At some point, Sabe passed out. He woke when sunlight glinted through the slats of the shed, falling on his face. It hurt to move. His face was a mask of blood. His ear had bled well into the night. It still throbbed painfully.

He didn’t understand. Julia loved him. How could they be so angry that she loved him and he loved her?

He stood slowly, using the wall for balance.

If she told them what happened, just explained it, he knew it would be okay. She wanted to marry him, after all. It would be okay.

Sabe hit his fist against the door. Everything hurt as he moved. “Hello?” he called. “Can I come out, please?”

There was no answer. He tried to listen, but it was hard to hear with one ear filled with blood. He sat down against the wall. He looked at the bruises on his body. He was covered. There was no way he could win a competition against other caenids with a body so marred. They’d just laugh at him.

He thumped his head back against the wall. There was no one near. Maybe they were all still sleeping. Maybe the girls were in school. Why didn’t Mom come for him? She would understand. If he told her, she would understand.

Hours passed with no sign of life outside the pump house. The sun had begun to set when Sabe heard the first new noise. It was a car with rubber tires driving up the gravel driveway. Little rocks popped and pinged as it rolled closer. His family had a solar flyer. Only visitors ever came with tired vehicles. It was someone new.

Sabe tried to peer out through the thin gap between the door. He saw the flash of headlights, but couldn’t make out any details.

The car stopped and a door opened. The door to the house opened, too, and male voices spoke to each other. They moved closer to the shed.

“He’s a bad dog. Just a rotten little beast. I don’t care what you do with him.”

The new man said, “They’re all beasts. They’re cute when they’re puppies, but they get to this age, and something just snaps. If you don’t keep them on a tight leash, they start to think they’re human.”

“Disgusting. Well, he’s all yours now.” The lock on the pump house slid off. The door swung open, and Sabe backed away from the men.

The new man stepped forward, a thick black collar in his hands. “Come here, boy,” he ordered. Sabe didn’t like the look of him. There was violence in the man’s eyes. Sabe tried to move away, but there was no room for him to hide in the small pump house.

“Please, don’t. I’ll be good. Please let me stay. I’ll be good!”

“You’re already mine, you little bitch.” The man lunged fast, grabbing Sabe’s ankle and dragging him closer. Sabe tried to grab anything that could stop his movement, but his hands just slipped off. When he was close enough, the man put a knee on Sabe’s chest to pin him down, then fastened the thick collar around his neck tight enough that he had to strain to breathe.

Once the collar was in place, the man took a strap from his hip and clicked it onto the metal ring on the collar. A leash. Sabe had been leashed and collared.

The man stood then, brushing some of the dried blood of his knee. “See? No problem.”

Sabe’s hands went up to the collar, and he felt the buckles behind his head. His fingers tried to quickly undo them, to get it off. The man yanked the leash, stepping on it and jerking Sabe out of the pump house. He pulled the leash until Sabe’s face was in the dirt against his boot, the collar and leash holding him to the ground.

“You’re my property now, bitch. You leave that collar alone, or I’ll break your hands. Understand me, dog?” His voice hit Sabe like a mallet, crushing his heart with every word. The man terrified him.

When he didn’t get an immediate response, he jerked the leash tighter, and Sabe’s breath was cut off. “I said, do you understand me, dog.”

“Yes!” Sabe choked out.

“Yes, what?”

“Y-Yes…” Sabe didn’t know what the man wanted. Did he want to be called Dad, too? What were the other correct answers to the question? He didn’t know, and he was losing the little air he had left.

“Master. You call me Master, you little shit.”

“Yes, Master!” Sabe gasped, and suddenly he had air again. The leash stayed tight though, holding him to the dirt.

Master shook hands with the man who used to be Dad, and said, “Thanks for selling him to me. You’re not going to have to worry about this one hurting anyone else.”

“I’m just glad you could pick him up so soon. The thought of having that rabid mutt on my property a moment longer just made me sick. You get him out of here now, and if you get tired of him, don’t think about bringing him back. Just kill him.”

Master laughed. “Oh, I can think of quite a few uses for him. Don’t worry. You’ll never see this beast again.”

The man Sabe had known as Dad left then, returning to the house. He stood with Julia and Octavia on the porch. The girls were wrapped in blankets, hugging each other, but they all just watched. Mom was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to let you up now,” said Master. “You can either walk beside me like a good dog, or you can crawl on your hands and knees like the bad mutt you are. Don’t think for a second I won’t beat you bloody in front of your old owners. You really want that to be their last memory of you?”

“No, Master,” said Sabe. Tears dripped from his eyes.

“Oh, you’re going to cry a lot over the next few days, boy. Don’t think for a second your tears are going to have any effect on me.” He lifted his boot and tugged the leash up. Sabe rose to his feet. He held his hands in front of his naked body, ashamed to be so exposed. Master led him to the car.

When Sabe looked to the house, he saw the look of hatred on the man’s face. The girls just looked sad. And Julia… Julia couldn’t stand the sight of him. She turned her face away, burying it in her sister’s hair.

She loved him, didn’t she? How could she let him be taken away like this?

“J-Julia,” Sabe whispered. He reached out for her. “Julia!”

