Cynophobia

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They stripped us of our backpacks. The guy wearing sunglasses pointed a gun at me. "Restrain the dog."

Loki was glaring at them murderously. I walked over to him and hugged his neck. "No bark," I whispered. I hoped that he wouldn't speak. If they thought he was a dog, then they might let us keep him with us. Loki could be deadly enough to get us out of wherever we were being taken. He seemed to get the message and lolled his tongue out. He tipped his head downward to keep his metal fangs from showing.

One of the raiders grabbed Rose off of Loki. She yelped painfully as he dropped her on the ground.

I jumped up immediately. My voice was shaking with anger as I yelled, "Stop it! She's injured!"

"Oh really? So I shouldn't do this?" the raider asked before he shoved the stock of his rifle between her shoulder blades, knocking her down

I threw myself at the raider. We wrestled right by the shore, I was trying to throw him over the bluff. They couldn't shoot me if I was so close to their friend. The blonde-haired guy shot the ground, giving a warning.

Cairo grabbed me and yanked me off of the raider. I looked at my handy work, I had given him a bloody nose. A second raider restrained the raider with the bloody nose when he made a swing for me.

Leader shouldered me back and stood between me and the barrels of guns.

The blonde-haired raider who I presumed was their leader clapped his hands together. He grinned as he said, "Well now that the anger is out of the way, lets all get in the jeep and take a little drive." Their leader was pretty tall, but still young. If I had to guess he was in his early twenties.

A raider tried to approach me with some rope. The leader held up his hand. "I'll handle this one." He looked into my eyes. I hated people who wore sunglasses, if I couldn't see their eyes I could never tell what they were thinking. "You're a fighter, I'll keep that in mind. Everyone around you has a gun and can shoot you down if you attempt to run. Now then, shall we get going?'

Loki padded by my side as we walked through the forest towards the jeeps. One of our captors had wrapped rope around his muzzle so he couldn't bite anyone.

The leader jumped into a jeep, he was the only one in there. He reached out a hand for me, I reluctantly took it. He pulled me into the jeep. He looked at Loki. "Hop in the back, dog. Unless you want to run off and become robot food."

The Cynoid flattened his ears and jumped in.

I looked back and saw the rest of my friends being loaded into the jeeps. My own jeep's engine rumbled and we were off. Their leader was driving back towards the ghost town, or at least we thought it was a ghost town. I noticed Loki shaking and twitching in the back.

"Don't hurt them, I was the one who attacked your friend," I begged.

"They will be fine, for now," he said. He chuckled and looked back to make sure there were no problems with the other three survivors. "James needs to get knocked on his ass every once in a while. Keeps him humble."

"Where are you taking us?" I asked. "We don't have any guns or ammo or anything really worth while to you."

"You'll find out when we get there. You're one of the first groups we've captured that haven't tried to jump from the jeep," he commented.

"Well I mean, you're on a jeep and we already tried to outrun you guys..." I muttered.

He pulled his sunglasses off, revealing his blue eyes. "Common sense is a nice thing to have. I think we will get along pretty well. Tell me, what's your name?"