He didn’t move.
My stomach tightened.
“Titan.”
Before I could shorten the leash, ninety pounds of muscle exploded forward.
Leather burned across my palm and ripped free.
“Titan! No! Stop!”
He tore across the field.
I searched desperately for a weapon, a suspect, anything that explained what he had detected.
There was only a little girl.
Maybe seven.
Pale skin.
Bright blonde pigtails.
A vivid pink winter coat.
She was chasing a yellow frisbee toward the brush and oak trees at the edge of the park.
Her parents were nowhere in sight.
“Titan! Down!”
She bent for the frisbee.
Then heard him.
Her laughter vanished.
Titan hit her with his body.
He never bit.
But the impact knocked her backward into the frozen dirt.
Her scream ripped across the park.
Then everything erupted.
“He’s attacking her!”
“Get a gun!”
“Somebody shoot that dog!”
A heavyset man in flannel charged from the picnic tables.
Another grabbed a thick fallen branch and raised it over his head.
The girl kicked and sobbed beneath Titan.
