing the miserable look on my face, added “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing” I grumbled, standing up to exit the cave.

            The rules that had been made just for me were still in effect, so as soon as I went outside, Jade was there to escort me… but since we were friends now, she probably would have followed me even if there weren’t any rules.

            “What’s wrong?” She asked worriedly.

“Nothing” I