The automatic doors of St. Jude’s Emergency Room slid apart with a heavy sigh, letting in a rush of midnight rain and a heavy, terrifying presence. Elena Ward, the head triage nurse, froze with her fingers hovering directly over her keyboard. A sight like this in a busy city ER, an animal of this particular shape and size, usually meant a severe incident was about to follow through the doors.
It was a pit bull. He was massive, with a scarred, blocky head, severely cropped ears, and fur soaked to a dull, bruised gray. His chest heaved with a ragged, exhausting wheeze that rattled the glass of the reception desk. But as the animal stepped fully into the harsh fluorescent light, the collective gasp of the waiting room sucked the air right out of the lobby.
Draped across the dog’s broad, muscular back, her small fingers tangled desperately in his thick scruff, was a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than six years old. Her face was deathly pale, and her head hung limp against the animal’s shoulder like a forgotten rag doll.