She stepped close to Angelica, burying her face in the slick muscle and hard tissues that layered the dog, wrapping her arms as far as they would go around Angelica’s shoulders and neck.

Aww. 🙂

Just as her dogs came to trust her as she cared for them, fed them, and nurtured them, she grew closer to them as they shared experiences with her, as they learned and accepted their training.  Angelica was one of the dogs she was closest to.  The only dog she was this close to.  Brutus and Judas had passed, the only dogs she had been with for years.

R.I.P. Brutus and Judas. May they be as good dogs in death as they were in life.

Her heart broke a little every time she thought about it.

Yeah, I feel you.

And this man?  This family man?  He’d thought he could take Angelica away from her?

Yeeeeeeah I have low hopes for this man continuing to have limbs at this point.

Without looking at him, her head still pressed to Angelica’s neck, she gave the order, “Hurt him.”

At least that’s not “pull”, but who knows how Angelica will interpret this.

“Angelica,” she ordered.  She kicked him in the stomach again.  “Paw!”

What’re you doing now?

Angelica stepped forward and placed one paw the breadth of a truck tire down on the man’s pelvis.

Oh. So that’s where the paw goes.

He howled in agony, his words rapid, desperate and breathless, “Heavy oh god please stop please let me go make it move itscrushingme!”

It’s basically like having a car parked partially on top of him, isn’t it.

She looked at him with distaste.  It bothered her that the only time she could be absolutely sure what someone meant, what someone wanted, was in circumstances like this.

Yeeah, I kinda doubt “Heavy oh god please stop please let me go make it move itscrushingme!” means anything other than “Heavy oh god please stop please let me go make it move itscrushingme!”.

“Angelica,” she ordered, ducking beneath Angelica’s outstretched limb, kicking him in the kneecap, “Take it.”

…oh jeez.

Is it sausage time for the doggo?

Angelica bent and gripped the man’s legs in her teeth, twisting his body further.  His body was pressed to the ground by her paw, his arm and legs pulled up and away from it.

Okay so if I’ve got it straight, Ink is holding him by his arms, and Angelica is holding him up by his legs but pushing him down by his torso. So he’s practically in a U shape now, or something close to it, and if the doggos start pulling, they’re probably going to rip the dude’s limbs off.

“Please.  I have a wife, kids.”

As if family somehow made you better than someone else?

That particular defense does seem kind of weak at times. I guess the idea is “please don’t hurt me, I have people who depend on me and who would be sad if I died or got hurt”, but that’s not particularly helpful if the person you’re pleading to doesn’t care more about sparing your family’s feelings than about you.

The idea nettled Bitch.  Life experience had taught her that it was all too often the opposite.  People were assholes, people were monsters.

And, yeah, it doesn’t exactly help that we literally just had Rachel reminiscing about how family is a touchy subject for her.

The exceptions were all too rare.  Far too many of those same people started a family just because they thought it was what they should do, and then they were assholes and monsters to a captive audience.

Oof.

The sad thing is she’s right. I don’t think it’s as frequent as she’s implying, but this is definitely a thing that happens.

She kicked him again, in the stomach.

The dude may have just unwittingly turned himself into a punching bag for Rachel to take out her family issues on.

He screamed as the kick made his arm, still in Ink’s jaws, wrench the wrong way.

Oww.

Or kicking bag, I suppose. So far it seems that’s more Rachel’s style here.

Looking at results for English keyboard layouts, it seems that some have quotation marks on the apostrophe like LHC’s and some have it on the 2 like my Norwegian keyboard.

…anyway, this isn’t important right now, let’s get back to the story.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” the man repeated the word.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

“You insulting me?  You trying to act big?’

At least he seems to have realized his error.

(Also, are “ and ’ next to each other on an English keyboard or something? That’s two instances of the apostrophe showing up instead of an end quotation mark over the span of three lines of dialogue.)

“What?”  The man’s eyes widened.  Was he staring at her, challenging her?  Was it a fear response?  Was he rallying to fight, trying to get a wider sense of his surroundings?

Hm.

Maybe he’s not the one responsible for the gunfire after all.

She could only guess.

“No,” he said, his eyes moving around, as if searching for help.

Hm, or maybe he didn’t realize there was a human in charge of the monsters outside his home.

Defiance?  Sarcasm?  A lie?

“I don’t think you realize how badly you fucked yourself.  You.  Shot.  My.  Dog.”  She looked at Angelica.

Do. Not. Hurt. The. Doggos.

Her baby wasn’t acting too hurt, but he’d shot her.  He could have killed her, if the bullet landed in just the right place.

Interesting. That implies the hellhounds do have weak spots.

Angelica flinched and backed away as the shots came, striking her flesh.

Don’t shoot the doggo!

There was another shot, and Bitch saw a flash from the window, a glimpse of a face.  Her face twisted with rage.  “Attack!”  her voice was shrill.  She leapt off Bentley’s back so he could go too.  “Fetch them!  Fetch!  Go, go!’

Fetch? Sounds like Rachel wants to have some words with whomever’s attacking.

Hm… civilians with the guts to fight back against Rachel’s “reign” of terror, or Fenrir’s Chosen?

As they’d done at the previous location, her dogs tore through the building.  This time, though, they came back with people in their jaws.  Arms, legs and torsos in fanged grips.  Men, women and children.

Good dogs.

Some screamed where the dogs didn’t know their own strength and bit too hard.

Ow.

She found the man she’d seen in the window and stalked over to him.

Hello.

And she didn’t know what to do about it.

Ouch.

A gunshot startled her from her thoughts.

Oh, hi there, present day plot!

“Go!” she shouted.  “Go!”

More cracks of gunfire echoed through the night as her pack arrived on the scene.

So someone’s decided to fight back? Or are these gunshots not aimed at her?

Angelica was there, her form hulking and rippling with muscle to the point that she couldn’t move as fast as she otherwise might.  That was fine.  Angelica couldn’t move as fast these days, anyways.  Not since Fog had hurt her.

Poor doggo. 😦

She was more comfortable like this; she was big, strong and able to move without pain.

Well, that’s good at least.