The Wolf Experiments
Chapter 5

The metallic clang of cutleries hitting ceramic plates rang out all over the cafeteria. The people dug into their meals with gusto and looked at Alex out of the corner of their eyes. Alex was used to this by now but not like this. Before, it was just one person looking at her out of their periphery but today, all of them were. She could not help but feel that something was up. They had all been especially nice towards her, Eric had greeted her with a warm grin and an exaggerated “Good Morning, Alex!” as she walked into the room earlier in the day.

She looked out of the corner of her eye to see Andy looking back at her. She was about to slam her spoon down in exasperation when from nowhere, they all stood up in unison and shouted:

“Surprise! Happy Birthday!” The sound seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere all at once.

Alex was confused. Her eyes darted around from face to face but the grins and happy laughter on their lips were not signs of a prank going as planned, they were actually genuinely happy for her. It was her birthday.

“Didn’t you know what day it was?” Andy asked softly. Of course she didn’t! She was hard put to remember her own name as it was.

“We weren’t planning a surprise party, but I guess it really is one,” Eric laughed, putting a big cake down on the table with sixteen tall candles. It smelled so good; she couldn’t help a faint smile.

“A smile?” Eric said, gently teasing. “Is that actually a smile I see?”

It was Amandas, however, who made her eyes sparkle with mirth when he suddenly put his front paws on the table, huffed and puffed, and blew the candles out. The whole room erupted in laughter and Alex smiled broadly.

“Am I late to the party?”

Alex did not have to turn around to tell who was speaking behind her. The voice had been responsible for some of her most miserable moments in the complex so far. That was why she was surprised to see that he had a small gift-wrapped box in his hand. He looked at her with a twinkle in his eyes and she took it out of his outstretched palm. She was curious to know just what Nick could have put in it.

“As you can see, we are short of malls around here so we improvise with birthday gifts.” Nick explained.

It was a knife. It gleamed under the white light and Alex whirled it around in the air, admiring the wood handle engraved with dancing horses. It seemed to burn against her skin as she examined it in the light.

“I hope your wolf stays with you, and that you will never need this for protection,” he said.

She set the knife on the table and extended her hand. One gesture deserved another as Nick gently enveloped her fingers. “It’s good to finally meet you,” he said.

The connection lasted only a second before her vision wavered and in the depths of her memories, gunfire erupted. A pain pierced her breast and sent her doubling over, blood spilling down her chest. Time froze and she felt rain beating against her head, heard a distant scream, watched the blur of men around her, and saw a single bullet hover in the air before her eyes.

And then, as suddenly as the images had come, they were gone and Alex saw only Nick’s eyes, sad with the comprehension that she was caught in the grip of his nightmare and couldn’t escape. Slowly, she put her hand to her chest and brought it away, expecting there to be blood. Without a word, Nick put his arms around her.

“She knows,” he whispered to Andy. “Somehow she knows.”

When he released Alex from his embrace, Nick touched her cheek and left the room. Once he was gone, everyone began to talk at once.

For no good reason she could think of, she absently reached for a piece of cake, but any air of celebration was gone even though smoke still drifted upwards faintly from the candles. Shaking her head, she quietly escaped into the corridor, Amandas at her heels. She headed straight for the barn. Tears stung her eyes and she had no idea why she was crying.

Rebel looked happy to see her. She rubbed its fuzzy head and fed him a few tufts of hay. She set up the saddle and led him out to the open air. She hopped on the horse and they trotted off into the distance. Rebel wanted to go faster, surging against the frozen wind while sinking his hooves into the soft ground. They picked their way through rocky debris and slushy pools of melting snow. Alex’s eyes followed the granite ridgeline to the blue-gray edge of a convex horizon.

She was looking out for the black stallion but as usual he was intentionally elusive. She had ridden often in the weeks since her birthday but the stallion never appeared. She rode out every afternoon hoping to have the chance to let him know there was no reason for him to be alone and that she was his friend.

As she grew stronger, the rules changed. Alex had more freedom, no curfew, and no watchful or disapproving eyes. She simply needed to check in with Andy periodically. Nick had disappeared to his cabin, isolating himself again, but his gift rested securely against her leg in a simple leather sheath Hawk made in the arts and crafts room.

