I take a measured step toward her.
She tightens her grip on the puppy, her shoulders hunched like I’m here to take it from her. I’d never waste energy on something that innocent.
No. I’m here for her.
The dog is just the fuse.
Tessa blinks.
“You were closing up late,” I say, voice low and certain. “Routine end-of-shift check. One of the dogs got out—this one. You don’t know how. The gate was latched earlier. Maybe a volunteer didn’t secure it. Maybe he slipped the clasp. You don’t know. You just heard barking outside.”
Tessa swallows.
“You chased him,” I continue. “Tripped over a box of meds by the fence, caught your arm trying to climb over. He was already halfway down the alley. You lost him.”
Her fingers twitch. “And the window?”
“You forgot your keys and were locked out. You panicked when you saw the blood, broke the glass to get back in and call for help. No theft. No bad intentions. Just a mess.”
She blinks rapidly. “And what if someone asks where the dog is now?”
“They won’t,” I say. “Because you never found him. That’s your report. The dog escaped. You tried to catch him. Failed. You filed an incident report and planned to follow up in the morning.”
I meet her eyes. “No one knows where he went. You certainly don’t. Not officially. And if he turns up later—weeks from now, miraculously healthy and mysteriously adopted? That’s a future problem. For now, he’s gone.”
She stares at me. “You’re terrifying.”
I shrug. “You panicked. You acted on instinct. It’s sloppy but forgivable. But this?” I nod toward her sleeve. “You keep bleeding, and someone’s going to ask the wrong question. So go clean up. Hide the dog. Make the call. File the report. And get ahead of it.”
“I-I can’t lie like that.”
“Yes, you can,” I say. “You’re not lying. You’re obeying.”
Her head jerks back.
Good.
Because I need her to understand something fundamental:
This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a correction.
“You think this is cruel?” I ask, stepping close enough to feel the heat of her breath. “This is me keeping you in the game. You’d rather bleed out for a stray and get expelled in theprocess? Fine. But don’t pretend you didn’t know how this would end.”
She’s trembling now.
It’s not just fear.
It’s memory.
And that’s the problem with her.
Tessa has always had a conscience louder than her survival instincts.
Even back then, freshman year of undergrad.
When I found her crying in the back stairwell after reporting a tenured professor for making a sexist joke during a seminar. Her entire pre-law cohort turned on her for “ruining the curve.”
When she helped me switch out my mom’s prescriptions at the student clinic because the generic ones made her sick, and our insurance wouldn’t budge.
