She takes the stairs two at a time down to the ground floor and out of the complex, where she finds Bear relaxing in the grass of the building’s front yard.  It’s a small patch of greenery stuffed full of growing vegetables, herbs lining the edges like weeds, taking purchase anywhere they can. “Hey, Bear!” she shouts, smiling as soon as she sees him.

The dog scrambles up, trotting over to her, tail wagging immediately.  Kelly drops into a crouch and takes his face in her hands, ruffling his fur and ears.  “How’re you, buddy?”

Bear barks in response and leans into her touch, panting happily.  His tail wags faster.

Kelly sighs as her hands drop to her knees and she lingers there a moment before rising to her feet again, looking around the yard for any sign of a stick or a toy.  She spots an old tennis ball near the tomato plants and approaches it, snatching it up and showing it to Bear.  “Want to play a little fetch?”

Bear perks up immediately, hopping on his front paws as he waits for the ball to be thrown.  Kelly winds it back and tosses it as far as she can, watching it soar over the yard and into the road.  Bear goes bounding after it and she watches as he grows smaller, shoving her hands in her pockets.  Eventually he comes running back, the ball between his teeth, and he drops it at her feet.

“It’s been thirteen years now, Bear,” Kelly mumbles as she stares up into the partly cloudy sky, the golden haze of morning now completely lost to blue. She turns her attention back to the ball and pulls a hand from her pocket to grab it, tossing it again and watching the malamute go dashing off.

Bear has been privy to many of her secrets, in many places.  The yard, the park, her room.  Things she never felt like she could tell her friends or her father, Bear has heard them all.  There is something comforting about having a friend who doesn’t understand anything you say.

“Longer than you’ve been alive,” she adds as he returns with his prize.  “Thirteen years, and I can’t get over them.”  She sighs and picks up the ball again, but doesn’t throw it. “I wish you knew my mom.  Maybe you could help me understand better if you did.”  She is quiet for a few moments before sending the ball flying again.  When he returns once more, she takes the ball and holds it loosely in her hand, staring into the empty street.  “Maybe that’s why it’s so hard.  Even I didn’t know her.”

The complex door creaks as it opens and Kelly glances over her shoulder.  Her father is stepping out, letting the door swing closed behind him.  He offers her a wave, a tired smile on his face.  “Got a patrol.”

“Be safe!” Kelly calls as she waves back.

“You, too,” Robert replies, letting his hand fall to his side as he walks briskly down the way, his gaze drifting to what lies ahead.

Kelly turns her attention back to Bear, who is watching her, head tilted.  She offers him a smile not too different from her father’s and tosses the ball again.

When evening rolls around, Kelly cooks dinner.  Her father, being a patrolman, works long hours and she always feels guilty at the notion of him coming home from ages of walking only to stand in the kitchen and cook a meal, so she usually takes care of it.

Bear lies in a corner of the kitchen, dozing as he keeps her company.

When Robert gets home, he is stiff and ill-tempered, slamming the door shut and kicking off his boots.  Bear sits up immediately, alert as he watches the man slump into his chair at the dinner table and takes up his fork.  He says nothing, stabbing a chunk of carrot and ripping it off the utensil with his teeth.  As he chews the same bite for the twenty-fifth time, Kelly watches him silently for a moment before asking, “So what happened today?”

Robert swallows and sighs deeply, then takes another bite and chews as he looks off in contemplation, his shoulders sagging.  When he finishes, he speaks.  “Had an enthralled today, right in the city.”

Kelly stiffens and stares across the table at him.  “How far in?”

Neither of them notices Bear stand slowly, his attention flitting between them as they speak.

“Up to the fence,” Robert answers.  “Bastard tried to negotiate his way in and everything, tried to convince us he got lost and couldn’t find the caravan he’d been traveling with.  Insisted they’d either gotten here already or were on the way.”  Robert frowns harder at the memory, gripping his fork tighter.  “But he had that look in his eye that those slaves just can’t hide.”  His shoulders squared in that way that Kelly knew meant he was fighting back a shiver.  “That dull shimmer.”

Kelly nods.  She’d been taught from an early age how to spot someone under the influence of faerie magic.  The shimmer, the glassy stare into the middle distance, that is the easiest way to know someone has been taken by magic.  She’d seen photos and video footage of enthralled in class, and once from a fellow student who’d seen one just before being ushered away by soldiers, but never been in the presence of one herself.

“What did you do?” Kelly asks.

“Shot him right between the eyes, of course.”  His voice is calm and measured, holding back something that Kelly chooses not to think about.  “That’s the only way to save those poor souls.”

When you become a victim of it, you lose your name, referred to only as the enthralled or the fae-touched.  There are fewer things more dangerous than an enthralled in the city.  They’ll do anything the fae ask of them, which usually is ‘kill everyone you see.’  They’ll die for them.  Most do, in the end.

Kelly nods, a grim expression on her face.  She turns her attention to her food, but suddenly her appetite has dulled.  “Of course.”

“Had to have his body thrown out in the Wild,” Robert continues.  “No one ever wants to do it, but it’s a job that’s gotta get done.  Everyone gets antsy the closer they get to the Wild.”

Kelly nods as she listens and takes another bite, chewing it slowly as she tries to summon up the desire to swallow it.  “Just the one, though?”

Robert nods.  “Thankfully.”

“That’s good.”  Kelly goes quiet after that and the subject dies there.

There is a haunted look in her father’s eyes.  They had no choice in what they did once they were enslaved, and in that way they were innocent.  No honorable man wants to kill innocent people, but they can’t afford to let them live.  No one can free the enthralled, save the fae.

The rest of the meal passes in silence, until Kelly offers to do the dishes.  Robert thanks her, then disappears into the bathroom to shower.  The apartment fills with the sound of running water.  Kelly stares at her hands as she scrubs at the plates.  It takes several minutes for her to realize Bear is sitting beside her, watching.  She glances down at him briefly.  “What’s up, bud?”

Bear whimpers and paws at her leg.

Kelly smiles that same weary smile as she runs a plate under the faucet.  “He’ll be fine, Bear.  Everything always turns out fine.”

Except when it doesn’t, but she keeps that part to herself.