The doctor paused, rubbing his weary eyes. “We ran tox screens and did a deeper assessment. The neglect is obvious. But what shocked us… her internal temperature when you brought her in was dangerously low, yes, but it didn’t align with the time she spent exposed. It was… too low. We found traces of a strong sedative in her system. Enough to make an adult groggy.”
Manny’s blood ran cold. “Someone drugged her?”
“Worse,” Dr. Reyes whispered, leaning closer. “Her skin was saturated with cold. The Dobermann, Max… we observed him closely. His body temperature is elevated—not due to illness, but consistently. He’s been deliberately maintaining an abnormal heat level, lying over her like a furnace. Max wasn’t just protecting her; he was actively heating her, sacrificing his own stability. If he hadn’t been an external heat source, she would have arrested in that alley hours ago.”
The implication was a punch to Manny’s gut: Max hadn’t just found her. Max knew what was happening. Someone had sedated this little girl and dumped her, and Max had spent hours in the bitter cold, literally using his life force to keep her alive.
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