Page 72 of The Incredible Ordinary

It’s three a.m. in the morning.

I don’t want to know.

I also don’t want to know why it only takes him about a minute to pick the lock.

No.

Nope.

I don’t want to know.

Rory pushes the door open and gets back up.

I glance at Jordan, but he just shrugs, so we both follow Rory inside. It’s an old office building of some kind that seems to have been abandoned mid-workday. There are desks with monitors from the nineties perched on them, office chairs covered in thick layers of dust and flecks of paint that have rained down from the ceiling, filing cabinets, and paper strewn all over the place, and I’m hearing some kind of strange squeaking noises I hope to God aren’t a sign that the roof is failing.

Rory stops in front of a door a little way down the hallway and throws a glance over his shoulder. He hesitates, and by now I’ve stopped guessing what he’s hiding because my mind was starting to run away with me, feeding me worse and worse scenarios.

“He’s…” Rory says slowly, eyes flicking between me and Jordan. “He’s not dangerous.”

That’s not the reassuring statement he seems to think it is. What the hell has he gotten himself into?

Rory pushes the door open, and with one last wary look at Jordan, I follow Rory inside.

It’s a dog.

There’s a scruffy dog in the corner of the room. His body is rigid, every muscle coiled tight, but his eyes are on Rory, and his tail is already starting to wag.

It’s impossible to tell the breed, but it’s probably a mix of so many it’d be difficult to narrow it down to less than five.

In addition to that, he’s impossibly skinny, missing large swaths of fur, and dirty enough that I suspect that even if it were light outside, identifying a color would be impossible.

I glance at Rory. He’s taken a few steps closer and dropped his backpack, and he’s rummaging around.

I open my mouth to… I don’t know what. Warn him off, I suppose, but Jordan’s hand on my shoulder stops me. I clamp my mouth shut, and then we watch as Rory pulls out a pouch of dog food and a bowl. He pushes the food toward the dog, sits down, and waits.

The dog hesitates, stops, throws me and Jordan a suspicious look. Hesitates again. Takes a step closer. Hesitates.

“Hey,” Rory says. “Hey, buddy.”

Out of this whole situation, I don’t know why, but the gentleness in Rory’s voice is the thing that just completely floors me.

It’s the fact that it’s in him, and he doesn’t feel safe enough to let it out, and I don’t know how to make him feel okay with being here, living here. With me and Aiden. And how the hell am I ever going to live up to what this kid needs?

The weird thing is I’m scared shitless, but at least in this very moment, I’m not hatching an escape plan.

“Hey,” Rory says again. The dog tilts his head to the side, then struts over to where Rory is sitting. He lowers his head and starts to eat. Every now and then, he throws suspicious looks toward me and Jordan, but otherwise he seems to think if he hides himself behind Rory, he’ll be fine.

“Who’s your friend?” I ask quietly.

Rory looks up, hand on top of the dog’s back while the dog eats.

“He started following me a couple of days ago.”

Call me crazy, but I have a feeling this is a highly redacted version of events.

“Okay. Okay.” I drag my hand through my hair and look around the room. I don’t think Aiden is going to love what I’m about to do. “Will he also follow you if we get him out of here?”

Rory’s brow furrows. “Where?”