Page 79 of Wild Card
“A pop would be good.”
I grabbed a second can and tossed it to him. Dalton caught it and glanced at it with surprise. “Mountain Dew? Really?”
“Sugary goodness.” I sat down at my small table, covered in fresh, folded laundry because there was too little space in here. I popped the top and drank.
The sweet, citrusy drink soothed my parched throat. I was so damn dehydrated my tongue soaked up the liquid like a sponge. I gulped until half the can was gone.
When I lowered it, Dalton was watching me.
The silence drew out, making me twitchy. What happened to him being in a hurry?
“You should just go,” I said. “I’m not mad. There’s just nothing to say.”
“Of course there is,” he said, leaning forward, eyes locked on mine. “I shouldn’t have walked out like that.”
“But you did.”
He winced.
I shrugged. “Everyone does. Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t want to be everyone,” Dalton said. “I want to be better than that.”
My heart skipped a beat.
“You can’t be.”
“Can’t I?”
I lifted the can, drinking more so that I could hide from his searching gaze. This was why I didn’t do entanglements. Even with the best of intentions, shit got complicated.
I set the can aside. “Let’s just call it now before?—”
“I talked to the mayor about the pet abandonment problem,” Dalton blurted.
The one-eighty threw me. I blinked. “What now?”
“I told Mayor Prince about the strain the shelter is under and how folks are illegally dumping their pets, and he’s going to talk to the city council about strengthening enforcement and adding more fines. We’ll add patrols, maybe even some signage warning folks of the consequences?—”
“No!” My gut lurched. “Why the fuck did youdothat?”
“This will help,Axel. You didn’t want the responsibility of running some private program. And Igetthat. I really do. So this is an alternate solution.”
“It’s not a solution,” I spit. “It’s what politicians always fucking do. They slap a Band-Aid on a paper cut while you’re bleeding out.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
I raked my hands through my hair, my fingers catching in the tangles and yanking at the roots.
I barely felt it. Thoughts were swirling through my head. Worst-case scenarios. Pets left where I couldn’t help them. Left without food or water. Lost. Confused.
Alone.
“People won’t stop, Dalton. They’ll just leave their animals somewhere else. Somewhere Ican’thelp. If you all make it obvious you’re gonna patrol more here, it’ll just be some other stretch of highway.”
“Then we’ll patrol there too,” he said.
“You don’tgetit,” I snarled. “They need me, and I won’t be there for them. No one will be there for them. They’ll be afraid and suffering!”
