Not that I knew it was Puck yet. That wouldn’t come until after the mini-tyrannosaur had bitten off the man’s head and shoulders (and swallowed them whole) and returned to the fray; after which I snatched my pistol up from the ground and tried to find an opening—mortified that I might accidently shoot my own dog—and, finding it, squeezed the trigger.
Krack!
I fired twice more.
Krack! Krack!
And then the nanotyrannosaurs were down (but not before one of them had shaken Puck like a ragdoll and launched him into a nearby tree) and we were running toward him. Toward my dog who had gone missing during the Flashback and whom we had long since presumed dead. Toward the broken bundle of fur that had somehow found us and saved our lives.
“Puck!” I cried, trying to rouse him. “Come on, Boy. Wak
