Page 69 of Vetted for Vengeance
Eight little milk machines are putting too much demand on her body. Noah can’t carry all of it. Not the mothers. Not the pups. Not my rules.
I'm capable and prepared to kill the shadow man for him, while simultaneously refusing to let him thin the runts from the litters.
I’m forcing him to care because I think it will make him stay.
Losing a runt on the day it's born because you genuinely believe you are preventing it from suffering is easier to deal with emotionally than trying and failing to keep it alive.
I have encouraged this change in him. I let him name them. I've pushed him to change almost everything about himself. Denied him the right to be hands-on with the animals and put him in charge of my practice. Maybe it's time to admit it's too soon. Just because he's capable, doesn't mean he's ready.
I didn't kill him along with the brothers that night. No death by removing his organs. I didn’t kill him that night.
I could have.
But this… this slow stripping away of everything that makes him who he is… this is worse.
He's going to die emotionally because I am removing all the tiny pieces of his life that make him Noah.
I'm such a fool.
Noah doesn't want to stand under a spotlight and direct the world. He wants to love his family of dogs in a better environment than the puppy farm.
I head outside to clear my head, taking a walk into the barn where countless men are working hard to create kennels.
It's like the puppy farm, but better. Kinder. Warmer. Temporary. As terrible as the puppy farm was, it's the only environment we can manage until all the puppies are gone.
I don't understand what this crazy man has done to me. He's turned my world upside-down.
Not in the same way I've turned his world on its head, but somewhere inside me.
“Mr. Calder, so glad you're here. We're ready to do the final walkthrough.”
“So soon?” I smile. “That's great. You are a lifesaver. I am so grateful.
My enthusiasm stops me dead. When have I ever been grateful?
I thank people for their work, because its polite, knowing they did all this for my wallet, not my gratitude.
But I didn't do this for Noah’s wallet, or his thanks. I did it for his gratitude.
He is changing me in more ways than I can count.
He is changing me as much as I am changing him; the only difference is that he doesn't know he's doing anything.
Chapter thirty-four
Noah
Rhys demands I put my pocket puppies in the runt incubator and follow him outside. Part of me is worried he's about to confess the reason my parents never came back.
Then I'll have to confess the reason I wanted to share his bed so badly that night. It wasn't so I could stop him creeping out to kill my parents; it was so I would know he was doing it. Instead, I slept like a log, and now my parents are gone.
We enter the barn and I can't believe it. It looks like a puppy farm. Same size kennels. Same heat lamps.
“I know what you are thinking,” Rhys announces.
“That you snuck out and killed my parents?”
His face drops. “Did you… Is that what you're thinking?”
