Chapter 1 - HE WAS DISCHARGED YESTERDAY
The first person who tried to separate me from Rex after we landed in the United States was Colonel Mason Reed.
That should have told me something.
I was too tired to understand it.
Fort Halstead Joint Medical Center had a rehabilitation corridor connecting the orthopedic ward to a small Military Working Dog recovery section. Human patients moved through one side on walkers, wheelchairs, crutches.
Dogs went through the other with veterinary technicians.
Rex and I had arrived together because neither of us was moving normally anymore.
I had a fractured left tibia held together by more metal than I wanted to think about.
Rex had a pelvic injury and nerve damage that left his rear legs weak enough that the veterinary team had fitted him with a temporary mobility cart.
We looked ridiculous together.
Me on crutches.
Him rolling beside me.
I had never been happier to see him.
We had spent almost thirty hours moving from Germany through an Air Force medical flight and finally reached Halstead less than an hour earlier.
I was halfway down the corridor when Mason stepped in front of us.
He was still in uniform.
Colonel.
Forty-eight.
Commander of the military police group that had run our certification exercise.
Also the last person I wanted touching Rex.
“The dog stays outside.”
I stopped.
“What?”
Mason reached down.
Snatched Rex's leash out of my hand.
Rex's head came up immediately.
“Mason.”
“Hospital policy.”
“This corridor connects directly to working-dog rehab.”
“You're being admitted to orthopedics.”
“So?”
“So Rex goes with veterinary.”
He started pulling.
Rex resisted.
Not violently.
He planted his front feet while the wheels of his cart shifted sideways.
That was enough.
I grabbed the leash back.
“He stays with me.”
Mason reached again.
I knocked his hand away.
He stepped closer.
I shoved him.
Not hard enough to knock him down.
Hard enough that several nurses looked over.
Balancing on crutches while shoving a colonel is not something they teach at handler school.
Mason stared at me.
“You want to make this another problem?”
“I don't know what the first problem is yet.”
His eyes changed.
Very slightly.
Then a nurse approached carrying a tablet.
She had been checking intake records near the desk.
Captain Emily Shaw.
I knew her name only because it was printed on her badge.
“Staff Sergeant Carter?”
“Yes.”
“I'm trying to open Rex's rehabilitation intake.”
“Okay.”
She frowned at the screen.
Tapped once.
Then again.
“That's strange.”
Mason turned too quickly.
“What?”
Emily looked at Rex.
Then at me.
“He was discharged yesterday.”
I thought the pain medication had finally caught up with me.
“What?”
“Military Working Dog Rex. Same identification number.”
She rotated the tablet slightly.
“Discharged sixteen-thirty yesterday.”
I stared at her.
Then at Rex.
“He was beside me on the aircraft.”
Emily looked back at the screen.
I said:
“We landed an hour ago.”
Nobody spoke.
Then I noticed Mason.
He was no longer looking at me.
He was looking at Emily's tablet.
May you like
And for the first time since I had known him—
Colonel Mason Reed looked nervous.