As Rebel entered a canyon, an odd shadow against the scenery caused her to pull up and dismount. Where the trees blocked a curve of stone, she found the secret passage that eluded her for so many weeks. Twin boulders, identical in color and neatly folded close together, had hidden the opening. She would have missed it today if the conditions were different.

She stepped into the winding path, wild with brush and weeds, leading Rebel with Amandas close on their heels. Between two knobby trees, a clearing opened on a hidden pasture. As she gazed over the sea of gold winter grass, the reins absently fell from her hands. There, at last, was the stallion, stoic on his hilltop post, alone but for a single tree, surveying his dominion.

The stallion’s appearance never ceased to amaze her. One moment, it would be just her and her wolf moving through the valley with Rebel when out of nowhere, the stallion would appear like it had been there all along. She wondered if he had a name.

She shouldn’t have been surprised to find him alone but knew that Nick had tried to create a herd to breed and multiply in the mountains. But there were no horses in the field and she could feel the stallion’s bleak misery, an almost overwhelming sense of loss. She knew then that the horses were dead and that his secret canyon—this place he so vigilantly protected— was only an empty graveyard of a failed expedition belonging to Nick and Marcus.

Alex stepped forward, but the instant she moved, the stallion turned with a scream and charged down the hill, anger radiating from his muscular body like a hot, burning sun. She knew that he could not—that he would not harm her and stood her ground, spreading her arms wide and ready to embrace him. The earth crumbled beneath his hooves and rocks slammed against her shoes, but he stopped inches from her, breathing hard.

As they stared at one another, his hate seemed to melt away. Almost overwhelmed with excitement, her heat pounded and a single drop of blood fell down her lip. She quickly wiped her nose and knew she really needed to address this particular medical issue.

The stallion threw his head back and screamed against the blistering wind. With horror, she watched the creature begin to change, the animal’s bones snapping and bending grotesquely. She could not bear to look, but neither could she tear her eyes away as the shape of a half-man, half-horse torturously appeared before her. It was only when he stepped closer that her body finally reacted to the message roaring in her brain to run.

She scrambled backwards, unable to find her footing and fell to the ground in a heap of tangled legs. Her vision faded. There was no place to hide and Rebel had deserted her. Everything darkened for a few minutes and when she lifted her head again; her mind couldn’t quite comprehend the thing standing in front of her. But it was her imagination that the horse had transformed, wasn’t it? Why did she still hear the stallion screaming in the distance when this two-legged creature remained? Somewhere, her mind had fractured again. She wasn’t quite sure what was reality and what wasn’t.

Here she was again, with her mind playing optical tricks on her. She should have been afraid of the creature in front of her but she wasn’t. That’s why she was slightly amused when the creature said that:

“Please don’t be afraid. Don’t run away from me.”

Of course she wasn’t going to run away. Amandas was by her side and his hackles were raised in readiness for an attack.

Remembering the dagger wedged against her leg, she snatched it up quickly. The creature stood back, raising his hands in a gesture of peace.

“Wait,” he said, “please.”

Her heart continued to race as clouds darkened the ravine. The wind was colder now, and she shivered against the frosty stones. The creature kneeled down with pleading eyes.

He asked, “How did you find this place?” Sighing heavily, she shook her head. Fear and confusion played havoc with her thoughts. Was she having yet another very realistic vision?

“You don’t know?” he asked. She blinked her eyes rapidly, but the creature was still there before her.

“You don’t speak,” he said, suddenly understanding. That was fast, she thought, clearly impressed. There was something familiar about this creature. It was not just the way it looked, that in itself was not familiar but there was something familiar about the way it moved, the smell. It moved as if it was always on the run from something, like it was prey for more powerful beings. But the smell was what sealed it for her. She had encountered that smell before and it was in the 3rd level subsections in the complex. This was the creature that had scared her out of her wits and made her lose her crutches and flashlight!

Seeming to read her thoughts he said, “You have learned to walk without your crutches. I didn’t expect anyone to be there. At that moment, when I saw you, I wasn’t ready to for you to see my disfigurement. For almost a year now, I’ve tried to figure out what happened in that place and have slowly been cleaning it up for Nick.”

Alex had questions, too, and bit her lip in frustration. Had she always been mute? It did not feel that way because if that was the case, her body would have already become accustomed to it and she wouldn’t be struggling so hard to speak each time.

