Five years slipped by. Daisy seemed quieter. Though she ate and rested well, she had a more pronounced limp now. Zachary often sat beside her kennel, scratching her ears. In her presence, he never let others allude to the tigers. Whether she understood or not, the silence felt safer than reminding her of what was lost.
When he passed the tiger enclosure, Zachary noticed things others did not. A rumble in the throats of three when Daisy barked in the distance. The way their eyes tracked him longer than the rest of the staff. Shadows of memory flickered there, but he refused to trust them. After all, they were feral.