Always Go Back (Jack Reacher Fanfiction)

Chapter 10: Dog Fights

The scent of smoke was the first thing that Sage could smell. The drugs, alcohol, and blood was next. He had been to a few fights in his youth, but it was nothing like this. There were plenty more people than had been at the other fights that Sage had been at, but it didn't faze him in the slightest.

"Do you have some sort of plan," questioned Reacher since this was Sage's idea for them to go about it this way.

Sage lifted his head to sniff the air. "You probably shouldn't be seen with me or you could find yourself in trouble," he questioned as he looked over his shoulder at all of the drunk people caterwauling together about this and that before the fights started. "Just lay low while I poke around."

"And you're worried about me while you're poking around," questioned Reacher as he looked cautiously at all of the people around them.

Sage licked his lips. "Well, we really can't be too much together or they're going to make you put me in the fight. If that's that you need to do, though, to get in then you do it."

"I'm not fighting you after you had that neck injury. We get in, we get out, end of story," Reacher argued.

Sage was about to say something else when he heard the sound of dogs barking. That would probably his best and only place to start. It wasn't like he could talk to the humans. Speaking to the dogs would be tricky enough. They would see him as competition, even though he wasn't technically fighting.

He bounded forward and disappeared into a back room that was full of crates. They had cheap wooden barriers to block the dogs from seeing each other so that they couldn't attack each other before it was time. Little did their humans know that most of them didn't actually want to fight each other. They were forced to or they would die.

He crept forward slowly as he felt the ground vibrate with the sound of snarls and barks from the dogs, combined with the thundering of paws against the ground. Sage twitched his ears as he looked around.

There were too many dogs to actually pick out a certain scent. It was like stepping into a bakery and asked to identify which scent the cupcakes were. He gave his nose a few snorts to try and clear out his airways, but that did little good except make his nose itch. He rubbed a paw roughly against it and continued his snooping around.

"Look at this stupid mutt!"

"What's he doing here?"

"Hey! Come over here so that I can rip your throat out."

So much for keeping a low profile, thought Sage bitterly as he struggled to ignore them. He plastered his ears against his head and continued to creep forward. He lowered down so low that his stomach nearly grazed the ground while his shoulders rippled and tensed with each steps.

"Leave him alone, guys. He's probably just a tourist. Curious idiot, but still curious."

Now that he could work with. It sounded like a she-dog's voice, but it was tired. He swiveled around and tried to identify the voice. He finally caught sight of a once beautiful Golden Retriever. She was placed in the corner and she was one of the only dogs who wasn't making as much noise as possible. Yes, he could certainly work with this.

"What's your name," asked Sage as he drew near.

The Golden Retriever was on her paws in a heartbeat and lunged forward, her jaws snapping almost through the bars. "Get back," she warned with a growl rumbling deep on her chest.

Sage turned his head and realized why she was being so protective. Four tiny puppies whimpered where she had just been. One of the pups raised it's head as it's tiny mouth open and let out a cry for it's mother. The Golden Retriever looked back at them hesitantly.