“You’re Alex.”

She shrugged.

“They didn’t tell me you didn’t speak. Don’t you know your own name?” he asked.

A sob seized her chest, constricting it with a painful pressure, and the creature’s gaze softened, as if he felt sorry for her.

“It doesn’t matter now. We will find a way to communicate. I think you need me as much as I need you. It’s very strange, isn’t it?”

His body was straight and tall, like a man. His chest was solid and muscular, twitching slightly with anxiety. He had the tilt of a muzzle, and two strange ears—human but slightly pointed—pitched between a wild mass of long, dark hair. His eyes were a deep earthen hue and seemed friendly and safe. She wanted to touch him but was afraid.

“Go ahead,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. I carried you back to your room that night. I knew your window would be open. You shouldn’t go out at night alone and so, I’ve always watched from a distance to help if needed. The wolves are tricky.”

Hesitantly, she placed an unsteady hand against his arm. He peered down with a strange, complacent smile. Alex shivered.

“I’m Sultan, by the way. Let’s go home.”

They left his special place, weaving through the boulders and trees until reaching the flat valley floor.

“Alex!” a voice shouted.

“Ah good,” said Sultan. “You’ll be fine now.” His voice had a certain gruffness to it that was just the perfect complement for his looks.

With that, Sultan slipped away. She turned quickly toward the shout, startled by the sound. Hawk stepped out from the trees, leading her gelding and his. Hawk’s dark eyes were flashing.

“Did I see what I think I saw?” he asked.

She turned to the sky, her face flushed.

“How do you do it? I thought it would take a lot longer for Sultan to introduce himself.”

His expression was unfathomable and yet tinted with that other thing she had so far failed to identify. Without responding, she climbed into the saddle.

Back at the barn, she put Rebel in the stall and turned to leave, but felt a tug when Hawk caught her hand—felt his soft, stoic gaze as he searched her face. “You have many gifts, some I think you are just discovering. Do you understand what happened at your birthday party?”

The question hung in the air, and her expression shifted to nervousness. His fingers slid from her wrist to draw an invisible line across her palm. His lips twitched.

“I think you realize Nick was shot. You have an uncanny ability to capture life, to sense feelings—to read beyond the spoken word. Somehow, I think you even felt Nick’s pain.”

She nodded slightly, frowning.

“Somehow you have given life to a man who wanted to drown in his sorrows,” Hawk said. “When he gave up on the world, Nick came here to die. He brought us here, too, but we couldn’t help him the way you have in just that one moment.”

She dropped down on a bale of hay and watched as Hawk put the tack away. As he worked, he continued talking.

“Perhaps you may remember that decades ago, when women had trouble conceiving due to the rising radiation levels, a bizarre phenomenon began. People began abducting pregnant women to steal their babies—often quite early in the pregnancy. Nick’s wife was taken but for some reason, the abductor didn’t kill her immediately. Nick found her some years later with a young child. It was obvious that both had been badly mistreated and after a round of gunfire, the abductor got away again. Later, the police recovered information revealing the cruel methods of her torture and murder. Nick continued to search for answers, a man possessed.”

Alex listened and felt dull with shock and sadness. Could Nick ever heal from such a devastating loss?

“When he tried to save his wife and the child, they shot him in the chest and left him to die on the road.”

Somehow, she knew it had been raining that day. She grimaced and found that her hand, of its own accord, had crept to the place on her chest where she had felt the bullet. What could it all mean?

It seemed another one of the complex’s many mysteries was playing out right in front of her eyes.

The following day was one of those when the weather turned rotten. Alex was confined to her room and not even Amandas could bring himself to go out. Alex had sheets of heavy snow fall between her and the stallion who was actually not a stallion but a man named Sultan. She wondered what the others would think of her if she told them this. Losing the plot, maybe?

Alex spent long hours staring through the fogged glass of her window. Hawk and the others left her alone, sensing her anxiety and longing. When she couldn’t stand it another second, she headed for the lower levels. Maybe she could find whatever Sultan was looking for.

Thanks to her improved condition, she quickly found herself wading through the black waters where she had lost her crutches. Amandas wisely waited on the stairs where it was dry.

Alex searched the old laboratories without fear, knowing with some certainty, the foul deeds performed there. After searching cabinets and flipping through discarded journals, she located a second set of stairs and went farther down until the water pooled around her ankles.

