Part 5 — Scars in the Wallpaper
The knock never came again that night.
Just that single tap, as if the monster on the other side wanted to remind us he could sound gentle when he felt like it. Then silence. Silence so loud you could taste it.
Sully stayed at the door until dawn. Not lying down. Not blinking. Guarding. His body was a question asked to the dark: Do you really want to try?
By morning, when the first sunlight painted the blinds, Lina brewed coffee with trembling hands. Emma sat cross-legged on the couch, crayons scattered, drawing her dog again and again as if filling the page with Sully could keep him from ever leaving.
I studied the new drawing. Emma had given Sully wings this time. Huge, feathery, too big for his scrappy body. She pressed the page into my hand like an offering.
“He flies when I’m scared,” she said.
I swallowed hard and ruffled Sully’s crooked ear. “Yeah, sweetheart. He does.”
A World of Doubt
Paper shields. We all knew what they were worth. A restraining order is an umbrella in a hurricane. And single mothers in America know this better than anyone. Lina couldn’t afford to quit her job, couldn’t afford to disappear. Bills don’t care if you’re hiding. Landlords don’t forgive rent because your ex won’t leave you alone.
At the diner where she worked, Lina tied on her apron like armor and poured coffee for men who complained about cream while her hands shook from fear. The regulars left quarters as tips. She smiled anyway. Emma waited after school in the booth by the window, Sully curled at her feet. Some customers complained about the dog. Lina’s boss frowned. But Emma clung to Sully like oxygen, and so Sully stayed.
“He’s my support animal,” Emma told the manager once, with the confidence only a child can conjure. The manager muttered about health codes but said nothing more.
Sully kept watch by Emma’s sneakers. Every time the door jingled, his ears pricked, his body stiffened, ready.
Lina whispered to me one night after her shift, her voice cracked raw from pretending to be fine all day. “Do you know what it’s like to live waiting for headlights? Every sound in the parking lot feels like him. Every face through the window feels like a warning.”
I didn’t answer with words. Some things don’t need them. I just sat across from her in the booth and let the silence mean solidarity. Sully licked her hand under the table. That said more than either of us.
Threats in the Dark
The first real test came on a Thursday night. Emma had just drifted off in the bedroom, Sully’s body stretched beside her like a fortress. The apartment hummed with the low white noise of the refrigerator. I’d just dozed in the chair by the door when the sound came.
Not a knock this time. A scrape. Keys? A blade? A coin? Metal against metal. The lock’s sigh as it resisted.
Sully was on his feet before I was, growl rising in his throat. He pressed against the door, teeth bared.
“Stay,” I whispered, though I knew he wouldn’t if it came to more.
I flicked my phone screen. Now. Sent to the group.
Engines rumbled awake outside, low and deliberate. Ghost’s cigarette ember glowed faint in the alley. Crusher’s truck headlights swept across the corner. Wolves tightening the circle.
The scraping stopped. A pause. Then laughter—soft, cruel, just inches away on the other side of cheap wood.
“Paper won’t save you,” he hissed.
Sully exploded into barks that rattled the walls.
Then silence. Retreating steps.
When I opened the door a crack five minutes later, the hall was empty. Just a Marlboro butt smoldering on the stairs.
Emma peeked out from the bedroom, rubbing her eyes. “He was here, wasn’t he?”
Lina pulled her close. “It’s okay. He’s gone.”
But Emma’s eyes went to Sully, who still growled at the door, muscles taut, body saying what we couldn’t. He’ll come back.
A Dog’s Burden
Sully didn’t rest after that. He took his station at the door every night. His food bowl sat untouched more often. His eyes followed every shadow under the crack.
“He’s too small to carry this much,” Lina said once, stroking his back.
But he wasn’t. That’s the thing about dogs. They carry until their bodies break because love doesn’t calculate weight.
Emma whispered to me while coloring one afternoon. “Sully’s not scared. He’s brave. But sometimes I think he dreams of when he didn’t have to be.”
I didn’t know what to say. Kids know more truth than adults can handle.
The Note
On the seventh day, Lina found it. Tucked under the windshield wiper of her car in the lot. Plain white paper. Black marker.
