Part 2
“Photograph everything,” Leah said, but the kitten’s grip was already loosening. His breathing had become shallow, his gums were pale, and one burned paw slid from the crumpled plastic as Noah lifted the camera. Understanding the bag had not made him safer. It had only shown them what he had carried across the heat-blistered shoulder before his body began to fail.
Noah photographed the guard hairs, pine needles, and survey ribbon while a technician recorded the pickup coordinates and time. Leah called the Wildlife Resources duty officer on speaker. The hairs were consistent with bobcat, she explained, and the ribbon matched the stakes across I-40 at Granite Ridge Estates. The officer added a den-site search to the morning response. At first light, someone would begin looking for an adult cat that might never return.
The technician logged the case under Piedmont’s rabies-species permit, and Frank, Leah, and Noah signed the medical, facility, and transport records. Maya Ruiz, the state wildlife biologist, would verify the repaired long-term pen the following day.
Only then did Leah begin the examination. She kept the room dim and used a towel barrier to reduce visual stress. The kitten was too compromised for a prolonged physical struggle, so she performed only what she needed to make immediate decisions. His temperature was elevated, though beginning to fall with controlled cooling. His heart rate was dangerously fast. The skin over his shoulders settled slowly when lifted, and his mouth was tacky and nearly dry.
“Severe dehydration,” she said. “Significant heat stress. Pads are burned, probably from the shoulder and roadway. Superficial abrasions on the abdomen. I don’t feel a long-bone fracture, but imaging waits until he’s stable.”
She placed flow-by oxygen near the crate opening, then administered carefully calculated fluids and veterinary analgesia. The burned pads were flushed, treated, and covered with light protective dressings. Every few minutes she paused to reassess his breathing rather than pressing ahead for the sake of completing a checklist.
Noah remained at the end of the table. He did not touch the kitten. When the bag had to be moved away from the wet dressings, Leah brushed two clean cotton pads through the trapped pine needles and guard hairs. Noah helped seal the bag and one pad inside a perforated stainless-steel scent box secured to the crate wall, where the kitten could smell them without becoming tangled in plastic or swallowing a torn piece. The second pad went into a labeled sample vial.
Leah noticed what he was doing. “Good solution.”
“Temporary one.”
“Tonight, temporary is all we have.”
Frank waited until the kitten’s breathing had eased before asking Leah into the hall. Noah followed and pulled the intake door nearly shut behind him.
“We need to talk capacity,” Frank said. “The rabies-species isolation room is full, the fox in quarantine cannot be moved, and the long-term bobcat pen is still waiting on its repair inspection.”
“We can stabilize him in the approved medical unit,” Leah said.
“A permit is not the same as having inspected long-term space, staff, or money to keep him.” Frank rubbed both hands over his face. “I’m not arguing that we should have left him there. I’m telling you the state may require transfer if Maya does not clear that pen, and every permitted facility within two hundred miles is near capacity.”
“Then we stabilize him well enough to survive a transfer.”
Noah glanced through the narrow window. The kitten had curled around the scent box, eyes closed, sides still moving too fast.
“I can repair the drain tonight,” he said. “And reinforce the shift gate before morning.”
Frank looked at him. “You were not scheduled tonight.”
“I am now.”
For a moment Frank appeared ready to refuse out of principle. Then his shoulders lowered. “No permanent name. No social media updates beyond ‘animal received.’ We do this by the permit and let the state decide placement.”
Leah picked up the chart. “He needs an identifier.”
Noah looked at the pale mineral flakes caught in the kitten’s dirty coat. “Mica,” he said.
Leah wrote it in quotation marks: Mica—temporary.
By midnight, enclosure five had a working drain, a reinforced interior latch, and blackout panels ready for the next day’s inspection. Leah kept Mica in a secure ICU recovery crate, moving him only after his temperature and respiration had improved enough to tolerate fresh bedding. The scent box remained fixed low against one wall.
Leah placed water and a small amount of warmed, species-appropriate recovery slurry near the hiding area. Mica smelled both and turned his face toward the scent box.
At one in the morning, he had not eaten; at two, he had not drunk. Whenever a shoe squeaked in the corridor, his ears flattened and his breathing quickened on the remote camera. Leah considered additional medication, then decided the stress of opening the crate might do more harm than waiting.
Noah sat beside the observation window. Through the narrow uncovered section of glass, he could see one amber eye and the dim shape of the scent box.
Leah brought him coffee he did not drink. “You can go home,” she said.
“I know.”
She studied him, then sat in the chair across the corridor without trying to fill the quiet.
Near three, the building settled into its night sounds: ventilation fans, a distant fox shifting straw, rain beginning softly on the metal roof. Noah spoke once through the glass.
“You don’t have to give it up tonight,” he told Mica. “Just stay.”
The visible eye closed. The food remained untouched.
Twenty minutes later, the monitor changed tone.
Noah was on his feet before Leah reached the enclosure. Mica lay on his side, no longer curled around the scent box. His breaths came far apart, each one smaller than the last.
Leah unlocked the medical access panel and felt for a pulse. Her expression tightened. “Temperature is dropping. Get the warming unit,” she told the technician. “Glucose and emergency fluids. Now.” Then she looked through the glass at Noah. “Noah,” she said. “I need you in here…”
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