When steel doors blocked the way, she retraced her steps to search for a crowbar she had seen on an earlier excursion and found it wedged behind a desk. A hidden drawer popped open when she yanked it free, revealing a leather-bound journal and a framed photograph of a man. Alex tucked the book into her jeans but accidentally dropped the picture, shattering the glass. In that instant, a laugh seemed to project from the image, echoing cruelly as if he were there in the room with her. Clammy moisture broke across her forehead, and her head began to spin wildly. She gulped convulsively, feeling faint. The shape lingered.

Without stopping to think, she sprinted up the stairs with Amandas close on her heels. Her wet feet skidded as she turned into the passageway, desperately trying to escape the horrible specter. His presence filled the lower levels, his ghost attempting to seep into her reality like some kind of warning. Abruptly she crashed into a body, and screamed in fright.

“Alex!”

She found herself caught firmly in Nick’s arms and her knees buckled beneath her. He eased her gently to the floor, more gently than she thought he was capable of, and yet his voice demanded, “What the hell!” When she did nothing but gasp in response, he commanded, “Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly.”

In a gesture of comfort, he reached for her face to push the hair from her eyes. Inadvertently, she pulled away. The effect was instant and disastrous.

“Fine!” he shouted, abruptly releasing her. Without a word, he turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving her to stare helplessly at the back of his retreating form. She wanted to tell him he had misunderstood, but he had already disappeared around a corner.

As she struggled to collect herself, Amandas grasped the journal that had fallen to the floor and dropped it into her lap. The wolf seemed to confirm the importance of the small book. With effort, she climbed to her feet and limped to her apartment wanting to rest as much as she wanted to read the diary. Once safely in her own surroundings, she fingered the delicate pages. Would they contain the cruel details of some awful experiment or something mundane and unimportant? Looking in Amandas’ deep wise eyes, she wondered what to do. Finally, sometime before dawn she fell into a fitful sleep—awakened a short time later by what could have been the screaming of the wind or that of the stallion.

She knew it was just the wind though, the stallion was just wishful thinking on her part.

She held the mysterious journal at bay throughout the morning and afternoon. She worried about the stallion or should she call him Sultan as they were the same, weren’t they? Maybe there was something wrong with her brain. Andy would be furious if he knew she wanted to go out as snow had descended upon the early spring weather. It was probably past a safe hour when Alex dressed in her warmest clothes and fled the complex, leaving Rebel behind. There was no reason to take him from a warm, comfortable stall on this mad task.

As she walked alone through the lonely expanse of the valley she never for once thought that she just might be on a fool’s errand. Sultan had warned her about the wolves and how dangerous they could be. But then he had also said that he used to watch her whenever she went out at night. Maybe it would be a good thing for the wolves to descend on her. That way, Sultan would come to her aid and it would be a win win situation.

She sprinted across the fields through the ominous night until a flash of something caught her eye. Fear prickled across her senses and she reached instinctively for her dagger only to realize she had left it on the nightstand. Amandas barked a warning, and in an instant, she understood why. She stood perfectly still as the wolves collected around her. She drew a deep, shuddering breath, conjecturing if the pack would attack. Amandas sunk lower, snarling ferociously. Alex snapped a thick branch from a nearby tree before planting her back against the coarse bark of the trunk. At least she was somewhat protected from that angle. Then, the terrible battle began.

She swung persistently, feeling the impact jar her hands. The wolves leaped at her legs, biting, snarling, and snapping. Amandas, in a blur of motion, defended her with his sharp teeth and razor claws. There were enough wolves that counting their dim outlines in the dark was impossible. She made a dash for the tree, attempting to scramble into the lower branches. The limb broke and she tumbled down, crashing hard. Her lungs deflated like a balloon, and she gulped and gasped, failing to draw in a breath of air. She rolled to her knees, her chest constricting and realized what a fool she was.

The animals had retreated about twenty yards. Why were they starving? A twinge of fear turned over in her stomach, but otherwise, she was particularly emotionless. Her eyes narrowed, her fist tightened, and then, hooves thundered in her ears.

