Connor looked through the bars.
Odin had stopped pacing.
The dog was staring back at him again.
Not trusting.
Not calm.
But watching.
That mattered.
Connor knew what it meant when a wounded thing stopped moving long enough to measure you.
He let his voice drop.
“Maybe nobody ever checked whether the weapon was still guarding someone.”
Hannah had no answer.
For the first time since he had entered the holding area, she looked at Odin not as a liability, not as a failed asset, but as a creature that might have been waiting for the wrong kind of help.
The transfer to Connor’s old Ford Bronco was ugly.
There was no clean, heartwarming moment.
There was no soft music, no sudden trust, no miracle where the dog lowered his head and understood.
Two handlers in bite gloves forced Odin toward the reinforced crate in the back of the Bronco.
