As Amity first caught sight of the Barbery, the last traces of orange were just beginning to fade from the sky.  It was, so far, the only building set on the western Bluff overlooking Vena Cava, which made it the nearest structure to the valley pastures that could be considered truly part of town. Sighting home brought a burst of energy, but she burned through it fast. By the time she made her way to the door, the Barbery had become little more than a shadow against the glimmering, moonlit waves of the ocean.

She rested the side of her head on the red-and-black stripes on the doorframe, took a deep breath, and kicked. Once, then twice.

“Amity?!” came a shout from within.  Amity kicked the door again, and heard a thumping response down the stairs.  “Hold on, damn you!  You’re late, and you’re bootprinting my goddamn paint!  Forget your key, too?”

The door swung open, revealing light from within.  Victor lurched forward to fill most of the portal, a scowl drawing his beard into misalignment with his jaw.   His frown deepened as his eyes flicked up and down her person.  The wounds streaking her ruined clothes, her ruined arm, the wet, makeshift sack. His frown only deepened as he reached out to take her coat and the offal within.  

“Go lay down in the back.  Exam table two, the other one needs cleaning.  I’ll do it later, you just lie down.”

Amity half-nodded, and extended the coat-bag.  It had soaked through around the midpoint of her walk, and begun growing cold, besides.  She was glad to be rid of it.  “This is ruined,” Victor muttered.   Amity nodded. 

“Luca said he’d get… ‘ool.  Shee’ clouds.  To do another.”

“I’d say he ought to do a little more than that, for you. I should’ve sent Leo. Damn.”

“I got it done.”

Following Victor into the exam room, Amity stepped out from her boots.  One of them had been ravaged by tooth-marks, but the ankle beneath was only scratched, if more than a little sore.   Victor unlocked the door to the cell and began making his way down the stairs.  “You got all the entrails, then?” he called back up.  Amity didn’t bother replying. Instead, she used her good arm to ratchet up the front end of the exam table, so as to more comfortably situate herself.  As she flopped down, it became clear that attempts at comfort could only mean so much until she was healed.  

Although she made some motion to undress, removing her shirt on her own would be impossible, with her arm as it was, and her pants were stuck on with dried blood and her own weight.  Now that she was lying down, she didn’t want to get back up, especially because the world around her bed kept rotating and it seemed quite easy to fall.

Victor trudged back upstairs after a half-minute, as Amity was just beginning to rest her eyes.

“First thing,” he said.  “Look at me.”  

Amity opened her eyes to find Victor’s only a few inches away.  His eyes were dark brown, with the sort of craggy depth that only really came out with careful study.  No angularity to be found.  They were pretty.  Victor blinked and nodded, apparently satisfied. 

“Okay, good. Sorry. So. I’m going to clean and bandage the wounds that are still open, then we’ll set your arm.  Are you feeling well?”

“No,” Amity whispered.  

“Hold tight for a bit, then.  You need to eat, but you need to get your arm set, first.  It’s been more than an hour, right?  I may need to break it again.”

Amity groaned.  

“You’re right, you are.  That should happen before bandaging, it’ll be easier.”

Cool metal slid up her side, and Amity shut her eyes tight.  Fabric fell away from her arm, then her torso.  “God, you’re scratched all over, too.” Victor said.  “What happened, then?”  He knew full well by now, Amity figured.  She caught a glimpse of bone penetrating the skin of her arm, and began studying the ceiling with interest. 

“The dog ate a ‘erson.”

“Ah. Hold still, now.”  Victor dragged a rough sponge across Amity’s arm, manipulating the limb as he did.  Tendrils of pain rocketed from her forearm, and she did her best to swallow them noiselessly

“It tried to eat another, then?” Victor said.

“Yeah. Got her, though.” 

“Barely, from the look of you.  You can have Luca tried for this, you should known.”  Victor began palpating her arm with both hands, eliciting a wince and a hiss.  “He reported it as ‘acting strangely’ on his black-banner, and a low priority, too.  I assume it’d started losing its shape, given the claw-marks here.  Could have gotten you killed. Or someone else, if you’d not gone today.”

Amity opened her eyes just before her arm snapped.  She bit down through the initial rush of pain, but let out a lengthy kettle-whine under her breath as it truly set in.  

“One more.”

The second break brought her voice out, just for a second.  She caught her breath, suddenly slick again with sweat, and tried to ignore the new sensation in her throat.   The room was spinning, now, undeniably, very fast.  Her stomach churned.  Her neck hurt.  Everything was bad.

“What I mean, I suppose, is well done.” Victor said.  “ Relax for tonight and tomorrow. We’ll get you bandaged, and get some food in you, and then I’ll show you how we go through digested remains.”

Amity grunted in assent as Victor’s hands tightened around her forearm.  “Just one more.”  Her arm broke, deep inside. Amity screamed, a dog began barking down the hill, the room spun, and all the lights went out.

In her dream, Amity was a sheepdog.  And she loved her flock, and they loved her too, even though she was a dog and not a sheep.  And when a wolf came, she killed it, and ate it, and the sheep it had killed, too.  And the flock forgave her, because she was not like them, and they nestled against her, covered in the blood of their kin as she was, and the sun kept them warm.  And the sun broke through her jaws and burned her inside-out, and the sheep burned, too, and the flame spewed out all her holes and scoured away everything.

Amity jolted upright.  A tube in her arm caught as she did, and pulled free with a trickle of watery, pink-tinged fluid.  Willing her heart to slow down, she took stock of her environment.

She was in her own bed, now, not the one for exams, and her fresh linens were matched by the gauze wrapping her limbs.  A little red spotted through a few places where she remembered sharper pains, but the tightness of the wrappings kept the blood in and the pain away.  

Her arm was sealed away in a cast- bent for her convenience, and wrapped in a loose sling. The pain in her neck was gone altogether, and her mouth didn’t hurt, either.  Raising her hand to her jaw confirmed it’d been treated as she slept, much like all her wounds from the day, and the clothing and anatomical texts she’d left strewn about in the morning were neatly placed atop her desk.    Amity let out a sigh through her fingers.  She was home.