The Tears Within

By Torrey Solomon

Andy Harvick is a young boy with an intense love for his Golden Retriever. The dog is his best and only friend. Andy's father however, dislike the devoted love Andy has for the dog because he wants Andy to follow in his footsteps and become a star baseball player. Andy hates the game of baseball but don't know how to tell his father. All he wants to do is spend time with his dog. When Andy's Golden Retriever mysteriously dies, Andy's emotional pain leads him to volunteering at an local animal shelter. There Andy discovers a grisly trail that brings him face to face with the ruthless world of dog fighting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Torrey Solomon
• Release date: Jun 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311291479

Torrey Solomon

Torrey Solomon is an up and coming author with powerful themes within his story's. His previous book, Colorville and the Great Coloring Book is a book that touched both children and adults alike in that it highlighted equality and unity. Torrey Solomon is a member of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and is a fierce advocate for the respect of all living organisms. He currently lives in Clarkesdale MS.

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The Tears Within

Torrey Solomon

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2014 Torrey Solomon

All rights reserved.

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First Edition

Picture by 3rdbillion

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

ISBN 978-1-62847-327-8

Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

To my family

For bearing through my life's many rainy seasons and

encouraging my late blooming.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Epilogue

Prologue

January 2012

Jackson, Mississippi

One of the back legs on the fatigued brown and beige German shepherd was bloodily and broken leaving it hobbled. The infliction was more crucial than the already bisect left ear considering that now the dog had no solid foundation of defense in facing its attacker, which was a growling red nose pit-bull with smoke grey colored hair and fierce blue eyes. It was just as large in body mass as the German shepherd with freakish muscular hind and legs striking an intimidating presence.

As the pit-bull stalked the shepherd drooling savagely from the mouth, frenzied men ranted fanatically with money for bets in their hands surrounding a circular clay-dirt pit.

Come on Rocks, screamed a heavy set white man with dirty blonde hair and arms covered in tattoos. Come on got damit.

The shepherd hopped three legged in retreat to avoid another furious clashing, but the pit-bull cleverly cornered it in. Leaping off its powerful back legs like a rabbit, the grey haired dog lunge mouth open at the shepherd's neck. The shepherd though instinctively dodged the ferocious jaw snap by ducking and gorged its fangs into the pit-bulls testicles.

Yelping in painful agony, the pit-bull jumped back as blood gushed down his legs.

Come on Rocks, screamed the fat man again in rage! Come on!

Wounded seriously, but enduring solely on instinct, the pit-bull lunged again at the shepherd, this time clapping on the dogs other erect ear. The struggling shepherd swatted with its arms at the pit-bulls head as the pit-bull tugged savagely until it ripped the shepherd's ear off.

Shrieking loud in anguish, the shepherd tried to retreat again, but the pit-bull quickly moved in and locked its powerful jaws around the shepherd's neck. It snatched from side to side, monstrously tearing away hair and flesh from the shepherd's throat.

There you go Rocks, screamed the fat man fanatically as he entered the pit. Bring the money home to poppa boy! Bring the money home to poppa! After which seeing the feeble shepherd go lifeless, the huge man took out a three foot oak stick from his back pocket and prided the pit-bulls mouth loose from around the shepherd's neck.

Another white man entered the pit casually dressed with slick-back blonde hair, green eyes, and a slender physique. Shaking his head in disappointment he said, Big Clift, I don't know how in the hell you train your dogs but you've beat me again.

Ha ha ha, Big Clift laughed. Pete you should've known better than to bring that weakling in here against my dog. Now look at your fury gal over there. She's a mangled mess.

Go to hell scumbag! Pete snapped back. Your grand champ doesn't look so good over there itself.

Big Clift took a quick glance at the motionless pit-bull as it lay bleeding from the testicle wound then said, Let me worry about that. In the meantime, I think you owe me something. Pete took a deep sigh, then handed Big Clift four thousand dollars in cash."

Here you go, Pete responded. Go buy yourself a treadmill. I think you could use it.

