At Dawn, in the Forest

In a tiny cell somewhere far away from the Redwood Pack a female werewolf was held captive for almost a month. Her name, meant to be hopeful, symbolizing the start of a new day, gave her anything but hope. Every new day that began in that dreadful place was a day her hope lessened for a life without torture, a life where she was together with her mate.

Dawn got four treatments in total so far and even though they sped up her healing process, she felt even more weakened than after nine years of medical torture by Dr. Willow and Dr. Klein. Their tests to see how fast she healed became more severe and painful as well. The mental and physical pain grew with each passing day and more days and weeks of her stay at the Redwood Pack started to evaporate from her memories. She slowly started to forget how to be happy. Dawn fell into her old patterns, trying to repeat the nature documentaries of David Attenborough, thinking about the treehouses she had built as a child, forgetting her family and friends, being obedient to make everything easier, and not showing any emotion unless the pain became unbearable.

Draven noticed Dawn’s mental decline as well. He wasn’t per se concerned about Dawn as a person, but he was concerned as a businessman noticing one of his best assets withering away. He needed her to be sharp as mental illnesses could interfere with results.

Therefore, Draven decided Dawn could visit the indoor garden they had built in the big institution. But even the small piece of nature Dawn was gifted didn’t help her. She had walked up to one of the benches, pulled her knees to her chest, and sat there until she had to go again.

Back in the day, during her earlier captive years, she would have jumped with joy. Now Dawn saw it as a slap in the face, a reminder that she would never be able to decide for herself when to have an outdoor walk and enjoy the forests, parks, and gardens.

Dawn went into automatic survival mode. The wolf in her wanted to live in the hope of being with their mate, but the human had already given up.

Until…

***

In the midst of the Redwood Pack, a male werewolf sat hunched over multiple maps, deep, dark circles under his eyes of exhaustion and a stubble beard visible. He had lost his mate almost a month ago and tried with everything in his power to find her. Every day she was away his hope lessened, even though he knew he must be the one to keep hope. He had to prove to his mate he wouldn’t give up on her like her family had done. He would keep looking and keep searching in the farthest corners of the earth.

Aiden had tried over the past four weeks to find any piece of information of the organization that was behind Dawn’s capture. Their first line of information was Dr. Klein. She was willing to give everything she knew. With her help, they found two other locations where the organization had settled. It took a while before they could raid the locations.

Luckily, many packs offered to help. Once more became known about these evil doctors experimenting on werewolves, more packs showed empathy as some had their own victims as well.

The last raid gave Aiden, Mateo, Boaz, Caspian, Larisa, Finn, and Rue the most information about the situation. It appeared to be a business behind it all, called AlphaGenesis Research Institute with their main goal to use werewolves in their research to find cures for human diseases. These varied from HIV and Aids, to Lupus, to multiple types of cancers. They also figured out who was leading this company, Draven Delano.

Aiden had gotten after all of this information tree indications where Dawn could be held. He ruled out one of the buildings because it had been too far away. Now it was between two locations. And only on one premiss, they could probably tell where Dawn was.

After many interrogations with doctors and former prisoners, they believed Draven would have wanted Dawn to be close to his headquarters as many knew she was their best subject until now. The question was, which of these two locations was the headquarters?

As Aiden rubbed his face with his hands out of frustration and exhaustion for the umpteenth time that evening, Max stormed into his office. “Aiden! I know where she is!,” He exclaimed.

“Look, they spotted Draven at one of the two locations, it’s the one in the west! Look at the photos.”

Max put multiple pictures in front of Aiden. Two of them were from Draven taken for a human company he was leading, that was actually connected to AlphaGenesis. The other two pictures were of him stepping in and out of a car near one of the buildings they were watching of one of the locations.

“That’s good,” Aiden mumbled still rather somber.

Max playfully punched him. “Hey, why the long face? This is great news!”

“We still don’t know for sure if she is kept there. This is all circumstantial evidence Dawn might be there.”

Max sighed. “I know, but if we don’t act now, Draven might go making a move that disadvantages us. I propose to take the risk and prepare for a raid.”

Aiden, whose judgment had been tampered with by his exhaustion and emotions, didn’t know what to do. He was tired. All he wanted was Dawn to be back in his arms. So not knowing any better he agreed. “Fine, let’s go to Mateo and present this idea.”