As he materialized out of thin air, the stallion’s body soared over her head. Alex instinctively ducked, watching as the wolves died beneath his powerful body, crushed by the strength of his legs. The few survivors dispersed into the forest, the furious stallion striking the ground with his forelegs in a display of raw, brutal emotion. He chased after them. But soon, Sultan returned walking on two legs—his four legged half-life creature mysteriously gone again. Alex turned to look at one of the dead wolves. It had an identification collar.

Sultan reached out and gently turned her chin away from the mutilation. “No,” he said, “Don’t look.”

She stood shakily, brushing the snow from her knees. Getting her bearings, Alex silently gestured to him to follow. He peered around them, deciding.

“Have you found something?” he asked.

She nodded, hoping that this creature who trusted no one would trust her even in her silence. Blessedly, he did, even when he realized they were going back through the window he had once forgotten to close—back to the lower levels of waste and decay—back to her discovery, the double steel doors.

On their way down, she retrieved the crowbar and wedged it into the door. Looking at him pointedly, Sultan stepped forward and using his greater strength, pried the entrance open. As the doors broke apart, a gush of water surged over their feet with enough strength that Sultan steadied her.

When the water subsided, they crossed into the next chamber. Alex surveyed the strange, ghostly room by flashlight. Sultan’s hand tightened on her shoulder.

“This place is one of pain.” He paused for a moment, his sad eyes still searching. “I’m sure you are wondering what I’m looking for?”

She nodded.

“There was a scientist that conducted experiments here, a madman. He also used wolves but I’m not sure that his intentions were as healthy as what Nick and Andy try to achieve for Mankind.”

She looked around the room as he talked, at the cages against the wall, breathing the rotting smell of death that encompassed everything.

“Terrible things occurred here,” he finally said.

They were alike in the manner in which they couldn’t let go of things—the way those things consumed them both.

“I’m glad you’re here, Alex,” he said suddenly. “It’s nice to have a friend.”

After several minutes of fruitless suffering, Sultan suggested they come back another day, sensing she was as tired as he himself had become. Taking her hand, he led her upstairs. She followed him, stumbling with weariness. Before he left, he patted her head gently. His touch felt strangely familiar.

Little by little, Alex grew accustomed to her name. She felt stronger as if some great deception neared discovery. Switching on a nearby lamp, she pulled the soft comforter up to her chin. The surrounding silence seemed deafening. Absently, she wondered about Sultan and his story. Then, she thought about Hawk and his eagerness to spend time with her. She groaned, letting her eyes close for a moment. What confusing emotions! Grabbing the journal, she thrust the first page open.

Hours later, head swimming, Alex closed the journal to reflect. Argon Pretorius, the mad scientist Sultan spoke of, was a microbiologist, embryologist and acclaimed geneticist. His writings were a bizarre mixture, half thesis, half memoir, interwoven with a meticulous study of mutations conducted in the name of “science.” His twisted mind conceived hideous experiments: growing human organs in the bodies of wolves and horses because more conventional lab animals were already extinct, injecting human sperm cells into wolf embryos and in particular, injecting wolf cells into human eggs or fetuses. When his colleagues rejected his methods, Pretorius descended alone to fully breach the species barrier. His brilliance and the level to which he raised the relevant technology might have set the stage for therapeutic cloning, and the engineering of immune-compatible cells capable of surviving high levels of radiation. Instead, his insanity had turned the research into something else. He enjoyed playing God.

As it was almost dawn, Alex set the journal aside. Her eyes were tired. She switched off the light and tried to sleep. In a semi-conscious state, she continued to think about the experiments. When she did drift off, those images infiltrated her dreams. Horses and wolves ran across her internal vision against a backdrop of bloody cages all scored by the relentless humming of machines. At some point, the laboratory changed, and Andy was standing before her, the white wolf grimacing at his feet.

In the morning, she felt compelled to visit the laboratory to see Andy at work. To see what kind of madness her friends created.

“Well, you’ve finally come to see me,” Andy said when she walked in. “Let me tell you about our research.”

She scowled at the word, but Andy had his back to her, pulling out a chair for her to sit.

“As we told you, Mankind is suffering with the effects of radiation poisoning. The destruction to the environment has left the atmosphere volatile giving us little protection from the sun. On a global level, avian species and insects are non-existent. This valley is a large biosphere, and with our frozen samples, we have been able to bring back creatures that were once extinct.

