PA 3.5: End of a Tail

Chapter VI Part II

Patches continued, "Dell. Cuff her, then zip tie her to the oven."

Dell nodded, going over to the unconscious Brownie with the sets of zip-ties and tying her paws parallel to one another. Dell was barely able to drag her into the kitchen and hardly gave a glance around the room before finding a heavy white retro oven.

She fumbled with tying the cord around the heavy handle but managed after some trial and error. It was hardly a comfortable place to tie her up, but it kept her from moving too much.

Plopping her bag on the school counter, Dell went outside to check in on Patches. The dalmatian was still clearly in pain, eyes slowly closing only to jolt open. Grabbing him by the back of his uniform, she hoisted him up and began to carry him inside.

He was conscious enough to grit his teeth and hiss through them as he felt the movement jostling his rib. Wordlessly, Dell took his arm and wrapped it around her neck like she had seen in movies, grabbing him by the back and then helping him pick himself up.

Moving at all seemed to immediately exhaust both dogs, who were barely just able to keep themselves up before needing to be held up by the other. Dell felt uncomfortable being so close to someone so injured and unnerving in demeanour, but the blood seeping through Patches' clothing, the nasty smell of blood, the warmth from his bruises, and his ebbing heartbeat were all strangely humanizing. Dell felt weird, like she had to see blood pumping and bones straining in order to realize he wasn't some freakish machine.

When she crossed the threshold of the backdoor, the duo nearly slipped on the metal bottom of the doorframe, causing some blood to leak from Patches' wounds onto Dell. Her favorite purple hoodie was already covered in as much blood as her paws, but now Patches' uniform had been bled through, and it was sinking deep into her shirt with small red dots all along her side.

Patches barely registered Brownie's eyes fluttering open as he passed by her. The corgi slowly sprung to attention, and by the time the two had entered the living room, they could hear her rattling the zip ties against the oven, trying to abuse the sturdy handle until it broke off. When the two finally reached the couch, Dell sat down alongside Patches, getting up immediately after to get a dish towel for the dog to wrap his head with so he wouldn't bleed all over the place.

Entering the kitchen again proved fruitful as Dell saw Brownie trying to grab a knife from its block just a small ways away from the oven. Before she could, Dell grabbed the block and dropped it in the sink, far away from the corgi.

"Raaagh! What are you doing?!" Brownie yelled with petulant frustration.

Dell grabbed a surplus of highly generic grey dish towels, clean enough to be brand new. She continued to ignore Brownie, then went back into the living room, shutting the unpainted door behind her.

"Here..." Dell meekly said. She had just realized how hoarse her voice was from the heaving and thought briefly on the luxury of a shower.

Patches groaned as he grabbed the towels, placing one at his head, one to cover his side, and one to cover his wounded leg on the couch. Once he was lying down on the big thing, his eyes closed from the combined comfort and exhaustion, but he didn't entirely fall asleep just yet.

Dell left the room, confident that someone wasn't about to die because of her, and stared at the corgi while silently shutting the door. To her credit, Brownie didn't start yapping until the door was fully closed.

"Are you seriously his girlfriend?!"

The sentence made Dell double-take, more out of disbelief that anyone could associate her with a concept such as that. Her wide eyes and dumbfounded face quickly shifted to her more serious, if still shy, visage.

"No. Are you seriously a cat's girlfriend?!" Dell crossed her arms, the bloody hoodie providing ample room for her paws to scoot in and warm up after being out in the cold so much. Mentally, she congratulated herself on what she thought was a sick comeback.

It was Brownie's turn to react, though not so gracefully. "Look, I don't know what Patches told you, but I swear that's not the case, okay?"

Dellanor was honestly impressed at the feat of the corgi's poor lying. Her face softened when she realized she probably wouldn't need to interrogate the poor dog at all, at least not the way Patches would've wanted. Not to mention Brownie had her head turned away from Dellanor, and her blush was so intense it was somehow visible through her fur.

"... Wow," Dell muttered. "Are you actually in love with a murderer?"

Brownie's blush intensified, making Dell wonder if the dog had capillaries in the fur on her cheeks. "O-Oh yeah? Well you're one to talk, siding with Patches and all that."

Her eyes narrowed. "He isn't a cat who murdered a school full of teenagers." She bared her teeth at the dog, "Or a dog who's *dating* someone like that."

"...Is that what this is about?" Brownie tried to look confident in her words but was far less practiced than Patches. She was still blushing far too fiercely to sound anything but flushed.

"YES." Dell took a step towards the corgi, filling with anger as she did.

"Look! It's okay now! You met Coco, you've seen how sweet she is, there's no way she'd ever hurt another dog ever again." If the corgi could fold her arms petulantly, she would. "Just calm down, and I'll let you speak to her one-on-one, alright?"

Dell leaned forward, face contorting with her growing anger. She couldn't imagine a dog voluntarily siding with a monster like Coco, and to so wholeheartedly defend the things she had done... "If you think a genocidal maniac like her is even worthy of forgiveness -- much less be able to change -- then you're an idiot. Don't you remember? She killed you! She killed all of your friends! Don't you care about all the dogs she hurt?"

Brownie didn't quite know how to respond to that, but her chatterbox mouth demanded she at least tried. "Okay, first, she didn't kill me or my friends, and second, she has changed. She's the one who brought you back to life in the first place!"

"She murdered me," Dell spat, eyes narrowing in anger. "Why would I forgive her just for fixing what she caused? Besides, that's not true, Patches told me everything."

"What?" Brownie spat out.

"He was the one who fixed everyone, not Coco! I remember him bringing me back from the dead, and I remember following him into the forest to kill the cat you like! Why can't you get that she's just using you people?!"

Brownie was taken aback, firmly ceasing the conversation as Dell's face softened, and she stared at the floor between the two dogs, reflecting on her mission. She didn't want to hurt this dog, but maybe what Patches had said earlier was right...

Dell's eyes quickly snapped up towards the sink, and she dove a paw towards the knife block, pulling up something fit for chopping and holding it against the side of her hoodie. "You're going to answer m-my questions."