Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

He was a machine. A monster. A liar.
What the fuck was I supposed to do? What did he want
from me?
But he didn’t say anything. He just sat there. Quiet.
Until finally I heard his voice again, solemn and calm.
“My father had this rottweiler,” he said, “who was pregnant
with mutts when I was about seven. He let me have one of
them. Not sure what happened to the rest, though.”
I swallowed the tears in my throat, still standing rigid and
ready.
“I’d never loved anything so much,” he told me. “That
little thing wanted to be wherever I was. He followed me
everywhere.” He paused and then continued, “He had this
thing, though, about barking. At the drop of a pin. He barked
so much, and I couldn’t shut him up, and every time the
doorbell rang or a car pulled up to the house or someone
knocked on my door, I…I couldn’t get to him in time to settle
him down before my father heard him and got angry.”
Dread knotted my stomach, and I pictured seven-year-old
Damon and his puppy with their sliver of happiness in that
shitty house.
“Even at seven years old, though,” he continued, “I knew
the horror of finding my dog hanging from a tree in the woods
wasn’t as awful as the realization that my father made no
attempt to hide what he’d done.”
My face cracked, but I stayed silent.
“He wanted me to find him.” His voice grew thick with
tears. “Even then I understood that the dog wasn’t the one
being punished, and that next time he’d make me do the deed.
I never asked for another dog after that.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, tears spilling over. Jesus Christ.
“And I learned, really quick, that life wasn’t going to be
pretty. Not until…”
Until…me?