Animal Spirits

1

(I'm used to my stories revolving around Cameron and her family, so they're probably going to be the main focus of the story)

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When your family owns an animal reserve, you have a lot jobs.

Those jobs include many different tasks; be it, picking up any left over animal carcasses, taking care of sick animals, or making sure all of the animals are inside the reserve.

Cameron's job was to count the animals, she did it everyday, she started it when she was twelve.

She's a seventeen now, almost eighteen, and she's never counted wrong.

Well, until today.

While she was counting, she noticed something off about the number of African wild dogs; three were missing. They had one pack of Wild dogs on the reserve, containing eleven in total, but today she only counted eight.

Thinking she counted wrong, she re counted, then after coming up with the same number she checked the reserve to see if any wondered off.

But she didn't find anything.

It was natural for the females to leave at a certain age, but the ones who went missing were are male.

Hm.

Concerned, she checked the trackers of all of the dogs, confirming that the missing dogs were definitely not on reserve grounds.

They weren't dead, she new that much. If they were, she'd feel it. She was spiritually connected to them, just like her younger brother, and how her older brother was connected to the Ethiopian wolf.

She was relieved, but confused.

After counting the other animals, she went back to the cabin she called home.

She told her dad, Carlos, about the issue and asked him to help her check the security cameras.

He set them up after hearing about poachers in the area a while back.

"I'm.... not seeing anything," He said, more to himself. Cameron leaned over him, one hand on his shoulder and the other on the white computer desk.

Her golden brown eyes rapidly searched the screen, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

She didn't see anything either, which was really strange. She couldn't have counted wrong... Maybe they were hiding or something?

Her ears suddenly began to twitch, picking up a sound from the footage.

She watched in confusion as three dogs from the pack woke up from their sleep, then walked off camera.

Carlos, who didn't hear the whistle, was super confused.

"What the...?,"

He went pack, turning up the volume and replaying it.

When the whistle came again, Cameron let out a dog like whine and covered her ears.

Carlos jumped and quickly turned off the volume.

"What? What's wrong?,"

She uncovered her ears, her frown never leaving her face.

"Someone used a dog whistle on them... they must have did it while the camera was facing the other way,"

Carlos cursed and Cameron rubbed her ears.

"Are you-?,"

"I'm ok, Papa," She smiled gently. If there was anything her father was, it was protecting.