Hopping Towards Hope: Jax finds a way to bridge the gap between his past and his present, and the sanctuary finds a new lease on life.

Chapter 6

The air in the sanctuary, usually thick with the scent of hay and something vaguely damp, seemed to hum with a new kind of energy. It wasn't the frantic buzz of desperation that had settled like dust in the corners for weeks, but something lighter, something that felt a lot like hope. Jax, who had started the week feeling as useful as a screen door on a submarine, found himself at the centre of it all, a fact that made his neck prickle and his tattoos itch.

It had started with Agnes’s announcement, delivered with a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of a thousand overdue bills. The sanctuary, she’d explained to the motley crew of volunteers and Jax, was on the brink. A particularly grumpy badger of a bank manager had delivered the ultimatum: find a substantial sum of money, or the gates would close for good. The animals, the scraggly, the magnificent, the downright peculiar residents of this forgotten corner of the world, would be scattered to the winds.