Why thank you sir, Big Clift said with a grin. But I think me and my dogs already have one of them. Big Clift then slowly made his way toward the pits exit counting the winning bet money, while Pete kneeled next to his shepherd looking pitiful.

Wait a minute, Pete yelled turning toward Big Clift. What are you going to do with your dog? You're not going to just leave him here are you?

Big Clift turned around and said, Why should I take him with me? What I got in my hands is all I care about, so you can bag him up for the dumpster with that shepherd of yours for all I care.

Chapter 1

The class bell rang loud for dismissal of school for the day and there was no one happier than Andy Harvick. Not only was he overjoyed to hurry home to his pet dog T.J., but today Jennifer, a pretty blonde haired girl in his math class, seemed to show courting interest in him. The latter was somewhat puzzling to Andy considering most kids at Raymond Middle school avoided him like an infectious germ. Jennifer though, seemed to overlook the student mockery and view him more civilly. Besides, he wasn't literally a flea bag as the kids called him. The name flea bag came from T. J.'s puppy days when one morning, he took the dog to school with him so it wouldn't have to spend the day in the back yard alone; Andy concealed T.J. inside his green book bag without his parents noticing and carried the dog to class.

Everything went swell for the first two class periods. But when Andy got to his English class, and Ms. Tucker called him to the chalk board, T.J. wiggled his way out of the small opening Andy left in his book bag. T.J. scrambled wildly all over the class room in playful excitement making the girls students hop up in their seats in fright, and the boys chase him in joyful zeal. Ms. Tucker screamed like she was about to erupt her vocal cords to compose the class within minutes Andy and T.J. found themselves in Principal Quitman's office.

Though firm in his rebuke of Andy bringing T.J. to school, he cheerfully told Andy that he too had a dog at home that he wished he could have around all the time.

In the end, Principal Quitman called Andy's mom to the school about the occurrence and presented the situation to her as a light matter. He just advised her to not let Andy bring the dog to school anymore because he didn't want to have an ecstatic group of students running all over the class like a spooked herd again. Moreover, as a result of this occurrence, flea bag became Andy's new name among the Raymond Middle students.

Andy skipped down the sidewalk entertaining the pleasant thought of Jennifer as he made his way toward his home. It was on such a day two years ago, as he made his way home from school, he found T.J. as a pup walking clumsily in the street. So he took the pup home.

Andy's father didn't approve of him keeping the dog at first. But his mother came to his defense and somehow persuaded his father to let him keep it. Now, he and T.J. were almost inseparable and in Andy's world he would have it no other way.

When he entered the front yard of his white and yellow house, he could hear T.J. barking loudly from the back yard. T.J. learned around what time he arrived home from school and this thought brought a smile to Andy's pale freckled face.

Quickly, Andy opened the front door with the hidden key under the doormat, grabbed a few doggy snacks, and dashed out the back door to T.J.'s dog house. The golden retriever excitingly greeted Andy and knocked him to the ground, smothering him with slobbery licks.

Stop that boy, Andy said trying to dodge the dog's licks. Stop now, your drooling all over me. The happy dog just continued licking Andy's face while wagging his tail from side to side.

Andy put one of the doggy snacks in T.J.'s mouth and as the dog munched on the snack in delight, Andy stood to his feet.

You like your doggy snacks boy? Andy asked rubbing the dog's head. You like? T.J. just continued to wag his tail looking at Andy in anticipation of another snack.

Here you go boy, Andy said feeding the dog another treat. Eat up now.

To Andy, T.J. was his one and only friend because when he wasn't with the dog he was practically a loner. They ate ice cream and pizza together, played frizzby, and sometimes napped together. Andy noticed that his bond with T.J. seemed to anger his father because his father assumed he should be riding his bike and playing with the other kids in the neighborhood, especially Justin, his father's co-worker son who loved baseball.

Andy once tried to mingle with the other kids from Raymond's small town, but it was hard to get along with them when they always treated him with contempt and mockery. Besides, he didn't even like the game of baseball. And the only thing he found interesting about the game