The police captain turned sharply. “Stand down,” he barked at the young officer. The officer hesitated, then lowered the rifle. Only then did Elias realize how hard his own heart was pounding. He looked back up at Mara. She was still pressed hard against the trunk, panting, her ears flattened by the noise below.
“She went up because people surrounded her,” Elias told the captain before the man could say anything else. “She’s not hunting. She’s hiding.” The captain looked relieved for half a second, then worried again. “Can you get her down?” “Maybe,” Elias said. “But only if this stops being a circus.” A reporter was speaking into a camera nearby, calling Mara “agitated.” Elias hated the word immediately. It made her sound aggressive, unpredictable, already guilty of something. She was scared.
Then a drone rose above the crowd.