His front paws pressed across her shoulders.
Every time she tried to rise, he forced her back down.
I drew my baton.
The thought made me sick.
Titan was my partner.
But the child came first.
“Back off! I’m his handler!”
I dropped beside them and seized Titan’s tactical collar.
His body felt carved from stone.
I tightened my grip.
Then I saw his face.
Titan wasn’t watching the girl.
His jaws weren’t snapping toward her.
He wasn’t looking at the shouting crowd.
He wasn’t even looking at me.
His ears were flattened.
His lips peeled back from his canines.
And his eyes were locked on a mound of dead leaves six inches from the girl’s head.
I stopped pulling.
The branch remained raised above us.
The girl’s mother reached us, sobbing as she clawed at my back.
“Get away from her!”
“Ma’am, don’t move!”
Titan growled again.
Not at the child.
At the leaves.
Something shifted beneath them.
A dry scrape.
Then another.
The crowd slowly went quiet.