You can’t hide.
No signature. Just certainty.
She handed it to me without shaking. Maybe she was past shaking. Maybe anger had finally burned through fear.
“Will this matter?” she asked Tina later, handing it over in a plastic sleeve.
“It matters,” Tina said firmly. “Every scrap adds weight. Judges can ignore bruises they don’t want to see, but they can’t ignore a pile of paper this high.”
Emma sat with Sully in her lap while Tina spoke. She traced his ear with her fingers and whispered, “He won’t let him take me. Not while Sully’s here.”
I caught Lina’s eyes. Her lips pressed tight, but they weren’t hopeless anymore. They were steel.
The Neighbors
We weren’t the only wolves.
Across the hall, Mr. Hawkins—the Vietnam vet with the limp—started keeping his cane by the door at night. “Not much left in these bones,” he told me, “but I can still poke a man meaner than me.”
Mrs. Gonzalez left a baseball bat leaning on the stairwell. “In case the boys are late,” she said with a shrug.
The community had read the signs. They’d chosen sides. And in a world where too many turn away, that was worth gold.
The Scare
It was Emma’s scream that tore the night apart.
I ran from the chair by the window into her room. She was sitting up in bed, clutching Sully’s scruff so hard he yelped. Her eyes were wide, staring at the window.
I followed her gaze.
The glass was scratched. Just three marks. Not deep. Not enough to break through. Just enough to say: I stood here.
Sully went ballistic, lunging at the pane, barking so hard his chest heaved. Emma clung tighter, tears streaming.
“He looked at me,” she sobbed. “He looked right at me.”
Lina gathered her daughter, but her own face had gone pale as chalk.
I checked the alley with Ghost—nothing but shadows. Crusher circled the block with his truck, eyes scanning. The man was a ghost himself now, always one step back from proof. He wanted fear more than violence. For now.
A Promise
Later, after Emma finally fell asleep again with Sully curled around her legs, Lina and I stood in the kitchen. She leaned against the counter, arms crossed tight.
“How long can you keep doing this?” she asked me.
“As long as it takes,” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t mean you. I mean him. Sully.”
I looked into the bedroom. The little mutt’s chest rose and fell with exhausted devotion. Emma’s hand was buried in his fur even in sleep.
“He’ll do it until his last breath,” I said. “Because that’s what love is.”
Her eyes filled. She nodded once. “Then I’ll fight just as hard. For both of them.”
The next morning, Sully didn’t bark when I rose. He just watched me with tired eyes, tail thumping once against the blanket.
Emma hugged him before school. “Don’t get tired, okay? I still need you.”
He licked her cheek and pressed his weight into her like an oath.
When we stepped outside, the first thing we saw was the windshield of Lina’s car—smeared in red spray paint. One word stretched across the glass in dripping letters.
MINE.
Lina gasped. Emma froze. Sully growled low.
And I felt it, sharp as the kick of my engine—the storm wasn’t coming. It was here.
To be continued.
Part 6 — The Shadow at the Window
The paint was still wet when the sheriff’s sedan rolled in slow, like even his engine didn’t want to get too close to the word.
MINE.
It slashed across Lina’s windshield in dripping red, the kind of color used in horror films and cheap sales. It wasn’t art. It was a brand. He was trying to stamp her like livestock.
The deputy took pictures with a camera that beeped too cheerfully. Tina bagged the empty spray can from the hedges with a gloved hand. Mrs. Gonzalez stood on the stoop with her bat like she was daring the word to step off the glass and try its luck.
Emma didn’t cry. She read it once, then looked down at Sully. He met her stare and leaned into her shin. His growl didn’t come from his throat this time. It came from somewhere older than that.
“We add it to the stack,” Tina said, tucking the can into a plastic bin. “Judge sees intent. Pattern. It matters.”
“Will it stop him?” Lina asked.
Tina didn’t lie. “It helps us stop him. There’s a difference.”
The deputy cleared his throat. “We’ll do extra passes tonight.”
