“No,” Camila said, without looking at me. “Clean the enclosures.”
“Camila, if she’s not eating—”
“He might be useful, Cam. We have to do something, and we have to do it now.” Jess said.
Camila looked at the ceiling briefly. “Fine.”
I had been expecting a large, aggressive dog.
What I found in the enclosure was a cute pug. Small, barrel-shaped, ears slightly too big for her head, sitting in the far corner of a space that dwarfed her completely. A whiteboard on the door saidSparklesin marker, the previous name only half erased underneath.
Sparkles looked at me with enormous, suspicious eyes, and gave out a consistent, low growl.
I loved her immediately.
I could do this.
I opened the enclosure door. Sparkles’s growls got louder, and she came right at me — fully committed, and completely territorial. I stepped back out and closed the door and sat down in front of Sparkles.
She growled at me through the wire.
I sat. The growling slowed. Then stopped. She put her nose close to the wire, still watching me with those sad, big eyes.
I stayed on the floor.
Jess stepped closer to me. “She was abused for two years. Someone found her in the woods behind the beaches, and brought her in yesterday. Poor thing, she hasn’t eaten anything since she came in.”
I inched closer to the enclosure. Sparkles’s ears shot up, but within seconds, came down again. She was still eyeing me with suspicion.
I sat there. I didn’t say a word.
From the corner of my eyes, I saw Camila watching everything. I heard her footsteps come closer, but I turned only when I felther standing right behind me. She nodded her head. “Just give up, Jason.”
“She hasn’t eaten anything, Camila. She’s not aggressive because she wants to be. I cannot even fathom what horrors she endured to become like this. She’s scared, she’s hurt and she doesn’t want to trust again. I will do anything to make her want to trust again, Camila. ” I looked into Camila’s eyes, and for the first time since I arrived, saw a faint streak of emotion. Sadness replacing anger.
She quickly turned her face away. “I think someone’s waiting at the reception.” She walked away, without once looking back at me.
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By late afternoon, my fingers were through the wire and Sparkles was allowing them to rest against her nose without pulling away. By the time Camila came to tell me she was leaving, Sparkles was eating two small treats from my palm, her whole body trembling slightly with the effort of deciding to trust something.
Camila stood behind me and looked at Sparkles eating.
She tried very hard to look like this wasn’t important to her. I knew her well enough to see through it completely.
“I’m leaving,” she said finally. “And you’re not coming with me.”
“But I have to, Camila. You know that.”
“No, you don’thaveto. Now, hurry up. I have to close this part of the shelter. And I’m going alone.”
She paused.
“I am meeting my boyfriend.”
CHAPTER 22
CAMILA
