<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'">Oliver followed after her and teased her for forgetting about his breakup with Audrey, not Aubrey. “Oh, I forgot about that night,” she answered honestly with a small chuckle as she descended the stairs, curls bouncing behind her head, “Nathan tried to climb onto the couch with you so you wouldn’t have to wake up alone. I should have let him do it, then recorded it when you two woke up together.” Especially when Nathan had, for reasons unknown to her, decided it’d been best to go to bed with Oliver naked. Remembering that, and having to herd her nude boyfriend up the stairs and into bed, a grin was on Genevieve’s face when she stopped at the front door and spun around to face Oliver. He chose then to tell her Nathan hadn’t needed to be present for the bust he’d been given his life for and the smile faltered into an expression of confusion.<br/>
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She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but her phone buzzed on the coffee table and she glanced over, recognizing the ring tone. “That’s my mother,” she announced and went to open the front door, “She calls every night now at 9:30 to make sure I’ve eaten and to see how my day went. I can’t get her to stop. Can we meet soon? Talk more?” With that between them and a quick goodbye, Genevieve shut the door after Oliver left, locked it, and went to retrieve her phone. The phone call with her mother was brief, but she used that time to shut down everything downstairs and let Dunkin out one more time before retreating to her bedroom. Genevieve was about to set about cleaning off the bed when she remembered the business card. It was retrieved instead and the number dialed. At first it just rang and rang, so she hung up and tried again.<br/>
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Finally, on the fourth ring, a deep, accented voice with a background she couldn’t place answered, “The night is short and the sea is shallow.”<br/>
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“Hello? May I ask who this is?”<br/>
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<i>Click.</i><br/>
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Genevieve had decided she’d try the phone number again at a more decent time and had instead gone about clearing the bed. It’d sounded like some strange code to her though, and it played in her mind repeatedly while she worked. It was the last thing she thought of when she finally got to bed and turned out all the lights. It was the first thing on her mind the next morning. Why would someone say that? Why had they hung up on her? Just what had she stumbled upon and why did Nathan have that number? The questions swirled; they rushed through her mind the entire time she and Dunkin went on their morning run. She personally hated running, it was a sweat thing for her, but the dog had gotten so used to doing it with Nathan he would whine more than a two-year-old in a candy aisle if she didn’t get up and go with him. So every morning she rolled out of bed, threw her hair into a bun, grumbled while pulling on spandex and a sports bra, then groggily shoved on weathered tennis shoes while Dunkin danced around her in excitement.<br/>
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It was always the same when the pair of them came home from the run. Dunkin would go into the kitchen, sprawl out in front of his water bowl, and pretend to drink all his water by sloshing it around on his face. Genevieve would go for an actual shower and let the dog recover. It was as she passed Nathan’s study that she realized something was not the same. The study door was open. Frowning to herself, knowing she’d shut it out of habit to keep Dunkin out, Genevieve reached out to push the door open more and peek into the room, expecting to find one of her family members or perhaps Oliver. Instead a hand struck out, quick as a snake and she was roughly slung up against the nearby bookshelves. Books went tumbling, the wind was knocked out of her from the force of it, and a larger, black-clad body shoved up against her, the man’s chest compressing tightly against hers and pushing the shelves painfully into her back. She hadn’t had time to scream, to even make any sort of sound, before a large, gloved hand tightly covered her mouth while a sickeningly large knife was held up to her throat.<br/>
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“The bitch is home.”<br/>
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She recognized the man instantly. The driver of the Mustang she’d noticed. There. In her home. His red-rimmed dark eyes were filled with disgust, the smile revealing his scraggly teeth ominous, and his grip on her rough. Eyes wide with confusion and pain, Genevieve took him in first, before her gaze darted around to try to make sense of what she’d stumbled upon. A second man, shorter and stouter than the tower of a man overpowering her, stood behind Nathan’s desk, computer in his hands and drawers slung every which way as if he’d been searching for something.<br/>
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“Ask her.”<br/>
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“Where is the flashdrive?” The hand was removed and instead gripped her jaw tightly, “And don’t you fucking scream or you’ll be learn what it’s like to be a fountain.” The knife pushed up against her larynx in warning.<br/>