The blow came to the back of his head, and Sabe found himself in the dirt. He didn’t remember falling. Master kicked him in the stomach. “Stupid mutt! Know your place. Get in the car.

Sabe started to rise, but Master kicked him down again. “Oh no, I gave you a chance to be good and you screwed it up. Crawl, bitch!”

With no dignity left, Sabe crawled to the car. He climbed into the dog carrier in the backseat, where he was barely able to fit, then Master shut the door and got in to drive.

As the car turned around and started down the driveway, Master said, “You got caught sleeping with one of the farm girls, didn’t you? Girl that age around a boy like you? Oh, I bet she just couldn’t keep her hands off. You probably didn’t even know what you were doing wrong, did you? Poor dumb mutt. It’s good for me, though. You’re going to break in real nicely, aren’t you puppy?” He laughed to himself, then turned on the radio to muffle Sabe’s cries.

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Until that point in his life, Sabe had been lucky. He had been able to forget what he was. Caenids weren’t people, they were pets. Sabe had just been a pampered pet. He had been an award winning breed at the top of his form.

But he had also been very naive.

Caenids stayed in the nursery until they were weaned. Their mothers often had no contact with them after birth. Birthing litters was difficult, and breeding caenids had to rest immediately after the surgery that removed the pups. If not, there would be an even longer delay before they could produce their next litter, and that just wasn’t economical.

Formula and rotating nurses cared for newborns. They kept them socialized and happy, because that’s what made them pleasant pets. Any that showed signs of defect were weeded out. As personalities developed, they were auctioned to different training schools. Sabe had been sent to a top of the line academy at two years old, where he was fully trained in normal childhood development steps, like talking, toilet use, running, feeding himself, and cleaning himself, as well as specialized caenid developmental steps, like how to be a good pet.

Your owner’s happiness is your happiness.

Always obey, never question.

The life of a human is precious.

Bad pets will be put to sleep and not allowed to wake up.

Sabe knew the rules. He knew what he was. He knew why he hadn’t been allowed to attend school, hadn’t been allowed to learn to read. He was nothing but a pet.

But he had felt like family. He had been so ignorant.

He peered at the back of Master’s head through the bars of the cage . This man wouldn’t ever let Sabe forget what he was. This man would hurt Sabe in ways he knew he couldn’t imagine. No, he couldn’t imagine them, not yet, but this man would ensure Sabe was intimately familiar with pain.

If he was given the chance.

Sabe had been sheltered from the cruelty of the world for too long. It had been easy to ignore injustice or violence if it was happening to someone else. It was easy to think that maybe that other person deserved it.

But it was wrong. No one deserved to be treated like this.

As Sabe watched the man drive, he felt instincts for survival rise from deep within him. His mind felt filled with a fog, but his instincts were sharp and cold. He knew what he had to do.

Biting the inside of his cheek until he drew blood, Sabe prepared for his ambush. He lay carefully in the cramped space and waited. By the time the car pulled into a parking spot, Sabe was ready.

“Home sweet home,” Master said as he turned off the car. He got out and came back to get Sabe out. When he opened the door, all he saw were Sabe’s unfocused eyes staring blankly and frothy blood dripping from his mouth. “Shit.” The man opened the cage and reached in to find a pulse. The collar blocked his neck, and Sabe’s arms were pinned awkwardly beneath his stiff body.

Swearing, he grabbed Sabe and pulled him out of the carrier. Sabe’s limp body hit the cement heavily. The boot nudged his side, but when he got no response, he started looking around for any other witnesses. “Beat him to death then try to sell him to me?” he mumbled. “That lousy son of a bitch. Drop this body right back on the farm, and I’ll go take my payment from the daughters. I’ll-”

Sabe sprang up behind the man and wrapped the leash around his neck. He crossed the strap in the back, pulling it tight with both hands. He squeezed, hanging from the man’s neck while he flailed and tried to reach back and grab Sabe.

“Kill you!” Master choked.

“Not if I kill you first,” Sabe hissed. He held tight to the man, riding his back as he dropped to his knees and clawed at his throat. The man fell forward, thudding against the cement and passing out from the lack of oxygen. Still, Sabe held tight. The man was no longer fighting him, no longer a threat, but Sabe didn’t let up. He fully intended to kill him.

The fog filling his mind lifted. Realizing what he was doing, Sabe stopped. He could still hear the man’s heartbeat, though it was faint and fragile, but he couldn’t kill him. Sabe wasn’t a murderer, and he wasn’t going to become one over a man like that.

“You’re not my master,” he said. He got up, undid the buckles, and threw the collar down on the ground. “I have no master,” he declared.

The streets were dark and unfamiliar, but Sabe ran from there and kept running until he found shelter. No one came looking for him. He moved around in the shadows, stealing what he could. He clothed himself in discarded rags. He ate anything that didn’t smell poisonous. He avoided human contact for weeks, just running further away.

When he first saw Nukan City, Sabe felt drawn to it, compelled to investigate the peculiar structure on the horizon. Every day he moved toward the towers, and every day they grew taller, but never any closer. After days of travel, he finally arrived there, and knew he had found a place in which he could truly disappear.

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