She always worked late nights at the clinic, especially since the veterinarian didn't really give a shit about the patients that he saw. Dr. Greg Travis used to be a good doctor and care about what he was doing, but that was about 10 years before Cadence. Now, he weighed close to 300 pounds and could care less. Although she was only a technician, she did most of the things that Dr. Travis wouldn't do. As long as it was away from clients, Dr. Travis would have her prescribing medications or performing procedures that technicians aren't typically supposed to do. Either way, she enjoyed her job and enjoyed the animals that she met. She worked well with dogs especially. She could work with some of the most aggressive dogs and have them puppy-dog tamed by the time they left the clinic. Her favorite dogs were the wolf hybrids. Most of the time, Dr. Travis couldn't get anywhere near them. He was too rough or tried to move too quickly and would get snapped at. Catie just knew how to work with them. It was almost a natural instinct.
Her final patient for the night was Luka, a 4 year old male wolf hybrid that had had surgery to remove a bad eye. Luka was doing remarkably well for having one eye and was patiently waiting to be taken outside before she went home.
"Come here handsome," she said lovingly to Luka as she leashed him and took him out to the yard where she allowed him to run leash-free. Luka was particularly protective when it came to Catie or his owner and wasn't very fond of Dr. Travis. Catie would have to talk Luka down from attacking the doctor anytime he came around. However, Catie trusted the wolf's instincts and was always cautious whenever she was closing the clinic alone with the doctor.
"Luka!" she called. He trotted straight up to her side and lowered his head, so that she could easily leash him. "Good boy," she said as they walked back inside. After putting Luka in his run for the night, Catie went off to start write out paperwork and calculating medications for another patient.
"Catie," Dr. Travis called, "Come here please."
She sighed, "Just a moment." She then heard Luka starting to growl low in his throat. She tossed him a treat and then walked into the office. "Yes sir?"
"Here's a stack of bloodwork reports that need sorted through and deciphered. Would you be a dear and do so?" She knew that he wouldn't look at the reports even if she said no, so she grabbed the stack and walked back to one of the laboratory computers to get to work.
After 30 minutes of going through the reports, she heard Dr. Travis get up and start packing up his things to leave the office. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. For some reason, her body told her to run. '
I'm being silly,
' she thought to herself as she continued to work on the stack of results in front of her. Another 20 minutes passed and she still felt as if something was wrong. She looked over to Luka and saw his amber eye watching her intently. She felt a little safer knowing that he was still keeping watch over her.
It was now 8:30p.m. and her stomach was profusely rumbling at her. She sighed again and set aside the rest of the results to work on when she came to work again tomorrow to release Luka to his owners. She stood up, gathered her things, and started to leave. Luka was whining at her before she walked out. "I'll be back in the morning my sweet wolf. Get some rest." He seemed to half nod and then laid down to sleep. She walked outside into the crisp, night air and began walking the mile towards her house. Catie wasn't one to be afraid of the dark, but she couldn't help but feel like she was being watched from somewhere.