I nodded like that meant something and put my shoulder into scrubbing. The red bled into pink, then ghosted into the glass. You never wipe it all off. Not what it meant, anyway.
By the time we finished, the sun had fallen behind the brick across the street and the apartment was a pool of tired light. In the kitchen, the good kind of smells fought the bad—eggs and butter muscling out spray paint and adrenaline. Emma ate in little bites, as if chewing too loud would make the world notice her. Sully lay at her feet, head on his paws, watching the door like a soldier who didn’t trust the ceasefire.
“You’re safe,” Lina told her, voice steady like it had learned how. “We have paper. We have friends.”
Emma nodded, then slid the last piece of her toast to Sully. He took it so gentle his whiskers didn’t even brush her fingers.
“You hear that, buddy?” she whispered into his fur. “We have paper.”
He didn’t wag. He stared at the door. Paper is for people. Dogs measure safety in bodies and walls.
We tried to put the night to bed early. The plan said routines are anchors. Same time, same steps, same prayers whispered into the same pillow. I took my chair by the window. Ghost took the alley, a lean shape in the dark with a red ember for a heartbeat. Crusher idled two blocks down in the truck, radio low, thermos high. Mr. Hawkins’ peephole stared like an unblinking eye.
For a few hours, the building hummed with ordinary things—the elevator deciding which floor it liked, a neighbor laughing too hard at a sitcom, cutlery clinking in a sink. Sometimes survival is just stringing those sounds together and calling them music.
At 11:42, the music stopped.
A soft crack. The kind of sound a bottle makes right before it stops being whole.
Sully was up so fast the rug folded under his paws. He lunged for the window, body braced, teeth showing.
“Down,” I hissed, standing.
I didn’t make the second step.
The window spidered—no crash, just a fast, nasty thwip like a wasp cutting air—and then the glass in the lower pane coughed a circle the size of a coin. Something zipped past my ear and hit the cabinet with a tacky little thunk.
Sully threw himself at the window. Another thwip. The second pellet hit the frame and ricocheted. He took it across the shoulder. He didn’t yelp. He flinched, then planted himself between the jagged hole and the bedroom door, head low, a growl building like weather.
“Bathroom!” I shouted.
The drills kicked in like reflex. Lina had Emma under her arm before fear could tangle her feet. They moved to the center room—no window, one door, tile that felt colder than it was. Sully didn’t budge. He faced the window, paws spread, blood beading in the fur at his shoulder like raindrops refusing to fall.
I belly-crawled to the cabinet, grabbed the thing that had thunked, and held it up to the stove light. BB. Copper. The cheap kind you buy in a bubble pack at a gas station.
I lifted the phone. Now. The word had weight. Two engines rolled, low and hungry. Ghost’s ash streaked, then vanished. Crusher’s truck slid into position like a chess piece nobody sees until it’s too late.
Another thwip. The hole widened. The pellet dug itself into the plaster. I rolled to the side. The tiniest whistle of air kissed the hairs at my temple.
“County Sheriff,” Ghost’s text vibrated the table. “Two blocks out.”
I stood, slow and big, filling the window from inside so whoever had a toy gun outside could see how useless it was about to be. I didn’t flip him off. Men like that feed on theatre. I just stood there and stared into the slice of alley where the shot must’ve come from.
Silence spread like oil. Then the sound of someone running. Feet slapping tar. A fence rattling. A car coughing and fleeing.
Sully’s growl drained away. He sagged a little, then turned and walked to the bathroom, chest high, as if to tell Emma, It’s done. I did it. The blood had matted in a dark patch now, bigger than raindrops. When he reached her, he pressed his side against her legs, hiding the wound in the fold of her nightgown.
Emma saw anyway. Her breath hitched. “He needs a doctor.”
“Vet,” I said. “Right now.”
Tina was already dialing. “I’ll meet you there.”
Lina grabbed the go-bag like we’d practiced, then paused at the door and touched the laminated sheet on the fridge—numbers, codes, names. Her finger rested on the big one in black marker: LEMONADE. She didn’t say it. She didn’t have to. We were already moving.
