But to trap an injured dog…

This was NYP. Not Your Problem. That was what Frank would say. The School Principal was big on what was or wasn’t his problem. He’d let the dog go, close the door after it and forget it.

But this wasn’t Frank. It was Nicholas Holt and she just knew Nicholas wasn’t a NYP sort of guy.

And in the end there wasn’t a choice-the dog didn’t give her one. She knelt, towels at the ready. Nicholas lifted the desk, but the dog didn’t rush anywhere. The little creature simply shook and shook. He backed harder into the corner, as if trying to melt into the wall, and Misty’s heart twisted.

‘Oh, hush. Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay, no one’s going to hurt you.’

This little one wasn’t thinking of snapping-he was well past it. She slipped the towels around him carefully, not covering his head, simply wrapping him so she could propel him forward without doing more damage.

He was a cocker spaniel, or mostly cocker spaniel. Maybe a bit smaller? He was black and white, with black floppy ears. He had huge black eyes. He was ragged, bloodstained and matted and there was the smell of tyre rubber around him. Had he been hit?

He had a blue collar around his neck, plastic, with a number engraved in black. She knew that collar.

A couple of years back, Gran’s ancient beagle-cross had slipped his collar and headed off after a scent. Two days later, he’d turned up at the Animal Welfare Centre, with one of these tags around his neck.

This was an impounded dog. A stray.

No matter. All that mattered now was that the dog was in her arms, quivering with fear. There was a mass of fur missing from his hind quarters, as if he’d been dragged along the road, and his left hind leg looked…appalling. He was bleeding, sluggishly but steadily, and his frame was almost skeletal.

He needed help, urgently. She wanted to head out to her car right now and take him to the vet.