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wasn’t about ruin an exit like that in order to go back and pack a suitcase. No self-respecting chicken-legged hut would have anything to do with me after that, if I had.
    *   *   *
    It took me two more days to find the dog. The first day, other than work—and I wasn’t missing work now!—was mostly spent at a clinic, getting my name taken off the lease, looking at a couple of apartments, and finding a place to sleep for a couple of days until one of those became available. It turned out Misha the bartender didn’t mind at all if I crashed at his place and neither did his boyfriend, and everybody at work was thrilled to hear that Ilya had been consigned to the midden heap of history.
    How is it that you never hear about how much your friends hate your lover until you get rid of him or her?
    Anyway, once that was all taken care of, I went to find my ovcharka friend. This mostly involved taking the Metro out to my station—my old station—earlier than I would have usually gotten up for work, and then checking the first car of each train for a wolf-colored passenger. I had a sausage in my bag and a hollow ache in my belly, but mostly what I remember was the grim determination that I would find that dog.
    She wasn’t on the train.
    Instead, she trotted up beside me while I was waiting, sat down like an old friend on my left side, and looked up at me with one front paw lifted. I imagined her saying, “Shake?”
    Instead, I broke a chunk off the sausage and offered it to her. “Thank you,” I said.
    She was as gentle as before. And if anything, she looked bigger around the middle than last time. She must be nearly ready to have the pups. I pressed a hand to my own stomach, imagining it pushing out like that. That hollow ache got hollow-er.
    Someday. After my degree. But it wouldn’t be deadbeat Ilya’s deadbeat kid. No matter how good he smelled.
    The train was coming. I felt the air pressure rise, heard the rattle of the wheels on iron rails.
    â€œHow did you know?” I asked the dog. “I owe you one.”
    She raised her brows at me, wrinkling her brow. Expecting an argument? She didn’t wag.
    I sighed and said, “Just how smart are you?”
    And then Ilya was between us, shoving me out of the way. I hadn’t even heard him come up. Hadn’t heard the creak of his leather jacket. Didn’t react fast enough to keep his elbow out of my ribs. I doubled over helplessly, wheezing for breath. The train’s hydraulics hissed. Brakes squealed.
    He gripped the dog by her scruff and her tail and slung her into the air. She yelped—more of a shriek—and he took a step toward the platform edge.
    â€œYou little bitch!”
    He looked at me when he shouted it, and I wasn’t sure if he meant the dog or me. But I knew the next five seconds like I was a prophet, like I was a Cassandra, like someone had dropped a magic mirror in my hand.
    Ilya was going to throw the dog in front of the train.
    Cassandra never got a chance to do anything. I jumped between Ilya and the platform edge.
    The dog slammed into my chest. I pushed her away, throwing her onto the platform. The force tipped me on the platform edge. I pinwheeled my arms, expecting to topple backward. Expecting the next sensation to be the terrible impact of metal and then nothing—or worse, pain. I teetered, that hollowness in my stomach replaced with liquid, sloshing fear.
    Someone caught my collar. Someone else caught my wrist. The feeling of relief and gratitude that flooded me left me on my knees. A man and a woman hovered over me. I could not see their faces.
    I looked up into Ilya’s face. The dog crouched in front of me, growling. Ears laid flat. Ilya lunged at her, and the man beside me grabbed him, twisted his arm behind his back.
    â€œBitch!” he swore, wrenching at the man who held him.
    â€œDo you know that man?” the woman asked. She put a