The emergency vet was a rectangle of too much light and not enough warmth. Posters of happy golden retrievers smiled down at chairs designed by someone who hates backs. The coffee in the corner tasted like it had been made by the last person who cried here.
Dr. Patel came out in scrubs printed with tiny fish. She crouched without asking, hand out, palm up. “Can I take a look, soldier?”
Sully sat, rigid. He didn’t bare teeth. He didn’t wag. He looked at Emma. She nodded once, brave and solemn. “It’s okay,” she told him.
He let Dr. Patel touch the wound.
“Through-and-through,” she said, peering close. “Shallow track. Lucky boy. We’ll flush it, shave a little, close with two stitches. Pain shot, antibiotics.”
“Will he be okay?” Emma asked, voice like a glass ornament you hide in a drawer.
“He’ll be sore, but yes,” Dr. Patel said. Then her eyes shifted to me. “He’s been carrying stress. His cortisol is a symphony. You can see it in his coat, the way he plants his weight, the way his pupils don’t quite dilate all the way down.”
“He won’t rest,” Lina said. “He doesn’t think he’s allowed.”
Dr. Patel nodded. “He thinks he’s the door.”
She listened to Sully’s chest, brows drawing tight. “I’m hearing a murmur. Grade two at least, maybe edging three. Might be nothing at his age. Might be something to watch. I’d like to schedule a cardiac workup when the smoke clears.”
My throat clicked. “What does that mean?”
“Means he’s brave and mortal like the rest of us,” Dr. Patel said gently. “We’ll get him patched tonight. You get him through whatever this is. Then I’ll do my part.”
They took him to the back. He went on his own paws, cone carried like a ridiculous crown under the tech’s arm. He glanced once over his shoulder, not to check we were following, but to memorize where we were in case he needed to get back fast.
We waited. The clock on the wall sounded like a hammer. Tina arrived with a folder and a hug that didn’t try to fix anything. The deputy from earlier called to confirm the report. Ghost texted a photo of tire marks by the alley fence, then another of his boot next to a cigarette butt he’d bagged before the rain got it. Mrs. Gonzalez sent a picture of the hallway bat leaning casual at the stairwell like a friend.
Dr. Patel came back with Sully fifteen minutes later, wearing two neat black stitches, a bandage the size of a thumbprint, and a plastic cone that made his head look like a bad idea. He hated it with a calm, righteous fury he communicated by refusing to walk until Emma slipped her fingers through the rim and said, “Please?”
He moved then, careful as a man in a new suit. Emma cried when she saw the bandage. He touched her knee with his nose and blinked slow, which is how dogs say, I am still me.
At the desk, Dr. Patel went over the meds, the aftercare, the follow-up. She put her pen down halfway through and looked at Lina. “Can I say something not on the paperwork?”
“Please,” Lina said.
“You’re doing the right things,” Dr. Patel said. “All of them. Keep doing them. Fear is loud. Doing the right thing is quiet. Don’t let the volume confuse you.”
Lina nodded, jaw tight, eyes shiny. “Thank you.”
We walked out past a bulletin board covered in lost cats and found dogs and thank-you notes drawn in kindergarten crayon. One said You saved my best friend. Another said You saved me too. It was the same note.
Back at the apartment, the window wore plywood like a fresh scar. Ghost had already done the work while we were gone, screws sunk deep, edges sealed with tape to keep the draft from telling old stories. He didn’t say anything. He never does. He just handed Emma a little bag of dog treats decorated with a skull sticker and said, “For Sully,” like the dog could read.
Crusher had dozed in the truck and woke the second our headlights turned the corner. He followed us up with a bag of sand he’d stolen from somewhere and poured it along the sill as if grit could fill the space where fear seeped.
Mr. Hawkins opened his door and peered at the cone. “That a lampshade or a satellite dish?” he asked. His smile was weary and perfect.
“A crown,” Emma said.
“Good answer,” he said, and saluted with his cane.
We settled. The apartment breathed us back into it, slower, harder, but it did. Sully drank water like he was told, swallowed pills hidden in peanut butter like he was doing us a favor, then tried to jump on the bed and remembered stitches and settled for lowering himself with dignity.
