The overhead lights pressed a thin layer of light across the square room, the kind of light that never warmed anything and never really helped you to see anything either.
Sera stayed on the floor, her back to the plexiglass, and her knees drawn up so that her arms could loop loosely over them.
Across the corridor, Luci still lay curled in his own clear box, his paws tucked under his muzzle, and his chest rising slow and even. The sedatives clung to him like a second pelt. One ear twitched when a vent cycled, then settled again.
Footsteps approached, crisp and unhurried.
The rhythm reminded her of clinics, of clean halls and permission slips, of rooms where the sound of paper could make a body sit straighter. Keys clicked. A latch turned. A woman stepped into view with a clipboard angled across her forearm as if it were an extension of the bones there.
