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"You find anything?" Dallas asked as he motioned to the phone in my hand. I almost smiled. It didn't surprise me that the man knew what I'd been up to.
"No. Plenty of hits from Google on hand commands for dogs, but he's not responding to any of them. I guess the military doesn't exactly want information about which signals they use out there for the whole world to see," I admitted.
"Maddox will talk to Jett again once he's had a chance to calm down…" Dallas murmured.
I wasn't as sure. I still didn't know what to make of Jett's behavior the night before. Or mine, for that matter. I'd been so certain that Jett had been trying to manipulate me when he'd insisted that he teach only me the hand signals, but then when I’d confronted him outside, there’d been something else there. For one brief moment, I'd been so sure that I'd gotten past the constantly shifting wall between us, but then he'd turned on a dime and I’d no longer recognized any part of him. I didn't know which Jett was the real one and I wasn't sure I wanted to anymore.
Dallas and I both fell silent, neither of us willing to admit that figuring out the hand signals could very likely make no difference when it came to Apollo's future. My philosophy with traumatized animals had always been to heal their bodies before focusing on their souls because an injured animal was more likely to lash out. But I was terrified that giving Apollo time to heal wouldn’t change anything. Yes, Jett had made progress in getting the dog to follow a command, but that was a far cry from gaining the animal's trust.
"Fuck, Dallas," I said softly as the idea of euthanizing the beautiful dog broke my heart.
"Yeah," Dallas responded. He gave me a gentle pat on the shoulder.
"Uncle Sawyer! Uncle Sawyer!" I heard Newt yelling as he came barreling down the path that led to Apollo's enclosure. The kennel was located on the opposite end of the habitat where Gentry the bear lived.
"Hi, Gentry!" Newt called as he raced past the bear. Like many of the other animals at the center, Gentry had a dark past which had been made worse by a recent attack on the animal. It was actually how I'd met Dallas and Nolan. I'd been called out to treat Gentry after he'd been terrorized by a couple of guys looking to get back at Dallas for some perceived slight.
Dallas and I stood up as Newt reached us. Loki easily kept up with the little boy and then happily greeted Dallas.
"Uncle Sawyer, he did it! He's going to help us save 'Pollo."
Before I could ask what he was talking about, Newt pulled his tablet from the backpack he carried around with him wherever he went. My eyes fell on the colorful helmet he was wearing—the one Ford had designed for him. The helmet was meant to protect Newt's head if he experienced an epileptic seizure and fell. Newt had hated having to wear something that other kids would potentially make fun of him for, but when Ford, at Maddox's request, had designed the helmet to look like a race car helmet, Newt had readily agreed to wear it. Last I'd heard, Isaac had a hell of a time convincing the little boy to take the helmet off when he went to bed at night.
"Here," Newt said as he swiped at the screen of the tablet and then handed it to me.
Confused, I was about to ask him what I was supposed to be looking at when a video on the tablet started up and Jett's handsome face appeared.
"I'm gonna run through the basic commands and then I'll get into some of the other ones. I don't remember them all, but hopefully it'll be a place to start," Jett said into the camera. The image wobbled a bit, which made me realize that Newt had likely been the one holding the tablet during filming. As Jett began breaking down the different hand signals, I felt something twist painfully inside me. Yeah, I was grateful for the information, but damn if I wasn't pissed too.
"You helped Jett with this?" Dallas asked Newt.
Newt nodded proudly. "He left a note," the child said.
"What kind of note?" I asked as my heart began to pound painfully in my chest. I hated that my thoughts went to a certain kind of note in particular.
"A sorry note."
"What?" I choked out and then I was moving.
He wouldn't.
He couldn't.
I thought I heard Dallas call out my name, but I didn't stop. I went from walking to trotting to a flat-out run in a matter of seconds. My lungs burned as I raced to Maddox and Isaac's house. I didn't bother knocking when I reached the front door and predictably, it wasn't locked. I yelled for Isaac and Maddox, but neither man answered me. I was dimly aware of my phone ringing, but I didn't take the time to see who it was as I rushed to reach the guest room. In the split second it took me to throw the door open, I tried to prepare myself for what I would find, but it was an impossible thing.
