The building appears to be coming to life as it opens. The doors make a swishing noise, but nothing seems to open. Thereâs a bang and a sliding of bolts; I canât tell.
A beep, a whoosh, like a pistonâs noise, and then I can make out the swing of a heavy metal door and gravel rolling and sliding from it.
Suddenly, lights flick on all around me from concealed posts farther out in the trees, and it makes me jump.
My heart skips a beat, and ice flares in my veins; I find myself illuminated in the previously dark space. Blinded by the sudden solar strength, a burning pain hits me in the eyeballs.
I blink, shielding my eyes as my night vision craps out and gives me an instant headache, like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
I wasnât expecting this entire area to illuminate, like standing under a sunlamp and pulling my wits around me; I dart as fast as possible to the nearest spot of darkness and hope they didnât see me.
The lights must be extended above the canopy on masts farther out that I didnât see as everything around me is brighter than daylight, and I have no one direction to go to that will get me out of it faster.
The entire space is bright as hell. I run, heading toward my mountain in the far distance, concentrating on nothing else except escape. Screw my backpack and furs; I donât need them right now.
I sprint, dodge, and jump, clearing fallen logs as twigs and leaves scratch my face and hands and rip at my skin in passing. My breathing is labored and loud as I pant.
I aim for the shadows without looking back in case this is because of me, that maybe he did see me out there and, whatever this place is, no one should know about it.
I put my head down and hyper-speed to the best of my ability, only making it to a skidding halt into darker bushes when a scary, piercing noise fills the air.
It has a horrible effect on my body and senses, rattling my brain inside my skull as my physical self crunches up, instantly immobile, and I grab my ears.
Itâs a siren, honking hard and loud, in a pitch that causes me physical pain with its sheer volume, echoing in the air and making the surroundings shudder in trembling response.
My heartbeat elevates until I think my chest will explode, my body straining to turn into a wolf to get away faster, but I donât let it.
I need to keep these clothes more than ever now, and I need to get back to my tree to grab my stuff.
My gut tells me to abandon it all, forget about the clothes issue for now, and just run, but my logic is telling me to calm down, stop reacting, and be rational about this.
As the cameras pointed down, they couldnât have seen me, and I didnât venture near the fences.
Maybe he just looked my way, but I saw no sign of a reaction or recognition that he knew someone was out there.
This could just be a coincidence and something they do, even without someone like me lurking nearby.
They couldnât know I was thereâif there is a âtheyââand why would they react like this? What could they possibly be hiding that a young girl like me posed a threat to?
That wolf might have been solitary, although he talked to someone on whatever that intercom was, so maybe there are only two of them, and this is a power plant.
I know a lot of that contradicts what the other parts of my brain are telling me, but self-preservation has a funny way of shaking you into being less manic.
Lying to myself can help lessen the fear and get me moving instead of freaking out.
I try to take some calming breaths as it all filters through my head, and I keep telling myself Iâm overreacting. This is just a drill, or a thing, or expected. Iâm fine. Iâm sure I am.
A whizzing whistle of air skids past my left ear and inflicts a searing pain with the high-pitched velocity, making me jump sideways and crash into bushes as I run at top speed.
I almost swallow my tongue as my stomach lurches and jumps out of my body with the scare. It gives me a near heart attack, and I scramble in stinging, scratching bushes to fight my way out.
I get caught up in heavy thorny vines and trip over my unsteady legs.
The fall makes me tumble and roll, knocking my shoulder on rocks and stops my scrambling for a second.
I take a moment to look back at the surging, bright sunlit area I left behind, gasping as I see the outpouring of men dressed in black coming from a concealed ground-level hatch near the main door.
Four, maybe five bodies appear on the ground above.
There are already two outside the gates, and both are facing this way, looking intensely into the trees where I ran and pointing big-ass guns with their sights trained in here.
I donât know what flew past meâI donât think I want to knowâand the doubt that I was in any kind of danger dies an instant death.
The blood drains from my body, so I turn cold and statue-like as it sinks in.
They are looking for me. I donât stop to wait for even a blink longer, terror once again ripping through me at high speed and activating my ârun like shitâ button.
They all face this way and come thundering after me as soon as they see the rustle of the bushes I dart from.
Gifts that are remarkable or not, I can smell them from here, wolves, and they are all armed. Itâs a little patrol of male wolves in black uniforms, and theyâre coming at me.
I donât care who you are or what story youâre in, that never bodes well in any situation, and I donât think theyâre trying to invite me in for coffee and cake.
Iâve stumbled across something I shouldnât have.
Pure instinct takes over, and the urge to turn is almost killing me with the rate my human body is pounding itself to shreds with sheer adrenaline.
I run, I trip, I fall, and I know that human form only slows me down and makes it more likely they will catch up with me.
