He watched doors, hands, feet, keys, shoulders, and breathing.
He studied people the way people study storms.
By the second day, he had refused food, flipped every water bowl, and bent the front of a kennel hard enough to split the weld.
By the third day, he had been moved into the old quarantine run.
Brenda hated that room.
It was concrete and steel, meant for short emergencies, not for a living creature with a mind still burning behind his eyes.
But she had two young techs, one veterinarian, a lobby full of adopters, and a staff who had started flinching every time the back hallway shook.
Rules exist because fear spreads faster than compassion.
That morning, Samuel Gage rolled in the feed delivery like he always did.
He came every Tuesday in an old pickup with a cracked dashboard and hay dust in the bed.
He was tall in a quiet way, with a weathered face, pale eyes, and hands that looked as if they had fixed fences, pulled calves, buried dogs, and never once asked for sympathy.
