Outside, Thomas sat on the bench, rainwater still pooled in the cracks of the sidewalk. The train yard wasn’t far—he could hear distant horns echoing through the hills.
He thought about that morning—the blur of motion, the screech of metal, the small brown shape refusing to move.
Something about that moment had stayed lodged in his chest. Maybe because he’d once been like that too—frozen, guarding something that had already slipped away.
Now, sitting under the weak morning sun, he realized he didn’t want these pups to go back to that same kind of silence.
