Jared found the clearing where she remembered leaving the amulet and her old sock, but as she frantically looked around, she realized that she couldn't find it! She used her hooves to kick over some leaves and dirt, but it seemed useless!
After a couple of hours, she stopped and tried to think. She'd only been a doe a couple days, and the chance that anyone found the amulet already seemed pretty small. So if she just calmed down and looked around, maybe it was just closer to the shack. She started to turn around when her ears perked up at a nearby popping sound, followed by a pinch in her neck.
She jumped and looked and the feathered dart sticking out of her. Frantically, she tried to get it out, but after just a few seconds she started to feel drowsy. She stubled and fell to the ground, unable to move. Even as the men from the zoo quickly came to collect her, she spotted a glint of something under a root near her nose, just a few feet away.
It was the amulet.
Pathetically, she reached out her tounge to try and touch it, but it was actually further away. Her vision then went dark.
**
Jared woke up hours later, now in yet another vets office. She was in a small holding pen, cut off from the world. She tried not to move, but could hear a couple of the vets talking. She realized that they were running tests on her.
"She's clean, as far as I can tell," said one. "No disease pops up, no parasites. She hasn't been in the wild that long, it seems."
The other nodded, "She seems young and healthy. Smart, too. She escaped from Brad's team last night when they went to pick her up." She sighed, "I hope we can keep her."
The other one shrugged, "There aren't any markings on her to indicate ownership, so she was probably illegally held. We'll keep her in quarantine here for a couple weeks. By then, we'll know if there's a legal owner. If not, I suspect we'll add her to the exhibit."