Girl, Stolen(37)
Cheyenne hoped it wasn’t really obvious that she was crying again. At the same time, she didn’t want to stop talking, not when Griffin seemed interested. She wanted to bind him to her with gauzy ropes of words. She took a deep breath and said, “But a dog’s not just a machine. You don’t work your dog when you’re at home. A dog needs time to just be a dog. How about that dog you’ve got outside? When is it ever just a dog?”
“Duke?” Griffin let out a surprised laugh. “Duke’s not a dog. Not really.” He snorted again, as if the idea was ridiculous. Then he asked, “So how does your dog know where to take you?”
Cheyenne shook her head. “He doesn’t. It’s not like Phantom’s a cab driver. I can’t say ‘McDonald’s, please’ and have him take me there. I do half the work. I need to have a map inside my head of all the streets we’ll cross and tell him when to make all the turns. When I get to an intersection, I’m the one who has to decide whether the light is red or green just by listening. To a dog, red, green, and yellow look the same. Then when I reach the right block, I have to listen or feel for clues to help me find the building I want. I’m the navigator. Phantom is the one who makes sure I can walk there without running into anything or being run over.”
“Wait – you just get to a street and then listen to see if the cars are stopped? That sounds kind of dangerous. What happens if you tell Phantom to go but a car’s coming?”
“Your dog is trained to judge whether your command is safe,” Cheyenne said. “It’s called intelligent disobedience.”
A BIG MISTAKE
“Intelligent disobedience, huh?” Griffin echoed. He liked the way it sounded. Whenever he didn’t do what somebody wanted, they always assumed he was making a big mistake.
“What’s funny is that when Phantom doesn’t do something I tell him to, I still get annoyed,” Cheyenne said, “like he’s being stupid. And then I figure out that he’s right.” She drank her orange juice in one long gulp and then wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. She had already gobbled the crackers.
Belatedly, Griffin realized she must be hungry. “Would you like some lunch?”
She nodded. “Sure. That would be great.”
“I’ll go see what I can find.” He got up, already mentally rummaging through the kitchen. There was some ramen in the cupboard and maybe some peas in the freezer. And he could cut up some hot dogs and put them in, too. He would break up the noodles so they wouldn’t be too messy when Cheyenne ate them. He thought he would tell her how ramen was kind of like stone soup, because it was only good when you added a bunch of stuff to it. And maybe she would laugh, or at least smile.
While Griffin was digging through the fridge, looking for eggs, TJ came in. “You making something to eat?”
“For our guest.”
“Got enough for TJ?”
Griffin didn’t like to say yes about anything to TJ, but he couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. He nodded. As TJ went down the hall to the bathroom, Griffin took the pan off the heat and added more water so that the food would stretch further. It was only as he was slicing the hot dogs over the pan that his brain translated the sounds he had heard. It hadn’t been the door to the bathroom that had opened. It had been the door to his own bedroom.
TJ was alone with Cheyenne.
Griffin dropped the hot dog as well as the knife, although later he thought about how he should have taken it. He ran down the hall and flung open the bedroom door.
TJ was leaning over Cheyenne. Her back was against the wall, her knees drawn up against her chest, making a barrier between them. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, and her lips were pulled back from her teeth, like a dog silently snarling. TJ had one knee on the bed and both of her wrists in one fist, pinioning her to the wall. And he was trying to take off Cheyenne’s coat with the other hand.
With a roar, Griffin launched himself forward. His fist landed on the side of TJ’s head.
TJ fell on the bed and rolled over on his back, howling. His cap had fallen off and slid down his skinny ponytail.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, TJ?” Griffin shouted. He had been afraid of what TJ would do to Cheyenne, but he wasn’t as worried about what TJ would do to him. TJ always knew when to put his tail between his legs. And right now, Griffin was ready to kill him.
Cheyenne scrambled off the bed. She tried to run for the door and fell when the cord around her ankle yanked her back.
Griffin leaned down to help her up, and she clawed him. “It’s me,” he said, but Cheyenne still pushed him away and then got to her feet without anyone’s assistance. She squeezed herself between the bed and the desk until her back was against the wall. She was panting, but she wasn’t crying. Griffin suddenly thought that if he had brought the knife into the room, Cheyenne would have sunk it into both of them, in turn. Without a second thought.