The command form arrived wearing shelter clothes.
Jade knew the shape before the tablet finished loading it. Gray boxes and thin lines divided space for the reporting adult from space for the child, if someone wanted to pretend fear made a clean signature. The form had taken every ugly part of a shelter incident report and polished it until it looked calm.
That was how Ty knew the room had found a new way to ask for blood.
The form wanted Jade to choose a voice. It named the old body, the protected child, the Hunter outside the feed, and the watching public as if all four belonged on the same checklist. Each option had a neat little circle beside it, as if a finger tap could make pain behave.
Waddell read over Jade's shoulder and pulled his hands behind his back.
"It wants you to make somebody bark for the record," he said. "I dislike how polite it looks while asking."
Jade kept the tablet flat. "Polite forms hurt people because they survive review."
