The Wolf Experiments
Chapter 9

The valley marked the passing of the seasons. Summer passed and brilliant red-orange hues appeared on the trees, buffeted by blustery winds. Late summer flowers continued to bloom, giving the landscape the soft, hazy tones of a watercolor painting. Above the timberline, ivy ran over the lichen-covered stones in the meadows where elk, newly introduced to the valley, now roamed.

“At least the wolves won’t be so vicious anymore.” Hawk had said. “The elk will help sate their hunger.”

That summer, all the adults in the complex took it upon themselves to make Alex pick up a hobby. Andy asked for permission from Nick to enroll Alex in an online University, and since that was miles ahead of what Nick himself had in mind which was teaching her how to use a gun, he had to reluctantly agree. So the hours usually spent on physical training in the morning were now diverted towards studying. As the day passed and the sun grew more enthusiastic with its work, she would go out to the cave with Adrian and pass some necessary materials across to Sultan in the gloomy darkness. Well, at least as long as there was darkness until Alex and Adrian rigged up solar panels. Sultan was pleasantly pleased at this. He had never believed that he would ever have electricity in his abode.

Their constant coming and going piqued Hawk’s interest and one day, he requested to go with them. Alex shuffled uncomfortably on her feet while Adrian gave a very vague response. He said that they were merely working on a little project. He said that the rest of the crew would be brought it when necessary but for now, it was going to remain between himself and Alex.

His words were diplomatic enough but a hurt look still flashed across Hawk’s handsome features. He stared at Alex probing eyes and she had to look away, wondering why she felt so ashamed of herself. The look told her that she had crossed a line with him—that she had done something so unforgivable and she wondered just what that could be. Could it be that he was jealous of her relationship with Adrian?

As Hawk stormed away, she wondered what had brought him to the valley. What was his secret?

But she did not spend too much time thinking about this. She poured all her energy into working on Sultan’s cave. Strangely, however, Sultan seemed to withdraw. In his sheltered enclave, perhaps the rest of the valley had little to offer. His dampened spirits remained, despite her daily visits. Alex was at a loss to cheer her friend, trembling beneath his haunted eyes fixed on her face. She faltered beneath his sinking demeanor.

One day she found Sultan on the hill, staring across the empty field. Alex approached cautiously when he seemed displeased to see her. She had brought a small tablet and hurriedly jotted down a question. She held the paper out to him.

He read the words and his face fell even harder. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said. “Sometimes I just can’t tolerate this existence.”

Alex reached for his arm, but he stepped beyond her reach. Tears suddenly burned her gaze.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you in a way that can never be, and it’s killing me.”

She kept very still, letting the wind blow against her. It was an ugly day, one that seemed to match his mood. The sun passed behind the heavy clouds, filling the moment with a bitter chill.

“I kept hoping that your fondness for Adrian would pass but it hasn’t. Before him, I had reason enough to hope that my love for you was not in vain.”

She began to write on the tablet again, fumbling for words, crossing out lines and trying again until she finally handed the page to him.

He read her words and sighed. “Can’t it be enough that your love for me is that of a great friend? It must be enough. It can be no other way. But I have needs and don’t know what to do about them. My life as I am is complicated.” She began to write again, but he stopped her. “Please leave me now. It is torturous to have you so close to me.”

She threw the tablet down and fled to the trees. The barren framework of branches looked spectral in the dim light, clashing over her head as she sent Rebel recklessly across the field. She had never meant for any of this to happen. And even more distressing, Sultan failed to follow.

If he wanted to, he would have chased after her on his big and powerful stallion. Maybe he would have begged for her forgiveness and apologized for his harsh words but no, it was just Rebel galloping through the valley. The sun had fallen well to the west, and the nearby mountains threw shadows across her vision. Sensing her emotions, wolves emerged to watch her fly by.

She stormed into her apartment with tears streaming down her eyes. Adrian was already inside and she ran straight into his comforting arms. She let him embrace her, closing her ears to anything around them, and for a moment, the empty space in her heart filled a little.

“He is still your friend, Alex,” he said gently. “He just needs time. His depression will ease.” It was typical Adrian. He seemed to know what had happened even without her uttering a word.

She wanted to believe what Adrian was saying. She so desperately wanted to believe that Sultan’s feelings would change with time but deep down she knew differently. Sultan’s emotions ran too deeply, festering like a wound. For him, there were no easy answers.

“I have some news,” Adrian said, deliberately changing the subject. “I found documents showing that Pretorius purchased a large facility in Madrid. From what I found, he conducted experiments in both places concurrently until he left here. Andy knew nothing of the second facility, but he did say the dates directly correlated to the disappearance of Eric’s sister in Barcelona.”

