Chapter 2 - FIVE MINUTES WITH A MONSTERCyrus did not run at Maisie.
That was the first thing nobody expected.
He burst from the kennel with all the violence of a storm breaking loose, claws tearing into dirt, shoulders rolling under scarred black-and-tan fur. Men shouted. One stumbled backward into the fence. Someone drew a gun before Julian’s look made him lower it.
But Cyrus did not charge the little girl.
He circled.
Fast.
Low.
His ears pinned back. His teeth bared. His paws carved a wide ring around Maisie as if he were drawing a boundary in the dirt and warning the world not to cross it.
Maisie stood perfectly still.
She did not reach out.
She did not call his name.
She did not make the mistake every trainer had made before her: demanding trust from a creature who had been punished for giving it.
“Maisie,” Liam choked from behind the fence.
She lifted one finger, not toward the dog, but toward her brother.
Quiet.
It was such a small gesture that grown men later argued about why they obeyed it. Maybe because she seemed calmer than anyone else in the room. Maybe because Cyrus had not torn her down yet. Maybe because every person there understood they were watching something that would never happen twice.
Cyrus completed another circle.
His growl rippled through the arena.
Maisie lowered herself slowly to the dirt.
The crowd sucked in one breath.
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“Get her up,” Liam said, lunging forward.
Two guards caught him.
“Don’t touch him!” Maisie snapped.
Everyone froze.
She had not raised her voice all night, but the sharpness in it cracked across the arena.
Liam stopped struggling.
Maisie sat cross-legged on the ground, her hands loose on her knees. Her head turned slightly, tracking Cyrus by sound. Dirt shifted under his paws. His breathing came in broken bursts. His tags clicked against his collar.
No.
Not tags.
Something else.
Maisie focused on it.
A small metallic scrape, too heavy for identification tags, too sharp for a normal buckle.
“His collar hurts,” she said.
One of the handlers scoffed. “It’s padded.”
“No,” Maisie said. “There’s something under it.”
Julian turned to the handler. “Remove it.”
The man stared. “Boss, I’m not putting my hands near—”
“Remove. It.”
Cyrus snarled as the handler approached. The man stopped instantly.
Maisie tilted her head.
“Not him,” she said.
Julian’s voice lowered. “Then who?”
Maisie extended her hand, palm down, not toward Cyrus but toward the dirt beside her.
“Let him come close first.”
Cyrus’s circling slowed.
He was still growling, but the sound had changed. It no longer rolled outward at everyone. It trembled inward, caught in his chest.
Maisie began to hum.
It was barely music at first. Just a low, steady note. Then another. A simple melody, old and soft, the kind sung beside beds and hospital windows. Her mother had hummed it after the accident when Maisie woke screaming because she had dreamed she could see again and opened her eyes to nothing.
Cyrus stopped moving.
The room stopped with him.
Maisie kept humming.
A man near the barrier whispered, “No way.”
Cyrus took one step toward her.
Then another.
His nose twitched.
Maisie did not move.
He came close enough that his breath stirred the hem of her dress.
Liam looked like he might collapse.
Cyrus sniffed her hair. Her shoulder. Her hand.
Maisie’s fingers trembled once.
The dog noticed.
He drew back with a growl.
“Breathe,” Maisie whispered, though nobody knew whether she was speaking to Cyrus or herself.
She inhaled slowly.
Held it.
Released.
After a moment, Cyrus’s breathing matched hers.
Julian Hart watched as if the world had betrayed everything he believed about it.
Maisie hummed again.
Cyrus lowered his head.
There was a faint sound then—a tiny, pained scrape when his collar shifted.
Maisie’s expression changed.
“There,” she said. “It cuts when he lowers his head.”
Julian stepped forward.
Cyrus snapped toward him instantly, teeth flashing.
Julian stopped.
Not out of fear. Out of something worse.
Realization.
Maisie turned her face toward Julian’s voice. “He thinks you will let them hurt him.”
The words landed harder than any accusation.
Julian said nothing.
Maisie lifted both hands slowly and touched the buckle of Cyrus’s collar.
The whole arena seemed to lean backward.
Cyrus’s lips peeled from his teeth.
Maisie froze.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know it hurts.”
Her fingers worked gently beneath the strap.
She found it almost immediately.
A thin metal prong hidden under the padding, pressed against the raw skin at the side of Cyrus’s neck. Every time he pulled, every time he lowered his head, every time he obeyed, it cut him.
Maisie’s mouth tightened.
“This isn’t a collar,” she said. “It’s a punishment.”
Julian looked at Marco.
Marco had gone very still.
Maisie unfastened the buckle. It took effort. Her fingers were small, and the leather was stiff with sweat and old blood. At last, the collar fell open and dropped into the dirt.
Cyrus staggered.
Not from weakness.
From relief.
The massive German Shepherd stood over the collar, staring at it as if it were alive. Then he did something no one expected.
He backed away from it.
Maisie reached down, picked it up carefully, and held it toward Julian.
“Someone wanted him angry,” she said.
Julian took the collar.
His face did not change.
That was how everyone knew someone might die before sunrise.
The arena timer, forgotten until then, beeped from a table near the ring.
One minute gone.
Maisie turned back toward Cyrus.
“Come here,” she whispered.
Cyrus did not move.
She patted the dirt beside her once.
Not commanding.
Inviting.
The dog stared at her.
Behind him, Marco shifted.
His keys clicked.
Cyrus spun with a snarl so savage that the handler nearest Marco jumped away.
Maisie’s hand shot out.
“Cyrus.”
One word.
Not loud.
Not firm.
Just certain.
The dog stopped.
His body shook.
“Don’t go back there,” Maisie whispered. “Come here instead.”
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then Cyrus turned away from Marco.
He walked to Maisie.
And slowly, heavily, as if every inch of surrender cost him pain, he sat beside her.
The arena erupted.
Not in cheers.
In disbelief.
Men cursed. Someone laughed once and stopped. Liam covered his mouth with both hands. Julian stared at the girl and the dog at her side, the hidden collar clenched in his fist.
Maisie rested her hand lightly on Cyrus’s shoulder.
His growl faded.
The timer hit two minutes.
Then three.
Then four.
Cyrus remained sitting beside the blind girl in the dirt.
At four minutes and thirty seconds, Julian turned to Marco.
“Run.”
Marco blinked. “Boss?”
Julian’s voice was colder than the steel cage.
“Because when that timer reaches five, I will ask you one question. And if I do not like your answer, you will wish the dog had gotten to you first.”
The final thirty seconds passed in absolute silence.
The timer beeped.
Five minutes.
Maisie had won.
But before anyone could move, Cyrus lifted his head and let out a low, warning growl.
Not at Marco.
May you like
Not at Julian.
At the upper bleachers, where a man nobody had noticed was aiming a phone straight at the girl.
