My head aches with the weight of that damn bear sitting on my skull. My mouth feels weird and furry, like I just ate my socks, and I blink at the bright white piercing light as I slowly try to open my eyes.
I flinch at the assault and screw my face up in reaction. My body is heavy and disconnected as I try to come to and figure out where I am and what happened to me.
I feel like I just survived a train wreck, and Iâm not entirely sure Iâm not dead and in the afterlife waiting room.
Iâm altogether disoriented, everything spinning, and I can barely move my body as though somehow I feel a vacuum pressed to the surface Iâm flat out on.
Itâs the most surreal sensation to wake up to.
It takes a minute for my eyes to grow accustomed to the brightness of my surroundings.
Much like having a flashlight shining in your face, itâs painful at first until it levels out and an actual ceiling comes into focus.
My watery eyes blur to clarity, and I blink repetitively to figure out what I am staring at. Itâs white square tiles and a gray, wooden ceiling fan thatâs on slow and hitting me with a gentle breeze.
The tiles are large and grubby and pull my focus enough to let me grasp the reality of my situation: Iâm inside a building and no longer on the forest floor.
My gut twists and my insides sink as that filters through. It all comes slowly back, the memory of eating dirt and passing out, and I try to hurriedly sit as panic comes kicking back into play.
Iâm straining with all I have in me as mild panic sets in.
I canât move, a tightness across my chest, arms, and legs yanking me down painfully, and when I attempt a second time, trying to figure out whatâs wrong with my body, I realize itâs not meâ¦
Iâm restrained. Itâs not some weird malfunction of my body after being tranquilized.
I manage to tilt my chin, still dizzy but able to drag the exaggerated weight of my skull up enough to look down my body and exhale at the sight I see.
Iâm laid out flat on a hospital bed, dressed in a light medical gown.
There are leather straps across me at several points of my torso and legs, keeping me down, and both my ankles and wrists are shackled to the sidebars of the bed with wide black fabric.
The guards are up, holding me in place, and try as I might to wriggle, I can barely move an inch. Theyâre tight, thick, and impenetrable while Iâm in human form.
I turn my head to the side, dizziness making everything sway, but I meet a blank white-painted brick wall, so I turn the other way, and my view opens up into a small medical room.
Thereâs brick all around, no windows and one white door closed shut with nothing but a high square glass panel in the upper half.
There are cupboards, trolleys, and worktops in here, with all manner of medical kits and supplies.
Posters line the walls that remind me of the doctorâs surgery in Radstone, and an array of panels up near the door look pretty high-tech.
The floor is tiled in a weird blue-gray vinyl, and, apart from the information posters on dressing wounds, the predominant color here is white.
Itâs stark, stinks of disinfectant, and has the usual low hum of electrical outlets and the whirring fan overhead.
Itâs almost eerily silent and deserted, but I know thatâs far from reality. Nothing overly out of place for a sickroom causes me any extra alarm.
I mean, itâs not like Iâm waking up mid-body slicing in an alien abduction story.
I feel nauseous, my heart pounding through my ears already, even without the added anxiety of waking up and finding myself captive in a strange place.
Iâm obviously inside the building now, somewhere below ground, and I have no chance of getting off this bed.
I canât get up, probably not even without the straps, and while I havenât come all the way out of my drugged stupor, my energy levels are low as hell.
My first attempt at turning is entirely futile, but I try, hoping to wipe the residual drug out of my system with sheer willpower.
Itâs like I have zero ability, and even after breaking my promise never to link Colton again, I try, desperate for some kind of help.
I just want to hear his reassuring voice, always knowing what to do, his words to calm me.
I get a black wall of nothing, meaning something is blocking all of my gifts and abilities, and Iâm no better off than a mortal with no gifts.
I wonder what the hell theyâve done to me to subdue all that is supernatural, and I donât have time to ponder it when a tiny buzzing sound draws my attention above my head, behind my line of sight.
I wriggle around until I can tilt my head back far enough, arching the slight amount I can to see a camera repositioning in the top corner over my head and focusing its attention on me.
