All eyes followed as Shira lowered her head to the straw. In the harsh light, she gripped something dark between her teeth—wet, misshapen, glistening with dirt.
She backed into the shadows and curled her great body around it, a living wall of stripes and muscle. The growl in her chest deepened to a steady drum.
“What is that?” a keeper whispered. Ethan didn’t blink. “Not food. We didn’t put anything in there.” He signaled to kill the floodlights.
Later, in the control room, they scrubbed the footage frame by frame. The bundle swung limp from her jaws—irregular, almost alive. “It moved,” Lily breathed. “I saw it.”
