Angel On Earth- A Dog Novel

15🐾 An Accident

Gypsy did not stop to look back until after she had put the road safely in-between her and the humans. With panting breaths, she dropped Finn and searched the hazy line of houses up the slope for the one she had just escaped from.

Her heart clenched as she saw the blobs of the humans milling around each other. They had retreated farther from their grill, and the two people holding puppies were now climbing into a car that sat parked beside a curb.

No, no no no.

But, yes- Gypsy knew it was true. She had no choice but to watch as the car was started, then pulled lazily out of the driveway and onto the street. Only three humans remained on the lawn with the grill; but the others had all taken the puppies into that car and driven away.

The minivan went the opposite way of Bronx's territory, back towards the town where Gypsy had first escaped the shelter from. I have no way of tracking it. The entirity of a road smelled of nothing other than just that; road and cars.

And so the pup's scents could not be tracked along a trail of any sort. As her heart's thunderous pounding subsided, the profound realization of all she had lost hit her.

"Help!! HELP ME!!" She screamed into the cloudless sky. "I don't know why this keeps happening. I-I'm not causing it. I can't be causing it its not my fault MY PUPPIES ARE GONE!" Visibly shaking, the Pitbull retreated a few paces from the road. She lowered herself into a ditch beside Finn, screwing her eyes shut against the blinding sun. Something in her chest had torn, shattered, and bled out. A ferocious parasite of guilt was winding itself into a knot in her throat.

My third pup is lost.

"Why? Why me? Again, after... After my last litter of pups all died." With wet eyes, Gypsy kept her head lowered. She heard the sound of cars whizzing by above the ditch, yet still didn't open them. It felt as is she was bleeding, not crying. It felt like she wasn't living- but dying.

With a moaning sob, Gypsy drove her claws deep into the earth- staining them with dirt.

"You still have me, mother. I'm still here," Teeny brown-and-white Finn advised with a soft tone. Though Gypsy didn't see him, she felt his smooth puppy skin press against her flank.

"But I failed. I failed Star and Kiwi and Lavender... and now Copper, too. I-" her voice broke off and she knew she could not continue. The vast blue sky lazed about above her, oblivious to Gypsy's grief.

Copper called out for me to help him. And even though I tried... I didn't.

Her tiny little male pup, so special and careful, was lost to her forever now. She knew she could not track a car- not by scent, sound or sight because of their high speeds. There would be no further trail of Copper and Lavender, as they continued their lives to who knew where.

But... Lavender is North's pup. She told me not to put a scratch on her. This is... much worse... Gypsy got to her paws and opened her eyes, but the hot reek of grief still burned in her throat.

"We have to go back and tell North. I know she'll hate me for this... but it was a mistake." Gypsy paused to laugh at herself, tears flicking off of her muzzle. I've made a lot of those recently.

"I can show her where Lavender was taken tonight after the humans go inside. And... maybe me and North could figure out some way of finding them." The hope was so pitifully lost, that the mother-dog didn't spend another second on the thought.

I can't second-guess myself or mope around here. I've got to tell North and Bronx what happened to the pups!

She picked up Finn, knowing he wouldn't be fast enough. The she-dogs leg's thwacked against the earth as she took off in a stampeding run back to camp.