I guess my movements alerted someone that Iâm now awake, and I glare at it hatefully, visually doing what my body canât and rebelling in some small way.
I try harder than ever to get out of these straps and give up as a wave of fatigue washes over me and leaves me breathless.
Itâs futile.
I have no strength, still groggy enough that what little energy I have wanes fast, and I startle when the door across the room beeps loudly, reverberating through my ears, and clicks to signal someone coming in.
âI see youâre awake, dear girl. Iâve been waiting impatiently to come introduce myself to such a marvel as you.â
The heavy accent is foreign, almost like the queen of England that Iâve heard on television in the orphanage, and I screw my face up at the man who strolls in toward me.
He smiles weirdly as though eyeing up a special gift someone has left for him as a surprise. Iâm momentarily taken aback by the almost caricatured way he has of talking.
Heâs in his older years with graying fluffy hair, glasses, and a balding head.
His midriff is round and portly, making his white lab coat look restrictive and emphasizing that heâs wider in girth than he is tall.
The second he walks in, I can tell heâs not a wolf; you would never see a wolf in poor physical shape, and we definitely do not go bald.
We gray over time but exhibit none of the human aging flaws like developing extra weight or saggy bits. Definitely no hair loss.
Wolves stay in their prime until they crash out past the hundred and so years we live for, and this guy looks like heâs maybe pushing sixty human years.
He has a striped baby-blue shirt on, and I glimpse green suspenders, but a dark-red polka-dot bow tie that just adds to his peculiarity.
I stare at him pointedly, eyes steeped in mistrust, and give him no response.
âQuite,â he says absurdly for no apparent reason as his eyes travel up and down me in the most disturbing way.
Iâm being sized up for some sort of alien autopsy. Either that or heâs lost in his head and marveling at some wonder that has him smiling like a weirdo.
âWhere am I?â I blurt out boldly, not caring about being polite and friendly given my current predicament and the fact this asshole has me lassoed to a bed while bobbing nearby, Willy Wonka style.
My spine is in agony at the point of where that damn dart struck, and it feels like Iâm black and blue all over.
Iâm only just beginning to feel my fingers and toes, and despite regaining some alertness, I feel like Iâm not quite here fully yet, and this still has a dreamlike aura.
âOh, of course⦠silly me. How rude and utterly awful. Let me introduce myself first. Iâm Doctor George William Robert Adams, the resident chief scientific officer at this facility, and you, my dear, are our guest.
âSadly, weâve had to take certain measures for both your safety and ours, seeing as, like my acquaintances, you seem to possess a certain wonderful gift.
âBut itâs a temporary arrangement until we become better acquainted.
âI hope you wonât hold it against us that we acted hastily in a preventive manner without knowing your character or purpose for trespassing on our doorstep. And your name is?â
Itâs a whoosh of ridiculously precise, Queenâs English in an exaggerated and somewhat foolish sense. Iâm at a loss.
I didnât think people actually talked or behaved like this, let alone ones who survived living among the aggressive, low-patience, temper-driven, wolf kind like me. Heâs a little absurd.
I blink at him, stupefied at that whole upper-crust, marble-mouthed mass of weirdness that came out of him.
He seems like some eccentric Mary Poppins-type character, and Iâm sure I might still be high from whatever they darted me with.
I stare blankly at him, dropping my head back on the pillow, and donât say a word.
âI know, I know. You must be thinking the absolute worst after Mr. Deacon took you down with an elephant dart, and they carted you in here and trussed you up like a Sunday roast on an oven sheet.
âTruly, we donât mean any harm.
âWe would just like to ascertain who you are, where you came from, and exactly what you were doing snooping around this rather top-secret and out-of-bounds facility.
âA boring informality before we can be more hospitable. Please donât hold it against me.â He raises his brow at me, still smiling like a demented person, and removes his glasses to clean them on his coat.
He only briefly breaks eye contact before returning them to his face and renewing that creepy smile.
Iâm starting to wonder if this one is a sandwich short of a picnic, and maybe this is what happens when you live in a box underground and donât see the sun for prolonged periods.