Sneaky

Chapter 7

Felipe spoke to her in Spanish, trying to take her away but she noticed us and stopped him.

"Who are those people?" she asked, making her way to the middle of this standoff.

"Don' you take him." she shuffled up to Rick while everyone behind her was trying to stop her.

Rick glanced to me for answers, and all I could do was shrug. Sorry, Officer. I haven't the foggiest.

"Ma'am?"

"Felipe's a good boy. He have his trouble but he pull himself together. We need him here."

She doesn't think—...Does she think Rick's still a cop? Has she not seen what's going on out there?

"Ma'am. I'm not here to arrest your grandson." Rick played along.

"Then what do you want him for?" she glanced at me and regrettably I shifted and glanced at Daryl. Even though I know there's nothing any of us could really do— or would need to.

She— rather her presence makes me uncomfortable.

"He's...helping us find a missing person. Fella named Glenn." Rick glanced around.

"The Asian boy? He's with Mr. Gilbert." So he's alive. But who's Gilbert?

"Come. Come...I show you." she took hold of Rick's hand, pulling him forward and however reluctantly, G said "Let 'em pass" and they moved aside.

I followed Rick cautiously but stayed close to Daryl. If they try anything, I don't wanna be too far; in case I need to pull the officer out of a sticky situation. Plus I have a habit of wandering off, from what I'm told.

The old lady lead us through what looked like a sort of institute that smelled like an old people's home -full of old people go figure- until we came to a large cafeteria-like room and I spotted Glenn in a circle of people.

A tiny white puff in the corner caught my eye and 'not wandering off' slipped my mind, now that I know Glenn's safe.

I went over to the small dogs, crouching in front of them. The puffy white one stared at me like I owed it somethin' but he wasn't barking or anything. Just staring.

It's so fluffy, too fluffy. It's too small. I don't like small dogs. It looks like melting string cheese on a week old ham.

If you're gonna have a dog, make it a big dog that can run, that's trained well, and trained to attack on command. Like a police or military dog.

The dog looked behind me all of a sudden and started barking. Looking over my shoulder, I was met with everyone staring at me.

"What're you doing?" Glenn asked.

I pointed to the dog and made a scissors motion with my fingers.

He stared at me confused, until Daryl scoffed, "She wants to cut the fur off."

I nodded confirming his deduction and they stared at me strangely for a few more seconds before Rick pulled G off to the side.

When they started leaving, I stood up and followed them. The little white dog tried to follow me but I stopped abruptly, snapped my fingers, and pointed to the doggy bed. It stared at me for a second before running back and I jogged to catch up with the boys headed to a back room.

"What about the rest of your crew?" Rick started.

"The vatos trickle in. To check on their parents, their grandparents. They see how things are and most decide to stay. It's a good thing too, we need the muscle."