***

Until a sudden howl was heard in the middle of the night.

Dawn woke up immediately, her wolf sensing something or someone. At first, she thought she didn’t hear it right and it was from her dream, but when she heard it a second time she was sure it was a howl. It was not any howl, however. Deep down she knew it was from Aiden. Slowly she walked up to the wall on her right and held her hand against it, pretending there to be a window. She pretended to see the forest and in the treeline, there would be Aiden waiting to rescue her.

Dawn knew they were going to come for her. She knew her days in this horrible place were counted for. She knew tomorrow would be a brand new day, full of new opportunities bringing hope. Dawn knew.

The next morning, she could feel something strange in the air. Dawn was getting jitters and was full of anticipation. The fight in her had awakened again and she was ready to make things easier for her rescuers to make havoc inside of here as well.

Luck was on her side as she was taken totheroom today. While three guards were escorting her she pretended to be weak, and in all honesty, she was not strong at all, but she laid it on thick to be able to execute her plan.

Over the past four weeks, there was only one thing she had learned that differentiated the corridors and hallways from each other. Two of them she passed over the weeks had a fire alarm button. Just before they reached the first one Dawn pretended to be faint and let her body stumble, by doing so she casually pulled the lever of the fire alarm.

Then, as the three men were figuring out what was going on, Dawn carefully stole a taser from the guards and immediately tased two of them until they fainted. The third one was ready to take action. Not wasting any time, Dawn turned around and ran away, keeping a firm grip on the taser.

Her heartbeat was the only thing she could hear. With every last ounce of energy, she tried to make her way out of the labyrinth of white hallways and corridors.

For a second, Dawn thought it was a lost cause, but then she suddenly saw a stairway going down. “Fucking thank you,” She muttered. Quickly she descended the stairs and with every four steps she took she looked up to see if she was still being followed. Only to be met with no one.

Dawn was out of breath when she couldn’t go down any further and decided to hide. Behind some wall that led to nothing she sat down and caught her breath. As she tried to steady her heartbeat, Dawn suddenly heard a group of people passing by. They were guards.

Dawn laid herself flat against the wall and tried to overhear their conversations. “Do you think we are under attack?” One said.

“No, I think somebody from inside must have pulled the fire alarm.”

“But, what if the attackers caused the fire somewhere?” Another one questioned.

“Do you two see any attackers here?”

“Well, I heard there was some unusual activity on the cameras this morning.”

“We get that often, nothing to worry about,” And with that, their voices faded away.

Doubt was creeping its way into Dawn’s body after hearing those guards, but just as she thought her escape attempt had failed a loud explosion was heard from within the building. In seconds she was on her feet again running through the hallways. She noticed here that there were more doors and windows. She saw she was on the first floor of the building and knew she was close to an exit.

Dawn ran towards the loud noises of people fighting, running away, and panicking. She knew she was close and as she went through some double doors she entered a lobby area where guards and werewolves were fighting against each other. Dawn saw how one of the guards held out a silver blade and dragged that through the side of one of the wolves. This set out a rage inside of her, she couldn’t contain. Her anger was overpowering and before she knew it she shifted into her black wolf form.

Dawn went full charge at the guard, grabbed him by his leg with her teeth, and threw him away. She was seething.

After the guards were taken out, she ran down the stairs attached to the lobby area and entered the main foyer of the building where a couple of guards tried to fight back the wolves but were defenseless. She was about to find Aiden when Dawn could smell Draven. She saw how he was guarded by six men and escorted away behind everybody’s back.

In a split second, she sprinted forward and followed the men outside. They entered a parking lot and it took a while for the guards to realize they were followed. It was already too late as Dawn ripped the men away from Draven, causing the CEO to fall down on the ground. Dawn hovered over him and growled loudly.

“Please, please don’t kill me,” Draven begged pathetically. “Please!”

Dawn’s only response was another loud growl. Her anger blinding. She wanted only one thing and that was to kill. Another growl erupted from her throat, readying herself to take this man’s life when a calm voice broke through the thick layer of anger.

“Dawn? Please don’t do this. I know you want to and you have every right, but killing him now won’t give you or any other victims justice. Not in the long run.”

It was Aiden.