Without stopping to think about what I might be walking into, I opened the door to Shane’s bus and stepped inside, noting briefly that the door looked like it had been popped open with a crowbar. Like the rest of us, our buses stayed locked up because fans went a little crazy at times and tried to sneak into our beds. In the living area I discovered that the place had been turned upside down. The flat screen was shattered and lying on the floor. The couch looked like someone had taken a large knife to it. The fridge in the small kitchenette was open and all the contents spilled on the floor.

I heard the whimper again and rushed through the bus. The bathroom door was open, showing me that the shower door was shattered. The mirror had something red written on it but I didn’t pause long enough to read it. I hurried toward the whimpering sounds that were getting worse, more pitiful. The sliding door to the bedroom was slightly ajar. I pushed it back and stepped inside to find a scene that turned my stomach even after seeing the terrors of war torn cities and blown up bodies.

The bed was in shambles with the covers spread across the room. Pillows were ripped open, the mattress seemed to have had the same knife the couch had been cut with taken to it. And there, sticking his head out from under the closet was the German Shepard, lying in a pool of blood and cut open by the same knife. A knife that wasn’t even close to a knife but a fucking machete because it was lying on the floor just inches from the dog.

I bent to examine him. He still had a little fight left in him because he growled a little when I touched his snout, but when I put a hand to the slices on his belly he whimpered again. His tongue stuck out of his mouth and he was panting hard. I wasn’t sure how deep Ranger’s wounds were but I knew that if he didn’t get help soon he wasn’t going to make it. I grabbed one of the blankets off the floor and wrapped it around the injured dog, carefully lifted him and ran.

I’d barely taken two steps off the bus when Shane was standing in front of me. “What the fuck..? Ranger!” His eyes darkened. “Wroth, what..?”

“I heard him as I was passing your bus. The place is a mess, man. And your dog is in bad shape. We gotta get him some help,” I told him as I continued to run.

Shane followed. He pulled out his phone as he ran beside me toward the closest exit. “Em? Something’s happened. Ranger…” His voice broke and he started again. “I’m with Wroth. I see one of the EMTs. We’re gonna get him to an emergency vet. Find out what the hell happened on my bus and make sure Harper…” Again his voice broke, worse this time and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Just keep her safe, Em.”

I had seen the EMT just as soon as Shane had and I rushed toward the man sitting on the back bumper of his ambulance. I didn’t know how much help a paramedic could be to a dog, but he could at least push me in the right direction since he was a local. When he saw what I held, his eyes widened but he didn’t hesitate to take the bleeding dog from me and stepped inside the ambulance. I followed him in with Shane pushing me forward until there was no more room so that he could get inside. The EMT unwrapped Ranger and started checking him over, listening to his belly and lungs before yelling at his partner in the front seat to get them to the E-Vet.

The EMT surprised me further when he put an IV into the dog’s leg. Ranger was worse than I had first thought because he didn’t protest when the needle went in. Shane dropped down on his knees beside the stretcher and started petting the dog’s nose, whispering soothingly to the dog almost as if it was more a child than a pet. From the way I’d seen Harper treat the dog, I knew that that was exactly what he was to her and if the dog died then she would be devastated. From the way Shane was acting, he would be too.

It took less than five minutes to reach the E-Vet because as soon as we ran into traffic, the driver hit his siren and the gas. The veterinarian’s clinic was bigger than I had expected, looking more like a small hospital than a vet’s office. The doors to the ambulance opened and a vet in green scrubs and his tech were waiting to take the dog. I’d heard the driver talking earlier and he must have been speaking to the staff. They placed him on a gurney and wheeled him inside. The vet started asking questions about the dog’s history which Shane was able to answer and then the vet asked what happened.

“Someone sliced him up with a machete. They destroyed Shane’s bus and Ranger must have tried to scare the person off,” I told the vet as we all stepped into what looked like an operating room.

“Okay. I’m going to have to do some x-rays and shave him. I don’t know how much damage has been done, so I’m going to have to open him up to make sure nothing vital was damaged, but he’s lost a lot of blood and losing more by the second.” The vet nodded toward the door. “Wait in the waiting room, guys. I’ll come get you as soon as I know anything.”

I nodded and started to leave but Shane just stood there, his eyes damp with tears as he stared down at his wife’s dog. Grimacing, I slung my arm around my friend’s shoulders and urged him out of the OR and into the waiting room. The room was empty so I pushed Shane into the closest chair and took a seat next to him.

Shane lowered his head and let his tears fall. He had always been the type of man who didn’t care to show his emotions and I respected him for that. I had never been one to openly show my own emotions so I almost envied him. After a few minutes I noticed that his phone was blowing up with texts and incoming calls. Exhaling noisily, I took the thing from his slackened hand and lifted it to my ear. “Yeah?”

“Wroth?” It was Emmie and she didn’t sound happy. “Is Shane okay?”

“The vet doesn’t know if the dog is gonna make it or not, Emmie. Did you find out anything about who trashed their bus?”

“Peterson called in the locals and he is going over the bus with them, but it’s looking like some crazy fan did it. From the message on the mirror in the bathroom—which the crazy bitch wrote in what looks like the dog’s blood—I’m pretty sure that is exactly what it is. Harper was the intended victim.” Emmie’s voice was ice cold and full of venom. Someone had dared to mess with her family. Whoever had done this better hope they never got caught because Emmie Armstrong’s wrath was not something they wanted to ever have to deal with. I almost pitied the poor fucker when they got caught. Almost. “I’m going to add some extra security and find another personal bodyguard for Harper. She might only want Peterson, but she needs at least one extra guard.”