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“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her voice quivered, her body screaming its pain and panic.<br/>
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“We know it’s here! Now hand it over or you’ll be seeing your dead asshole boyfriend sooner—“ The book slammed up against the side of the man’s head hard enough for him to grunt and stagger.<br/>
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Genevieve leapt into action, dropping the dictionary she’d thankfully been able to reach and surging toward the door, but the man spun and grabbed her wrist, yanking her back and straight into his chest. She managed one short scream before his hand clamped down on her throat, rendering her silent as she was again slammed into the wall to try to immobilize her, “Tell us where the fuck it is!”<br/>
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“Let’s check the bedroom. Bring her with you,” the second man started for the door but a black blur streaked into the room, releasing horrendous snarls as it hurled itself against the man, its jaws clamping down on his arm and twisting violently. With the man screaming in shock and pain, Dunkin used the entire strength of his body to try to take down the threat.<br/>
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“Call him off! Call him off, <i>now</i>!” The man released Genevieve’s throat, instead gripping her arm tightly and shaking her.<br/>
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For a full second or two, she was so shocked to see her dog acting so viciously, Genevieve was struck into silence. But with another hard shake and the shove of the knife against her arm, she quickly searched her mind, trying to remember the commands Nathan had learned when Dunkin had gone through his training. “<i>Loslassen!</i>”<br/>
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“What the fuck does that mean?” Her captor spat at her, but Dunkin released the bleeding, sobbing man from his grip and stepped back, every hair on his body on end and his ears flat back on his skull.<br/>
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“Dunkin,” Genevieve was quick to take advantage of the fact her lackadaisical dog had somehow found his protective instincts at the best moment. The dog’s eyes immediately shot to his mistress and she braced herself, then tried to wrench away from the hold of her attacker as hard as she could while praying the dog remembered the command, “Dunkin, <i>stürmen</i>!”<br/>
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He reacted instantly, as if a switch had been flicked. The dog stormed her attacker just as he’d been trained to do so many years before, this time sinking his sharp canines into the man’s thigh and twisting. Genevieve was immediately forgotten and instead the man began wildly swinging the knife at the viciously snapping dog. She was quick to advance as well instead of fleeing, fearing he could kill the only real link she still had to Nathan and the reason she was even free in the first place. Genevieve dove for the knife the man wielded, sending the three of them crashing into the bookshelves again but able to wrestle the knife away, having the advantage of two hands and no dog biting her. Unsure of what to do with the weapon as the man tried to simultaneous rip Dunkin away and overpower her, shooting curses and yells all the while, Genevieve finally took it and shoved it down into the man’s bicep.<br/>
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With him yelling in pain and trying to wrench it out, Genevieve stumbled away in complete shock. Both men were yelling at her and bleeding, her mind was whirling so much with adrenaline she could make out nothing, and the dog continued to growl and attack. She yelled out the command for Dunkin to stop again, it was rapidly followed with her demand he come with her, and Genevieve went tearing from the room and down the stairs. She heard gunshots follow and briefly wondered how guns were only now coming into play, but decided it didn’t matter. She had to get the hell out. With the black shepherd hot on her heels and the sounds of two angry, violent men approaching, she snatched up her cell phone from the table just inside the front door and flung the door open. Woman and canine sprinted out of the house and into the early morning light, both bloody, both not stopping.<br/>
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She really had no idea how far she ran, but had somehow had the semblance of mind to turn off the road and onto other streets. She knew they’d chase her, knew they’d be looking. What had they wanted from her? A flashdrive? When she finally felt she and Dunkin had gotten far enough away, Genevieve led the dog over to the shaded corner of another person’s yard and sat down beneath a tree roughly. For a few minutes, all she could do was breathe and stare at Dunkin. He sat beside her diligently, also panting, but eyes scarily focused on his surroundings, hints of blood on his muzzle and on his collar. <i>Holy shit, my dog is fucking scary.</i><br/>
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With shaky hands and quivering breath, Genevieve finally had the presence of mind to call for help. And it was through wracking sobs that she told Oliver to come find her when he answered his phone.</span>