Brütal • Mötley Crüe •

Thirty-Two • The Ripple that Starts the Wave

Warnings: Vulgar Language, Drug & Alcohol Use, Guns, Violence, Animal Abuse, Mentions of Past Child Abuse

June 15th, 1983
5:36PM

The ride to Thousand Oaks was boring, no interesting buildings around to gawk at, but Halston didn't mind because Fred had brought Bear along to keep them company.

She didn't know why she felt such a strong connection to the eighty-pound mess of fur and slobber, but she did. His presence calmed her somehow, made her feel...safer, maybe? She wasn't sure what the connection stemmed from when it came down to it, only that it was there. Only that the weight of him in her lap slowed her heart rate, the touch of his silky fur against her neck expanded her lungs, and the boisterous, vibrating snores emanating from his mouth made her feel giddy.

It was an odd sensation, because she couldn't stand anyone else's snoring. She often kicked Nikki in the leg or threw an elbow into his side to get him to wake up and shut up, but Bear's snores were different. Sweeter. More innocent. Halston had fallen in love with Bear's snores effortlessly.

From what Fred had said, the big pup could never last five minutes in a car without falling asleep. "Just like a damn baby," he'd claimed, and he had been right. As soon as they'd turned onto the freeway, Bear had crawled into her lap, chest to chest, rested his head onto her shoulder, and promptly passed out. Not a comfortable position, Halston thought, but it must've been comfortable enough for Bear.

Halston had always liked dogs, despite her tumultuous past with them. Being raised in the kind of life she was raised in, dogs were meant to make money just like she was meant to make money. The dog fights—discretely nicknamed the "pits"—were normally a Thursday night appetizer to her Friday and Saturday night fights, but she stayed as far away from those as she could.

Her father had fought six or seven throughout the years, usually pit bulls, but at one interesting point, a Kangal that had absolutely scared the shit out of her. She still had no clue how they'd ended up with him or how much of her fighting money her father had spent on him, but she remembered vividly the terror she felt when he curled his lips up onto his razor sharp teeth to bite into whatever bit of flesh he could fit his mouth around...which, was quite a bit of flesh. The scary bastard was a champion, Halston had to give him that. She wondered listlessly what had happened to him.

They were all kept—at different times, they never had more than one in current possession—in a large crate in the backyard with minimal human interaction to keep them mean. Thankfully, the one job Hayden was ever actually equipped to handle was feeding and watering them, so Halston never had to do much with them.

When she was young, right after her mom had been taken away and she was starved of any kind of love or attention, she would sit in front of the crate wondering why she wasn't allowed to play with Milo, a beautiful brindle-colored pit that had the misfortune of being stuck in there at the time. Milo, she remembered, would lay with his snout pushed through one of the little metal squares and stare back calmly—much more calm than any of the others had been or ever would be—and whine as if to beg her to just let me out!! And she eventually would, because the sound of his whine always made her unbearably sad.

She'd waited until she was home alone to do it. She'd taken a baseball Hayden had accidentally left in the yard after playing with his friends one pretty Saturday evening, and her plan was to let Milo out just long enough to play fetch for a few throws. Nothing too scandalous; she would put him back in after they had their fun.

Her heart had pounded in her chest as she walked up to the crate, the baseball tucked into the elastic waistband of her shorts, and Milo had sat up straight, his head cocked in a mixture of confusion and curiosity. She'd taken a few quick looks around to make sure nobody was around before she slipped the lock, opened the small door, and patted her knees for Milo to come out.