“Rest,” Emma commanded, stroking his forehead.
He sighed and put the cone edge on her shins. It wasn’t comfortable. It was contact.
I took my chair again. The plywood turned the city into a muffled thing. The list on the fridge didn’t clap in the draft anymore. The bat in the hallway leaned a little more determined. The engines below idled, then quieted, then fell into the rhythm you only hear when a block has decided to keep itself.
Around one, the lights flickered and died.
Not a pop. Not a surge. Just a clean click that took the power with it. The fridge sighed into silence. The clock on the stove forgot what time was. In the alley, Ghost’s ember went black.
“Breaker?” Lina asked.
“Maybe,” I said. But the hairs on my arms had already made up their mind.
I lifted my phone. No Wi-Fi. LTE clinging to one bar like a leaf to a branch. I texted anyway: Out.
From the hall came the oldest sound I know: a foot scuffing as it finds the next stair.
Sully woke without moving. The cone turned his head into a satellite that caught danger from every direction. He stood carefully, stitches reminding him. He placed himself between the door and the bed as if the cone were armor and the pain a rumor.
We’d run the drill a hundred times, but nothing feels like the drill when it’s not the drill. Lina gathered Emma. Carried her as if she weighed less than she did. Emma’s palm flattened on Sully’s head as they moved to the bathroom, the same tiny bathroom where we’d practiced breathing through alarm.
I stood by the door. The chime was dead. The camera a blind eye. For the first time since we’d moved in, the apartment had nothing to say.
A key scraped. Not ours. The wrong shape trying the right hole. A patient sound. A deliberate one. Like a man testing a new language on an old tongue.
“County two minutes out,” Ghost’s text blinked, late and undelivered, then delivered, then marked read. I pictured him in the alley with a flashlight in his teeth and a wrench in his hand, deciding whether to kill the main or kill a man.
The scrape stopped.
A pause.
Then something else. A slosh.
My brain took a second to name it. Then the air did it for me.
Gasoline has a way of telling the truth to your nose even when your heart won’t listen. It crawled under the door, thin and ugly. It ate the last of the night’s calm.
“Bathroom,” I said, already moving.
Lina was in the tub with Emma. Sully planted himself across the doorway like a barricade made of heartbeat and will. Emma looked at me and didn’t say Lemonade. She didn’t have to. We were in it.
From the hall, a voice. Not loud. Too friendly.
“Open up, baby,” he breathed through the wood, the smile right there in his whisper. “Paper won’t save you now.”
The soft click of a lighter rolled down the corridor like a pin dropped in a church.
Sully’s growl rose until it became something else—a sound you feel in your chest more than hear with your ears, a promise the size of a planet.
I set my hand on the knob.
“You picked the wrong house,” I said again, softer this time, the words more for Emma than for the man outside.
The lighter flicked again.
And then the hall filled with footsteps that weren’t his.
Boots. More than two. A baton rapping once against a rail. A neighbor’s chain sliding free. The power thunking back on with the righteous ache of a grid remembering its job.
“Sheriff’s department!” a voice barked. “Put it down.”
Silence. A scuffle. A curse bitten off. The sound of something metal hitting tile.
Sully’s growl didn’t stop. Not yet.
“Bear?” Emma whispered.
“I’m here,” I said.
Another thud. A grunt. The smell of gas thinning as if someone had decided fire wasn’t fun anymore.
Then a voice, right outside our door, clear and cold.
“Bear,” Tina called, steady as a lighthouse. “It’s us. Open up slow.”
I turned the deadbolt. The bar. The latch. The door swung inward on a breath that tasted like gasoline and relief.
Deputies filled the hallway, flashlights painting the walls. Between them, bent over a knee and cuffed, was the kind of man who picks a fight with fear and calls it love.
He lifted his head. His eyes found mine. Then the dog.
Sully stepped forward until the cone touched the deputy’s boot. The stitches tugged. He didn’t blink.
The man flinched.
And from the stairwell, beyond the badges and the lights, came a sound I’ve loved my whole life—the low thunder of engines rolling up as if a storm had decided to wear leather.
To be continued.