I know only too well that wolves will not be kind and show me mercy at being caught in their lands. I have one set of clothes⦠and thatâs it.
I need to think about survival now, even if that means ending up naked and backpack-less, miles farther into the undergrowth.
I just need to find another way to gather the things I need later and curse myself stupid for venturing this way, near this damned building.
Itâs not an inconspicuous power station. Those men were guards, and whatever they were guarding was important enough to carry weapons and stay in the multiples.
Iâm so goddamn stupid. Fuck you, Sierra, and your damn dreams and pushing me east. Fuck the Fates.
Fuck Colton for making me leave the mountain, and fuck Juan for being the root of all my woes and how shitty my life has been for a decade. This is ~all~ his fault!
I turn, my inner wolf almost howling with an intense release, glad to be free, finally.
Head down, clothes shredding pitifully, I leave the last of my worldly possessions in the dirt and run like the wind. I can do nothing else about it now, and they are in fast pursuit.
I fall, wedging between trees too close to get through, and break free noisily with sheer strength and willpower.
Wood splinters and branches crackle, but being silent is no longer my concern as the noise of their pursuit outsounds mine.
I can feel them coming, hear them, and smell them. I can even feel their heartbeats synching with mine as scent follows me close on my heels.
Panic spreads through my veins, and I hope the angry numbness I gained with the bear kicks in soon, or Iâm screwed.
I canât even stop and try to use any gift right now, especially when I donât even know how. The last few days of trying to conjure it up proved futile.
Iâm scared now, not angry, and I have no hope of conjuring any other feeling.
Something else whizzes over my head, like a small shooting tunnel of air that makes my hair tingle and pulls as it passes.
It shoots directly into the tree several feet in front of me and stabs viciously into the trunk, standing proud and straight as it comes to an instant halt.
I only catch sight of it for a split second, a transparent tube filled with watery liquid, a red feather tail embedded deeply in the rough wooden skin of the poor tree.
It catches my eye and draws my attention.
Yet, before I can run past whatever it is, something stabs into my spine, right between my shoulder blades, with a stinging pain so intense that it makes me howl involuntarilyâa loud wailing noise that hurts my ears.
The impact is hard, the pain is unexpected, and the combination makes me trip and crash face-first into the branches and rocks on the ground.
I roll, hitting the rough forest floor like a dead weight, and skid ungracefully, pulling debris and dried leaves with me.
I kick up a cloud of dust and choke on it across a tiny clearing, knocking off whatever was sticking in my back as I do. I feel it being yanked out with a stomach-churning tug.
I land on my face, legs sprawled as my body betrays me and turns back into human form without my say-so, and my eyes focus on the tiny thing a few feet in front of me.
Dazed, I try to catch my breath as this unearthly warm and strange sensation pours through me from the spot in the center of my back.
Itâs the same as what hit the treeâa clear tube, only empty this time, with a red brushtail. Only now can I see its long, silver, and highly pointy tip.
It looks a lot like a dart for taking down large animals. Iâve seen them on African game reserve documentaries.
The needle is thick and massive, so no wonder it feels like something stabbed me with a big pointy object at bullet speedâit did.
I let out a groan and try to roll and move, aware that an empty tube suggests the contents are inside me.
I attempt to get up, but my limbs give out like useless, heavy weights of flesh with no control, and my vision spins.
My head turns woozy as everything around me sways crazily, like I just got on the deck of a boat amid a rolling storm.
I donât like this, and I can feel the thundering of feet fast approaching me as wolvesâ growls turn to human voices.
I can make them out ever so slightly, coming at me on the gentle breeze of the rustling trees as silence takes over. My hearing and head fade out despite trying to fight it.
âI hit her⦠sheâs to the left. Split up and spread out in case we need to double dose her.â
I canât grasp anything as my hands claw at the dirty muck-strewn ground below me, desperate to keep trying to run.
As futile as I know it is, something in me is refusing to give up the fight and urging me to get to my feet, like a tiny warm voice in my mind, softly calling out to me.
I swear I hear Sierra drifting my way in the wind as she reminds me of the same thing she has been saying all along, yet it somehow means something else in my drugged state.
âSave us.â
In my oncoming delirium with weak grasping fingers, Iâm sure I see her face in the canopy above as my eyesight obscures.
âI canât. Iâm not strong enough.â Itâs a pathetic whisper at no one as my eyes blur with tears at my failure, and my heart aches that I somehow let her down, even if it makes no sense.
Maybe itâs the pain of failing myself. Weeks of running and hiding, and I canât do anything about what Iâve gotten myself into. I was stupid to think I was special.
I can feel them close now, and as I try to lift my head and shoulders from the soggy earth in one last-ditch attempt to save myself, my vision blanks out entirely, and I lose consciousness.