Chapter 25 Bethany's Awakening (Bethany POV)
The art room smelled like turpentine and wet clay even after everyone else had left. I stayed behind because the light was perfect, golden, slanting through the tall windows, turning the still-life apples on the table into little suns. I dipped my brush into cadmium red, dragged it across the canvas in one long, trembling stroke. My hand shook. Not from nerves. From something deeper. Something that had been building since the vitamin bottle ran empty last Tuesday.
I hadn’t refilled it.
I forgot.
Or maybe I didn’t forget.
The brush slipped. Red smeared across the apple’s curve like blood. I stared at it. My heartbeat thumped loud, too loud, in my ears. I could hear the radiator hissing in the corner, the faint drip of the sink faucet two rooms away, the scratch of a janitor’s broom in the hallway outside. Every sound arrived sharp, distinct, overwhelming.
I dropped the brush. It clattered on the table. The noise ricocheted inside my skull.
Ms. Lin appeared in the doorway, quiet footsteps, soft gray sweater, silver hair pulled into a loose knot. She always stayed late grading sketchbooks. Today she didn’t carry any.
“Bethany,” she said gently. “You’re still here.”
I tried to smile. It felt wrong on my face. “Just… finishing something.”
She stepped closer. Tilted her head. “Your hands are shaking.”
I looked down. They were. Badly. I curled them into fists. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not.” She pulled a stool over, sat beside me. “You haven’t been fine for days. I’ve watched you flinch at every slammed door. You keep rubbing your temples like the light hurts. And today you dropped your brush three times in twenty minutes.”
I swallowed. My throat felt too tight. “It’s just a headache.”
Ms. Lin reached out, slow, careful, and touched my wrist. Her fingers were warm. Steady.
“Bethany,” she said. “Look at me.”
I did.
Her eyes, dark brown, kind, held mine without flinching.
“I know what’s happening,” she said quietly. “I’ve known for a long time. Because it happened to me too.”
My breath caught.
She didn’t rush me. Just waited.
“What… what do you mean?” I whispered.
She stood, walked to the supply closet, unlocked it with a small key she kept on a chain around her neck. She came back with a thin manila folder. Placed it on the table between us.
“Open it,” she said.
I hesitated. My fingers felt clumsy. I lifted the flap.
The top page was a photocopy, old, edges blurred. A list of names. Dates. Medical codes. My name was third from the top, highlighted in yellow:
Bethany Park , Silvercrest lineage. Acquired age 3 months. Adoptive placement arranged. Ongoing suppression via health-center proxy. Status: compliant.
Below it: monthly injection schedule. Behavioral notes. “Subject exhibits heightened artistic sensitivity. Recommend continued dosage to prevent manifestation.”
I stared at the page until the words blurred.
Ms. Lin’s voice stayed soft. “I found my own name on a similar list twelve years ago. I was twenty-three. Teaching my first class here. I’d been taking those ‘vitamins’ since I was a baby. When I stopped… everything came back. The colors. The smells. The sounds. The wolf.”
I looked up. “You’re… like me?”
“I’m a suppressed wolf,” she said. “Same as you. Same as at least eleven other students on this campus right now. Project Chimera. They took children, mostly from rogue lines, mixed packs, or inconvenient human parents, and locked away their wolves. Made us human. Made us forget.”
My hands shook harder. I pressed them flat on the table.
“Why?” I asked. My voice cracked.
Ms. Lin exhaled slowly. “Control. Wolves with no pack allegiance don’t challenge Alphas. They follow orders. They infiltrate. They’re weapons if needed. Or they stay quiet. Invisible. Useful.”
I stared at the highlighted name, my name.
“I stopped taking them,” she continued. “Years ago. I chose to stay suppressed. I like being human. I like teaching. I like paint and clay and quiet. The wolf… it’s loud. Hungry. I didn’t want that noise in my head every day.”
She reached across the table. Covered my hand with hers.
“But you have a choice now, Bethany. You always did. You just didn’t know it existed.”
Tears burned my eyes. I blinked them back.
“What if I want it?” I whispered. “What if I want to… feel everything? See everything? Be… more?”
Ms. Lin squeezed my hand. “Then you stop the pills. You breathe through the first shift. You find people who’ll anchor you, people you choose, not people assigned by blood or territory. You build your own pack. Small. Real.”
I looked at the folder again. Flipped through more pages, charts, notes, photographs. One showed me at four years old, sitting on a rug, painting with my fingers. A nurse stood behind me, holding a syringe.
I closed the folder.
“I can smell emotions now,” I said. “In the hallway earlier… I walked past two juniors arguing. One was angry. The other was scared. I could taste it. Like rust and salt.”
Ms. Lin nodded. “That’s the first stage. Sensory flood. It gets worse before it gets better.”
I pressed my palms to my eyes. “I don’t know what I want.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight,” she said. “But you should know what you’re choosing. The suppressants will dull it again. You can go back to the way it was, colors normal, sounds normal, feelings muted. Safe.”
“Safe,” I echoed.
“Or,” she continued, “you can let it happen. Let the wolf wake up. It will hurt. It will change everything. But it will also be you. The whole you. Not the half they made.”
I lowered my hands. Looked at her.
“Have you ever regretted it?” I asked. “Choosing to stay suppressed?”
Ms. Lin smiled, small, sad. “Every time I watch a pack run under the full moon. Every time I feel the pull and have to swallow another pill. But I chose it. That’s what matters. The choice.”
I nodded slowly.
She stood. “Take the folder. Read it tonight. Think. And when you’re ready, come find me. Day or night. I’ll help you through the first shift if you decide to take it. Or I’ll get you more pills if you decide to stay.”
I picked up the folder. It felt heavier than paper should.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Ms. Lin touched my shoulder once, light, steady.
“You’re stronger than they ever wanted you to know,” she said.
Then she walked to the door.
“Ms. Lin?”
She paused.
“What’s it like?” I asked. “When you let the wolf out?”
She looked back. Eyes soft. “Like coming home. And like jumping off a cliff. Both at once.”
She left.