“Other men, in other places can also create life this way, but are unable to then protect it. There are only a few bio-domes in the world but nothing like this place. We have successfully used the mountains as a barrier, and beneath the ground, a non-corrodible alloy forms a false floor that effectively eliminates the possibility of our water escaping. Our protective ceiling is power generated through wind and solar energy, which are renewable resources, but define our weakness.

“We are a self-contained environment and have the means to survive indefinitely as long as we have at least one of those power sources. We have incorporated a large number of deciduous evergreens to produce oxygen through the changing seasons, and we have created a natural exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide.”

As she listened to Andy summarize the working of the installation, Alex wondered if they had created other animals to support their lifestyle such as livestock or bees to achieve pollination. She knew Eric was protective of his greenhouse to the point of being secretive, so she had yet to see where they grew the food that stocked the machines in the commons. They always had an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Eric and Andy often had in depth discussions about humidity and fertilizers.

“Our research indicates that wolves do not suffer from the effects of the radiation as we do,” Andy continued. “They reproduce and have healthy offspring. No other warm-blooded creature does that any longer.”

Alex pointed a finger to her chest and looked at him questioningly.

“You were exposed to the radiation before you came here. If I drew a small sample of blood, we would find you are still afflicted. I can show you how the test works.”

When she extended her arm to indicate her willingness, he drew a sample and explained the process as he ran the blood through a machine. A beep alerted him when the test was finished, and he waited for the results to be printed.

“You are healthy now, as much as can be expected, but you will find that the readings are very sensitive, and once exposed, the test will always show a positive response.” He had continued to scan the paper, but now he fell silent and frowned. “Apparently the machine has experienced an error. I calibrated it this morning,” he said absently. “It showed nothing out of the ordinary.”

Alex watched as he made a few adjustments and ran the test again. After a while, he punched the intercom and asked for assistance. Eric arrived soon after, and Andy pushed him into a chair to collect a sample of his blood.

“What’s going on?” Eric asked.

“The machine malfunctioned and I need a different sample to run a variant. I was in the process of explaining our research to Alex, drew a sample of her blood to make a point, and it came back negative for exposure to radiation.”

“Did you calibrate it this morning?” Eric asked. “Have you changed the sodium solutions?”

“Yes,” Andy said.

“The sensors?” Eric questioned.

“I’ve already run a diagnostic scan,” Andy answered impatiently.

Alex stood up from the chair and stretched her legs. A few minutes passed before Eric’s results were printed. Andy grabbed it quickly. “You show exposure.”

They both stared. Andy’s face, as always, showed little emotion, but he seemed to be giving her a great deal of thought.

“I want to have samples from everyone,” Andy said. “These results are inconclusive.”

As she studied the computer monitor, her mind drifted. She wondered about the journals and the hybrid experiments that filled the pages. Who was Sultan’s mad scientist? If something ended the research in the valley, would it have begun elsewhere? What was the connection? Did Argon Pretorius experiment with wolves because of their adaptive abilities? Was he looking for a way to extend his own life by purging the radiation from his body? What made wolves different? Could the blood of a wolf cleanse people?

A cold nausea filled her stomach as an epiphany bulldozed through her thoughts. Sultan spoke about victims of the experiments. The journal described experiments with wolves and humans. Her throat narrowed until she felt strangled, and she slumped against the wall, feeling sicker. She shared an unnatural closeness with Amandas. And her dreams—those vicious unpredictable images—condemned her more than anything else. The wolves were always in her thoughts, she could always feel them deep inside. She was a victim. Argon Pretorius was the man in the truck on that terrible night.

“Alex?” Andy asked.

Her horrified expression deepened. She sprang into the hallway and ran, their shouts only intensifying her need to get away. She burst through the main doors into the bright sunlight, chilled to the bone. Rebel was grazing contently in the pasture and a shrill whistle brought him running. It was easy for her to speak to the gelding, the wolf, and in some ways, Sultan. It made sense now! She raced toward the horse as he jumped the fence to meet her. When Rebel fell in stride beside her, she sprang on to his back, Amandas loping along beside them.

“For God’s sake! Alex!” Hawk shouted behind her. “What’s going on?”

She knew her name was Alex, but she also knew with great clarity, that she, too, was a monster. The knowledge sent pain stabbing through her.

