Chapter 12 – Dogs
Beth reached up to the sheets with her free hand, the other holding the mark across her face from where Tracy had slapped it; she grasped her way up and sat on the edge of the bed. 'In a ditch with the dogs huh?' Beth thought, her mind still lingering on Noah. She needed a way to get to him before Ricky did. She searched through her mind for ideas when suddenly it struck her, 'in a ditch with the dogs', dogs. The dogs that were outside, she could cause a commotion and get attention, single Noah off and warn him. But how? It was way too dangerous.
She exhaled in anger and stood to her feet. "Maybe the patients can help me, the man that I spoke to earlier seemed nice...but can I trust him?" She mumbled. After several minutes of deep thinking, she came up with a plan – she had her Dad to thank for that, he was always good at figuring things out – she would steal some meat from the cooler and draw the dogs inside, she would then go to the patient with the broken arm and ask him to attract the guards, then, hopefully they would fight and they'd call the patrol officers for backup who were with Noah and then she'd sneak down to pull him away.
Yes. She would do that, it would be tricky but it had to be done. She smiled and stood to her feet confidently. She walked towards the door and cautiously looked out. Empty. Walking normally to avoid suspicion, she made her way to the kitchen – which was down two flights of stairs, once reaching the kitchen she gulped; three people were stationed at the sink and one at the stove. She wasn't sure what they were doing, but she hadn't the time to find out, she ducked and quickly scurried to the meat cooler by the left of the kitchen, luckily, it was away from them.
She opened it vigilantly and to her surprise there wasn't any meat in it. She bit her lip in anxiety and looked up at the man cooking – there was a chicken breast on the counter beside him. If Beth was careful, she could reach up and grab it at the right moment, the others' backs were turned and he was occupied. Now was her chance.
She scuttled towards the counter and carefully looked up from around the corner of it. The man was busy. She darted forward and leant up to grab it, she took it quickly and dashed out of the room, she heard shouting behind her:
"Oi! Darwin, give me the chicken back! I wasn't done with it!" He shouted at a rather large man scrubbing something in the sink.
"What? I don't have it you idiot!" He cursed, the other two men turned around. "Jasper gave it to you to cook!" He pointed at an older man by the sink with hardly any hair and horn rimmed glasses.
"We'll give you what for you sonofabitch!" They all screamed and Beth yelped as she heard a punch, they were mad.
In a hurry, she ran towards the back door, which was, in her astonishment, unguarded. She seized her chance and made a break for the door, she flung it open and panned the alleyway for signs of the dogs. To the right two large dogs were sleeping, curled up against each other on top of a box, one was a Rottweiler and the other a Doberman, Beth sighed in relief then frowned in confusion. Where was the third one?
She gasped as she heard a snarl from behind her, she turned slowly to see a huge Great Dane standing before her, easily taller than her if it stood on its hind legs, she gulped and a second later realised she was surrounded. Within a second the hungry dogs pounced, luckily, she had anticipated it and darted sideways into the building; she quickly dropped the meat and continued running. Moments later she heard barking in the distance and stopped, she turned and looked around the corner, they were fighting over the meat and it was going to plan.
