SPOTTED

Drones. Really? Rufus heard the buzzing getting closer. He rolled his eyes, paused, watched it tracking him for a moment. Hovering like a UFO or something. What a world.

He had known, Rufus had, that he would be caught. But this quickly? Three days, wait, not even. But it felt like three weeks. He was tired.

Tired of life on the run, already. There wasn’t much to it besides running. And running. He was getting a little long in the tooth, he supposed. He used to be able to run for hours, for days on end. The family used to joke that he even ran in his sleep.

They hadn’t been so bad, his family. They overlooked his bad habits, for the most part. Always ignoring boundaries, hearing only when and what he wanted to hear. Stealing whatever he could get his dirty paws on. Petty larceny was his crime. And still they loved him. That was then, this is now, Rufus told himself, ducking around a corner as the drone whizzed past overhead.

His jailbreak was unplanned. It had been an impulse, really. During his daily walk out in The Yard, backs were turned, guards were down, and over the fence he went. Runaway Rufus. Running and running.

The alert went out as quickly as he’d disappeared into the brush. He was sick of it, clawing at him, jabbing his ribs. The leaves and branches whacking him in the face as he ran. But signs with his likeness had sprung up immediately. They were at every crossroad, forcing him out of residential areas. Instead, he was traveling the paths better left untraveled. Back alleys, with broken glass, discarded needles, strange people making strange noises.

All he’d wanted was a taste of freedom, and how disappointing that had been. Freedom tasted like soggy burgers and the French fries he found tossed behind the McDonald’s Dumpster. Freedom tasted like pee and smoke and puddle water.

This rain! Had it let up for even a single minute? He shook it out of his eyes as he darted between buildings. Three days was all it took for Rufus to miss life on the inside. On the bright side, he’d be going back soon enough.   

On cue, a bright light hit him. The drone found him; strobing, blinding, and disorienting. End of the run for Rufus. Hands grabbed hold of him, pushed his head down as he got put in the back of the squad car.  

Clang! Went the doors of the familiar cage. Rufus closed his eyes. At least he could rest now.

“Welcome home, Stinky,” a voice purred from outside.

He groaned. Lila. He peeked out through his heavy-lidded eyes. She looked away. It was her alright. Watching him, managing to look interested and disinterested at the same time. And holding, what was that… a remote?  

Wait. It was her drone? Rufus shook his head, confused. She’d been rid of him; it was what she always wanted. Why help bring him back?  

“Why, Lila?”

“I missed you,” she said, rubbing her fur along the bars of the cage. “Plus,” she said, wrinkling her nose and nodding her head toward the kitchen, “They just got a big box of Milk-Bones, and I don’t eat that junk.”

“I missed you too,” Rufus growled, a little mad at himself for admitting it, and that the mention of Milk-Bones made him drool.

END