Chapter 141 Difficult Choices
Jolie POV
Two hours later, I'm standing in our bedroom staring at my reflection. Tactical gear, blessed silver weapons, hair pulled back tight. I look like a soldier preparing for war. Which I guess I am.
But the face looking back at me isn't the scared girl who ran from Nightshade Pack months ago. Isn't even the uncertain Luna who destroyed the Elder Council.This is someone harder. Someone who's decided that mercy has limits.
"Second thoughts?" Ryder appears behind me in the mirror.
"Third and fourth thoughts." I turn to face him. "I'm about to lead an assault on a Council facility. I'm planning to destroy it completely, kidnap an Elder, and send a message through violence. This isn't who I wanted to be."
"Who did you want to be?" He asks gently.
"Someone who healed." I sink onto the edge of the bed. "Someone who used empathy to create connection, not destruction. Someone who proved that divine wolves could be forces for good instead of threats."
"You are that person." He sits beside me. "You healed Gio, gave him back his empathy when he'd become Father's weapon. You're helping Celeste break through years of conditioning. You've saved multiple wolves, you are a healer."
"Who's about to kill Council guards." My voice is bitter. "Who's planning to use my empathy gift as a weapon. Who's choosing violence because talking didn't work."
"Because talking was never going to work." He takes my hand. "You tried offering connection to Celeste at breakfast. She performed for you, turned it into proof that divine wolves are dangerous. The Council isn't interested in dialogue. They're interested in control."
"So I become what they fear?" I look at him. "I turn my empathy into a weapon, use it to hurt instead of heal, prove that divine wolves are actually as dangerous as they claimed?"
"You become what's necessary." He squeezes my hand. "There's a difference between using power to oppress and using power to liberate. You're not attacking innocent wolves. You're rescuing captives from people who've been torturing them."
"By torturing their guards." I say it plainly. "By using my empathy to make them feel the suffering they've caused. By turning their own cruelty back on them until they break."
"Yes." He doesn't deny it. "Is that wrong?"
I sit with the question. Is it wrong to make people feel the pain they've caused? To force empathy on wolves who've spent years inflicting suffering without remorse?
"I don't know." I admit finally. "Part of me thinks yes—that using empathy as torture makes me as bad as them. But part of me thinks they deserve to understand what they've done. To feel every moment of suffering they've caused."
"Both can be true." Ryder says quietly. "It can be morally complicated and still necessary. You can hate what you have to do and still do it because the alternative is worse."
"The alternative being letting them continue." I stand, moving to the window. "Letting them breed divine wolves, condition children into weapons, eliminate empathy from our species. That's the choice, isn't it? My moral comfort or their victims' freedom."
"Yes." His voice is firm. "And I know which one you'll choose. Because you're not someone who puts her own peace of mind above other wolves' suffering."
He's right. I know he's right.
But that doesn't make it easier. A knock interrupts my spiral. Luna enters without waiting for permission.
"We've got a problem." She's carrying her tablet. "Doc just finished his full evaluation of Celeste."
"And?" I turn to face her.
"And the conditioning is more extensive than we thought." She pulls up medical scans. "Neurological alterations, chemical modifications, systematic trauma that's been physically embedded in her brain structure. Breaking through it isn't just psychological work. It's going to require active healing."
"I can do that." I move closer to look at the scans. "Use my empathy gift to help rebuild neural pathways, restore emotional processing"
"At significant cost to yourself." Doc's voice comes through the tablet speaker. "Every time you heal someone, you take on exhaustion that borders on collapse. Helping Celeste recover from years of conditioning will require dozens of healing sessions. Maybe hundreds. You'll be constantly drained."
"So I'll rest between sessions." I argue.
"Will you?" Luna challenges. "Because we're also planning to rescue more divine wolves from Council facilities. Wolves who've been tortured, traumatized, held captive for years. They'll all need healing too. Plus whatever injuries happen during the actual raids. You're one person, Jolie. You can't heal everyone."
"I have to try." But even as I say it, I feel the weight of what she's describing.
Celeste alone will take months of healing work. Adding more traumatized divine wolves, plus combat injuries, plus whatever other wolves come to us seeking help.. I'll never stop. Never rest. Just constant healing until I burn out completely.
"This is exactly what the Council was counting on." Luna sits on the bed. "They knew you'd try to save everyone. Knew your empathy gift would drive you to heal every suffering wolf you encountered. They wanted to work you to exhaustion and then capture you when you were too drained to fight back."
"So what do I do?" I ask. "Stop healing people? Let Celeste suffer in her conditioning because I need to conserve energy?"
"No." Ryder stands. "You prioritize. You heal the wolves who need it most urgently and delegate the rest."
"Delegate to who?" I gesture around. "I'm the only divine wolf in this pack. The only one with healing abilities strong enough to help with conditioning damage."
"For now." Luna pulls up another file. "But according to Celeste's intel, three of the captives in Nevada facility also have healing abilities. If we extract them, train them, they could help share the load."
"You want me to create a team of healers." Understanding dawns. "Rescue divine wolves with healing gifts and train them to help with recovery work."
"Exactly." She nods. "You can't carry this alone. But you don't have to. There are other divine wolves out there with abilities similar to yours, we just need to free them first."
"Which requires the raids." I pace, thinking through logistics. "We hit Montana tonight, extract the four captives there. Then we use that success to recruit for the bigger strikes on Nevada and California facilities."
"And hope that some of those captives have healing abilities that can support recovery work." Ryder finishes.