“You should probably stop him doing that in case he goes for your shoes next,” I mumbled, hoping she’d forgotten about the bathroom incident.
Here was my issue—I didn’t know if she was the kind of woman to hold onto something that’d pissed her off for long. Yes, we’d had arguments in the past, but when I saw her a couple of days later, it was all okay.
What happened in the space of time that I didn’t see her? Did she stab a doll she called Garrett until she felt better? Did she draw pictures of me and then burn them? What did she do?
This time, she patted the bed. “Clyde, come see mommy.”
Not paying any attention to her, he continued ravaging the sock.
“In the pack that came with him, it says that I have to be strict with him when he misbehaves so that he’ll complete his training. Apparently, if they get too relaxed, they can’t follow orders like they should.”
This I already knew. “You’re gonna have to toughen up on him, or he’ll have to be boarded with them until he finishes.”
Her horrified gasp got his attention away from his kill, and he went running out into the hallway. “I can’t put him in military school—”
“It’s not a military school, it’s a boarding kennel with a company that trains him to—”
“Well then, I can’t put him into boarding school. He’s only little!”
A crashing sound and snarling followed, and when we ran into the living room, he was attacking the end table he’d knocked over.
“Tomorrow, when Phil gets here, speak to him about this and see what he says. It might be why they do the last two weeks of their training with the owners, just in case he tries to slack off?” I suggested, rubbing her back. “Go find out what the information he gave us says about discipline and shit, and I’ll clean this up.”
According to the information, we were to be strict with him, so any misbehavior on his behalf at all was to be dealt with. Not like beating the poor thing, but by following the guidelines they set out for us.
He also had to be kenneled at night until his training was finished, which was just as well because she had an alarm system that she turned on at night, and until he learned how to control himself properly, he’d be setting it off repeatedly.
Letting Clyde out to the bathroom, I cleaned up the mess he’d made with the end table and put it back in place before locking everything up and ignoring the puppy eyes he gave me when I put him in his kennel. I wasn’t made of stone, so it was fucking hard to do, but if it was what was best for him, then it had to be done.
I couldn’t handle a shitty kid, but I could handle a puppy. I think?
Chapter Eight
Zuri
I was just going from dozing to a deep sleep when what sounded like a police siren started screeching in the house.
My reaction was automatic as I threw the covers off my legs and then tried to jump out of bed at the same time. It shouldn’t have gone wrong, but my feet ended up getting caught up in the sheet, and I crashed to the floor, landing on my bad arm.
I could feel the pressure building in my chest for the screech that wanted to come out of me and join the siren noises, but then I saw the screen of my phone that’d dropped to the floor with me and freaked out at the message from the camera attached to my alarm system on it.
Motion detected in the living room.
Clyde was in the living room. Whoever was here was hurting him.
So, holding my arm to my chest, I struggled up off the floor, eventually needing to dig my uninjured elbow into the bed and use it to help me get up, and started running in that direction.
Before I’d gotten Clyde, I would’ve been hiding and calling 911. Now, I had a puppy to look after. Priorities!
I expected to hear snarling and barking, but instead, all I could hear was him howling along to the siren noise like he was singing with it.
I’d just cleared the entrance to the hallway when Garrett shouted, “What’s the code again?”
“9911,” I shouted back, watching him key it in—then it all went silent, apart from the tail end of Clyde’s howl.
That was until something ran into the side of my ankle, and I screamed my ass off.
“It’s the Roomba, pretty girl. That’s what tripped the alarm sensors, too.”
Ah, my new toy. After four days of trying to vacuum and clean with my left hand, I’d given up and ordered it. I’d been about to order the cheapest version possible, but the reviews on this one sold it to me, and now it did the work for me.