Free The Pack by Dayna Lorentz

obliged.”
    â€œOblige taken,” Shep replied, feeling like he’d regained the better bite.
    Higgins looked confused for a heartbeat, then snorted and pranced into the dark.
    The hole led from the crushed floor into a fancy den, which was maybe four stretches tall, but only two wide. The ceiling and the back wall were entirely made up of tinted windows. The bronze light filtered down to reveal overturned furniture — couches and chairs, all with shiny patterned fabric cushions, and small tables surrounded by broken human stuff. The floor beneath Shep’s paws was a wall of windows that matched the ceiling. Some were cracked, but the floor was otherwise solid — no fear of intruders from below.
    Toward the front of the boat was a section of wall that ended a stretch up from the floor. Blaze hooked her paws onto the edge of the wall, then pulled herself up onto a landing. “There are more rooms down here,” she barked, sniffing the air. “And I smell kibble.” She took a step, tumbled forward, and disappeared.
    â€œBlaze!” Shep cried, bounding to the half wall and springing onto it. He nearly knocked snouts with Blaze, who was dragging herself up out of a wide hole.
    â€œI found the kibble,” she groaned, pulling her rump onto the landing.
    â€œYou okay?” Shep whimpered, tail low. “What’s that hole doing in the floor?”
    â€œIt’s a door,” grumbled Higgins. He’d made a ramp from the fancy den to the raised landing out of a cushion. “Remember, the boat is on its side, so there will be doors in the floor and in the ceiling.” He took a step toward the door-hole and his paw slipped on a strip of plastic. Suddenly, lights blazed throughout the narrow room, which was revealed to be a short hallway. There was a second hole in the floor a stretch farther down the hall, and a matching hole in the ceiling, its door dangling open like a tongue from a jowl. At the end of the hall were two other doors, both closed.
    â€œWe have lights?” yipped Callie as she sprang into the hall.
    â€œAppears so,” answered Higgins. He slid his paw along the strip and the light went away.
    â€œHey!” barked Shep.
    The lights flicked on again.
    â€œMy snout, this little strip turns the lights on and off!” Higgins excitedly shuffled his paw back and forth along the strip, clicking the lights on and off.
    â€œEnough!” bayed Blaze.
    Higgins froze, leaving the lights on. He was panting, his eyes wide and furface abristle. “Sorry,” he woofed, giving a curt snort and regaining composure. “Got a bit carried away. Never knew how these things worked. Always exciting to make a new discovery, eh?” He wagged his stub of a tail, growling happily as he sniffed the little strip.
    The others seemed to feel as unnerved as Shep was from all the flashing. Callie gave an all-over shake.
    â€œHow about we leave the lights off?” she woofed, sliding her paw over the strip and clicking them back into the dark. “I’ve gotten used to no lights.”
    â€œI agree,” barked Blaze, who recovered her composure with a swift lick of her jowls. “We have to keep it dark.” She leapt over the floor-hole, and stretched up on her hind legs to inspect the door-hole in the ceiling. “If we’re the only thing in this city with lights, we’re going to attract a lot of unwanted guests.” She gripped the edge of the door-hole with her forepaws and, with a little jump, pulled herself through it into the room above.
    â€œI thought vermin liked to hide in the dark,” Callie barked, a snarky whine to her voice.
    Blaze stuck her head down through the ceiling-hole. “I’m not barking about vermin,” she snapped. “I’m barking about wild dogs.”
    Blaze explained that she’d run into some wild dogs during the storm. “A big, black girldog,” Blaze woofed. “I