For the next two weeks, my life became smaller in the best possible way.
Water on schedule.
Short walks before sunrise.
Food divided into careful portions.
No sudden movements.
No shooting range.
No expectations.
The Shepherd slept on the floor beside my bed the first night, but not really. Every sound brought his head up. Every truck passing outside made his body tighten. At three in the morning, I woke from my own nightmare and found him sitting in the doorway watching me.
We stared at each other in the dark.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Me too.”
He came closer after that.
Not all the way.
Just close enough to lie beside the bed.
I spent the next morning calling the contacts listed in his retirement paperwork. It took patience, transfers, and more explanations than I expected, but eventually I reached someone who could confirm the dog had left service medically sound enough for retirement. His record included stress sensitivity after his final deployment, but nothing described him as dangerous, unusable, or incapable of recovery.
The word broken appeared nowhere.
That word had belonged to Brock.
A week later, one of Brock’s friends called me.
He sounded embarrassed.
“He wants the paperwork back.”
“No.”
“He says the bet shouldn’t count.”
“It counted when he thought he was getting my truck.”
Silence.
“Yeah,” the Marine said. “That’s what I told him.”
He hesitated.
“He also told people you cheated. Said you were some kind of professional shooter.”
“I am some kind of professional shooter.”
He gave a nervous laugh.
“You know what I mean.”
I did.
