Officer Holloway, pale now that the crowd was turning on him, muttered something about protocol and perceived threat, but nobody was listening anymore. A teenager had already captured the entire incident on video. A retired paramedic in the park helped Caroline lift Atlas into the back of a volunteer’s SUV while Emma climbed in beside him, sobbing into his neck.
At River Valley Emergency Veterinary Center, the prognosis got worse.
Dr. Peter Lawson met them in trauma intake and worked fast, but not fast enough to soften the truth. Atlas had suffered severe electrical trauma. The shock had triggered a dangerous cardiac cascade. Fluids, oxygen, stabilization—they were buying minutes, not safety. What he truly needed was a rare emergency medication called Cardiolase, a specialized agent used in catastrophic neurological-electrical injury cases.
They did not have it.
The nearest supply was at a specialty hospital nearly two hundred miles away.
Outside, the first edge of the storm hit the windows hard enough to rattle the lobby glass. Highways were already flooding. Helicopter visibility was deteriorating. Emma sat wrapped in a blanket, whispering to Atlas through trembling lips while Caroline stood motionless with rainwater still in her hair, looking like a woman trying not to let fear become rage.
Then she saw the officer’s name again on the intake incident sheet.