Alex turned quickly. No one had said anything about Eric or the events that brought him to the complex.

“Eric’s sister, like the others, was pregnant when she was abducted. Nick’s pursuit of similar cases brought Eric to him,” Adrian said. “Eric’s sister was found mutilated in a ditch. The baby was gone.”

The news made Alex suddenly go numb. The kindly, smiling face of Eric came to her mind and she wondered just how much hurt was hidden behind his smiling eyes. The more Alex learned about the evil perpetrated by that man, Pretorius, the more she mourned what he and his kind had done to the world. They were responsible for this whole situation. The famine, war, pestilence, disaster. All of it. The more she thought about that, the more grateful she was for the facility and the peace it afforded her. Increasingly she knew that their valley was truly a blessing. They had achieved sanctuary, but only because they had all been touched by what had happened out there. When everything was in the open, would it relieve Sultan’s pain, her own, or Eric’s? Would Nick replace some measure of happiness?

She could only wonder.

As Alex flipped the pages of her book, she could hear the shrill cry of birds as they flew past her window. She tuned them out and tried to focus on her book. She had been reading the same page for over an hour now. She just had so many things going on in her head.

She started concentrating on the book. Suddenly, a loud knock rang out on the door. She was startled and jumped up. The book tumbled to the ground. The knock sounded again. The sound reverberated through the apartment. She strode over to the door.

It was Nick.

Her initial annoyance melted immediately.

“Did you forget our date to go shooting?” he asked. A light went off in her head and she remembered that they had planned to go to the shooting range for more practice.

She smiled apologetically.

“Did you have a test?”

She nodded.

“Well I suppose I’ll forgive you just this once,” he smiled. “Do you want to do this another time?”

Alex grabbed her jacket and hooked her arm through his. She enjoyed their time together. It hurt her deeply that she could not heal his broken heart and just simply break the news to him that she was the daughter that he thought he had lost forever.

They passed Eric, who was working in the hayloft, rotating the last year’s cut to make room for the new harvest. He had stripped off his shirt and was sweating. Alex waved as they walked by.

“What will it be today?” Nick asked, offering a variety of weapons. “You can keep whatever you choose.”

She instantly reached for her favorite. She liked the older weapons with true firing mechanisms more than lasers or sonic pistols.

“That’s what I thought,” he said grinning. “You shoot very well with that one.”

She shattered a clay pigeon, racking the shotgun for the next shot and again hitting her target.

“Good girl,” Nick said.

“Alex didn’t want a gun when Pretorius was still alive, so why now?” Eric asked. The question in itself was innocent but there was an undertone to it that told her that there was more.

Nick packed up the equipment, ignoring Eric. Alex had never seen her friend in such a state. Eric blocked their path, and Nick shouldered him aside.

“What is so dangerous that you need a gun,” Eric demanded.

“Maybe she just wants to know how to shoot,” Nick said.

“I doubt it,” Eric angrily replied.

Alex stamped her foot, but no one acknowledged her until Nick tossed her the shotgun. She caught it. “That belongs to you now,” he said.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Eric exclaimed passionately, “as if there weren’t enough guns in the world.”

I trust Alex and that, my friend, is good enough for me.”

Nick put his arm around her waist and guided her out of the barn. Alex looked back at Eric with an apologetic smile. Nick said nothing until they reached the complex.

“Obviously Eric doesn’t tolerate guns,” he said.

She arched an eyebrow at him as if to say “obviously.” He grinned and Alex watched him walk away. Her father. If only she could tell him so.

Eric. It hit her that he was yet another name on the list of friends that she had inadvertently created a chasm between. She seemed to have a knack for that. She thought about going back to talk to Eric, but then, she thought better of it. Thoughts of Sultan flashed through her head and her heart sank again.

Adrian had advised her to give him a bit of space. He had said that the burly man would come to when he gets his mind right but it seemed he just wouldn’t come around to doing that eventually.

She had spent nights in the woods, quietly hoping that wolves would come out to attack her and that her knight in shining armor and a big stallion would come to her rescue but that was not the case. She mentally coaxed Sultan out to come meet her in the open but he rejected her wishes.

Feeling rejected, she tried to work things out on her own, worried that their friendship might suffer. Her own sense of everything changing around her contributed to a large degree of uncertainty. Every night, she would make herself believe that Sultan hated her and she would toss and turn on her bed before finally succumbing to the blissful ignorance of sleep.

