Bad Luck

Lucky

              Chapter 3

       Lucky

I should have seen it coming.

His ears were flat, his eyes were slit in narrow lines of pure hatred, and his body all recoiled and ready to launch at the nearest thing that dared to get close to him.

"Ssssst!" I only saw a black blur, but the sting in my hand was proof enough that he had indeed moved his paw.

Frankie chuckled beside me. "You weren't kidding when you said he hated your frigging guts," she said as she watched me flail my hand in the air and groan a string of curses.

"It's like this every time I try to get near him. Look the state I'm in! Look!" I extended both arms to show her the millions of scratches I had all over me. "He had time to get used to his cage and he's not in pain, but he still tries to bite my hand off every time I get near him," I grumbled and shot him a dark glare.

"Ccccchh!" He hissed and glared right back at me from the bottom of his cage.

"He seems very resentful there," Frankie noted.

"Yeah, I know. I've apologized for the accident already, but he's not very forgiving. He can hold a mean grudge..."

The resentment in his eyes was clear for anyone to see and I couldn't help but shrink with guilt. 'You were the one who got me like this,' his eyes silently said.

"I'm only trying to put the bowl of food in your cage, Lucky! So you can eat. I can't do that if you try to rip my arm off every time that I stick my hand inside." I tried to explain.

"Lucky?" Frankie asked.

"Yeah, I'm calling him that, because he survived, you see," I explained. "He's lucky."

A few days have passed since the accident and Lucky had recovered incredibly fast. He couldn't open his eyes or move in the first day after his surgery, due to the sedation and all the pain medication that Marie had given him. But eventually, the sedation wore off and he came to the realization that he wanted me dead. He tried to bite my fingers off at every possible opportunity since then.

"Marie says he's healing wickedly fast. Faster than expected," I said while I rubbed the scratch on my hand and studied a safe way inside that cage where I wouldn't be mangled by his vicious claws again. "Even his fur is growing back."

Marie had to shave him by the side of the head and over his ribcage, where she had to stitch him up, but the fur was already growing back.

"Isn't he supposed to be wearing one of those plastic cone thingies around his neck?" Frankie asked as she inspected the cage.

"Yeah. That idea earned me this nasty cut right here." I showed her the deep slash on my left arm. "You should have seen how badly he reacted when he saw me approaching with The Cone of Shame. I don't even know how he was able to take it off in the first place. We put the cone when he was out cold from the surgery. The next day, it was off. Then I had the brilliant idea to put it back on. Biggest mistake of my life, man."

He became the devil reincarnated whenever he spotted the cone. I gave up after the third attempt when he gave me a slash on my arm. The only way to get him to wear that cone was at risk of losing a limb. I figured it wasn't really worth the hassle, so I left him without it.

"He doesn't seem to be pulling or biting at his stitches. I think it's okay to leave him without the cone for now."

My arm sure appreciated the consideration.