Avery Rhiannon's Arc

Chapter 6 of 17

The barn was too small for this. Wet dogs shook and circled, the injured ones limping between the rest. Avery counted again, marking each one in her notebook — stable, limping, bleeding. Tom met her eyes over the huddle. "Cabin," he said. "Higher ground. Real rooms." Avery nodded. One more run through the rain was better than a night of chaos in here. She pulled the worn pouch from her bag and tore a jerky strip into pieces. Heads lifted. Tails stilled. She held one piece out and stepped toward the door. "Come on. With me." The dogs followed the smell in a tight, eager pack. Tom opened the barn door, and together they walked the whole group up the slope, jerky doled out step by step, leashes fanned between their hands. The cabin's stone hallway swallowed them in warm, dry air. Tom struck a match and the fireplace caught. Avery toweled each dog down, then guided them through the half doors — the calm ones to one room, the rowdy pair to another, the three injured ones to the quietest room at the end. She latched each half door. Behind them, the dogs settled onto blankets, finally still. Tom returned with folded dry clothes and pressed them into her arms. "Hot stew on the stove. Something to drink, if you want it." Avery looked down the hallway at the closed half doors, at the firelight on the stone. Every dog separated. Every injury seen. For the first time all day, nothing was sliding away from her. She took the clothes and said yes.