She could not handle the exasperation anymore and so she jogged over to Adrian’s apartment. She brandished her new shotgun with pride. In typical Adrian fashion, he saw right through her.

“No!” he said quite resolutely.

Her heart sank.

“Regardless of the weapon, the answer is still no.”

She sighed. They had drawn up plans for investigating the death of Eric’s sister back in Barcelona but Adrian had been sure to point it out to her that it was all just a “what if” scenario. There was no way Nick would give them permission to leave the facility to embark on a wild goose chase. The trail would be very cold by now.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know it isn’t what you want to hear, but we need to wait for more information before we start chasing ghosts. Besides, Nick would never let you take that shotgun to Madrid.” He patted the couch, encouraging her to sit and relax. “Did we want to work with your memory today?”

She frowned. That was all a diversion and they both knew it.

“All right, I suppose you’re entitled to have a night off. Why don’t you see if Andy needs you in the lab?” Adrian said. He was careful not to hurt her feelings more than it already was. He wanted to keep her busy. For a moment, he stroked her hair before sending her off.

She made a quick stop at her apartment first. She dropped the shotgun in her bedroom and observed herself in the mirror. She smiled but all she got was a strange reflection of what her smile looked like. She hurried over to the laboratory.

Andy had just begun a necropsy on one of the poor creatures recovered from the sublevel cages and asked her to assist, something she had been doing a lot lately. She took a surgical gown and gloves from the shelf, stepping under the bright lamps. They worked without speaking, and Andy expertly directed her hands to take various tissue samples. Inattentively, she wondered what would make Sultan happy. If she suddenly regained her voice, her first words could be an apology for all he had suffered.

“Good job,” Andy said.

She looked down to realize that they had finished. She had been working mechanically the whole time and somehow, she had not placed a finger wrong. Maybe there was some hope for her in necropsy or surgery after all.

She peeled off her gloves and tossed them in the garbage.

Andy squeezed her shoulder. “Why don’t we go to the kitchen for a midnight snack?”

Glancing at the clock, he was right about that, too. Her stomach rumbled hungrily.

“You know, you could easily be a doctor or veterinarian. We own a large property in Madrid and you could attend the public university there.”

Initially, she started to shake her head when the full weight of his words really hit her. Here was a golden opportunity being placed right on her laps. She fought the urge to break out in one of those Native American dance steps Hawk had taught her. If she accepted the offer; she could continue her detective work more easily, especially considering that Pretorius owned property in Madrid, too. She would be just a few cities away from the scene of Eric’s sister’s murder.

“I just wanted you to know the opportunity is there if you want it. There are top-ranking programs in philosophy, optometry, pharmacy, journalism, psychology, and sociology among others. It’s one of the oldest universities in the world.”

Alex sat down with a bowl of ice cream. Andy sat as well without eating. He tapped his finger on the table. She listened while Andy talked about the blood tests he had recently run and angles of research he would like to pursue. When they parted, she went to her room and automatically looked out the window, watching for any sign of Sultan. He never appeared, of course, but she watched the moon slowly rise and then descend, shivering in the cool dawn hours. She climbed outside and noticed a large black wolf watching from the trees. For a moment, she thought the creature would go away, but without warning he charged, his claws striking her face and brutally raking her skin. She fell back with a scream, protecting her throat. A pair of milk-white fangs flashed hungrily, and his bristled fur brushed her body, feeling coarse and dry. Sultan appeared in the woods, and Alex immediately perceived that he refused to intervene, that he would let nature take its course. She tried to shout his name, felt the tickle in her throat as if it were coming. She mentally begged for his forgiveness while raising her hands to ward off the next attack.

“Alex?”

She dropped her hands and discovered Andy beside her. She was still at the open window and the morning mist had crept inside. With a shudder, she backed away, disturbed by the strange waking dream. She discovered that once again, her clothes were drenched in a pool of sweat. She was breathing quite heavily.

“Maybe we should go to Madrid now,” he said softly. “Perhaps a little civilization would be good. What do you think?”

Alex pointed to Amandas.

“We have a large property, private, and well-guarded. He can come.”

She pointed down the corridor towards Adrian’s room.

“Yes, I think Adrian can as well. If he wants to, that is.”

Maybe she did need to get away, to escape the burden of so many secrets. For many months, she had wondered about being with people her age, making friends and socializing. She had often wondered if it would help her to feel less ostracized. Slowly she nodded her agreement and Andy left to make the arrangements.

Never look back.

The words echoed in her memory and she wondered to herself: when did she start quoting the mad scientist?