At Dawn, in the Forest

Chapter 30

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?