When she reached the canyon’s hidden entrance, she sent Rebel home. Amandas, panting hard, gulped water from a pool of melting snow as Alex charged into the rocky corridor where Sultan waited for her. She rushed into his arms, gasping and choking in panic.

“What’s happened?” he demanded. “Did someone hurt you?”

She sank to the ground in frustration, covering her face with her hands. There was no way to tell him.

“Oh Alex,” he said mournfully. “I wish I could help you!”

As she leaned against him, she felt comforted and wiped the scalding tears from her face, determined to find her strength.

The sky darkened and Sultan began to fret. “It isn’t that I want you to go,” he said. “I just don’t have anything to feed you, and I don’t want the others searching for you here.”

Feed me, she thought to herself. He made it sound like she was a pet. Begrudgingly Alex agreed and climbed to her feet. She threw her arms around him, locking her hands at the wrists around his strong back. She could not let go, breathing his presence like a drowning soul. She felt lost, and he was the only one in the world who could understand. He carefully unfolded her arms and with a deep sigh nuzzled her shoulder.

“Why don’t you write down what is bothering you and share it with me?”

They walked together to the edge of the woods, and Sultan pointed towards the north.

“You’ll find Nick that way.”

She frowned. Nick was the last person she wanted to see.

“Please,” Sultan said.

Knowing that she needed to intercept Nick, she took off at a jog and found him a few minutes later. Through the course of the afternoon, the temperature had dropped. Now unbearably frigid, she pulled her arms close to her body.

Nick dismounted from his horse when they met and quickly shrugged off his coat to wrap around her shoulders. “I also despise being a lab rat. Sounds like you’ve had a long day from what Eric describes.”

Her lips pressed hard together, a sob fighting to escape again.

“My cabin isn’t far from here. Why don’t we stop there and see how you feel in a little while?”

He helped her onto his stout, black gelding and took the reins to lead him. She felt herself sinking over the saddle in exhaustion. The moon lit their path toward a large cabin, smoke curling from the chimney.

“You can go inside. I’ll put my horse away and be right there.”

Alex slipped into the house and dropped to the floor in front of the fire. The flames mesmerized her. As she watched, a ringlet of smoke formed the moon, and a fiery wolf raced across it, dispersing it into a thousand points of light. Soon she was drifting away.

When Alex opened her eyes, she was bundled in blankets and pillows on Nick’s couch. Sunlight streamed through the windows and she smelled rich, inviting food.

“Good morning,” Nick said cheerfully. “I radioed the complex last night to tell them I had you. How are you feeling?”

She nodded.

“The bathroom is over there,” he pointed.

In the reflection of the mirror, she scrutinized her tired, drawn complexion. For a devastating moment, she realized she would never have a normal life—would always have to keep secrets from others. What would she do now?

Alex washed her face, tucked in her shirt, and rejoined Nick in the kitchen.

“Eric thought they inadvertently frightened you. No one thinks you broke the machine.”

Eric knew nothing. Andy, however, might suspect something. Nick slid a plate in front of her, whistling happily. He seemed to be at ease in the kitchen, with a silly pink apron tied around his waist. The cabin was neat and tidy, the walls decorated with the weapons he handcrafted. It was less sterile than the complex. Like a real home.

“I’ve never had a guest before, so we should make the best of it. I haven’t cooked for anyone since my wife died.”

She watched him closely, but his words held no grief. After they ate, she helped him clean the kitchen and then followed him to his small barn. He sang a merry tune as he saddled his horse and swung aboard. He guided her over to a bale of hay to help her up.

They rode a meandering trail while Nick pointed out items of interest. He discussed the need to appreciate nature, and that he would teach her to develop an ecological consciousness. It seemed important to him that she spread this message to others.

“The modern world has forgotten the natural one, and that’s why man destroys himself. Here we have reconciled the two.”

His mood remained jovial, and he was talkative. Nick said he would teach her to carve animals out of wood and to sustain a garden. She wished she could ask him how he learned to do such things, and what he had done before coming to the valley, before his wife died. He was intelligent and seemed dedicated to his beliefs.

When they emerged from the woods and the complex came in sight, Alex was disappointed. She had enjoyed Nick’s company. His hand lingered against her shoulder after she slid down from his horse. He touched her cheek.

“You’re a good kid,” he said.

She watched him ride away, reflecting on the difficult life that had claimed him and on the strength it gave him.

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