Rejected Mate and Following Fate - Awakening Book
Chapter 36: Where Am I?

My head aches crazy bad with the weight of that damn bear sitting on my skull, my mouth feelsweird and furry like I just ate my own socks, and I blink at the bright white piercing light as I slowlytry to open my eyes. Flinching at the assault and screwing my face up in reaction. My body is heavyand disconnected as I try to come to and figure out where I am and what happened to me. I feel likeI just survived a train wreck, and I'm not entirely sure I'm not dead and in the afterlife waiting room.I'm completely disorientated, everything spinning, and I can barely move my body as thoughsomehow, I've lost use of anything but my eyelids. I feel vacuum pressed to the surface I'm lying flatout on and it's the most surreal sensation to wake up to.

It takes a minute for my eyes to grow accustomed to the brightness of my surroundings and muchlike having a torch shone in your face, it's painful at first until it starts to level out and an actualceiling comes into focus. Watery eyes blurring to clarity and blinking repetitively to figure out what Iam staring at.

White square tiles, and a center grey wooden fan that's on slow and hitting me with a gentle breeze.The tiles are large, grubby, and pull my focus enough to let me grasp at the reality of my situation.That I'm inside a building and no longer on the forest floor.

My gut twists and my insides sink as that filters through. It all comes slowly back, the memory ofeating dirt and passing out, and I try to sit hurriedly as panic comes kicking back into play. Strainingwith all I have in me as mild panic sets in.

I can't move, a tightness across my chest, arms, and legs, yanking me down painfully and when Iattempt a second time, trying to figure out what's wrong with my body, I realize it's not me... I'mrestrained. It's not some weird malfunction of my body after being tranquilized at all.

I manage to tilt my chin, still woozy but able to drag the exaggerated weight of my skull up enoughto look down my body and exhale at the sight I see. Laid out flat on a hospital bed of some sort,dressed in a light medical gown. There are leather straps across me at several points of my torsoand legs, keeping me taped down, and both my ankles and wrists are shackled in wide black fabricto the side bars of the bed. The guards are up, holding me in place, and try as I can to wriggle, I canbarely move an inch. They're tight, thick, and impenetrable while I'm in human form.

I turn my head to the side, dizziness making everything sway, getting a blank white painted brickwall and turn the other way, opening up my view into a small medical room. Brick all around, nowindows, and one white door closed shut with nothing but a high square glass panel in the upperhalf. There are cupboards, trolleys, and worktops in here, with all manners of medical kits andsupplies, some posters on the walls that remind me of the doctors surgery in Radstone and an arrayof panels up near the door that look pretty high tech. The floor is vinyl tiled in a weird blue grey andapart from the information posters on dressing wounds, the predominant color in here is white. It'sstark, stinks of disinfectant, and has the usual low hum of electrical outlets and the whirring fan overmy head.

It's almost eerily silent and deserted, but I know that's far from reality. There is nothing overly out ofplace for a sick room that causes me any extra alarm. I mean, it's not like I'm waking up mid bodyslicing in an alien abduction story.

I feel nauseous, my heart pounding through my ears already, even without the added anxiety of mewaking up and replaceing myself captive in a strange place. I'm obviously inside the building now,somewhere below ground and I have no chance in hell of getting off this bed. My energy levels arelow as hell, I can't get up, probably not even without the straps, while I haven't come all the way toout of my drugged stupor.

My first attempt at turning is completely futile, as with sheer will power, I try in the hopes of wipingthe residue drug out of my system. It's like I have zero ability, and even breaking my own promise tomyself to never link Colton’s again, I try, desperate for some kind of help right now. Just hisreassuring voice, his always knowing what to do, his words to calm me. I get a black wall of non-penetration, meaning something is blocking all of my gifts and abilities and I'm right now, no betteroff than a mere mortal with no gifts at all.

I wonder what the hell they've done to me to subdue all that is supernatural and I don't have timeto ponder it when a tiny buzzing sound draws my attention up above my head, behind my line ofvision. Wriggling around until I can tilt my head far enough back, arching the very slight amount Ican, to see a camera repositioning in the top corner over my head and focusing its attention on me.I guess my movements alerted someone to the fact I'm now awake, and I glare at it hatefully,visually doing what my body can't and rebelling in some small way. I try harder than ever to getmovement out of these straps and give up as a wave of fatigue washes over me and leaves mebreathless.

Its futile, I have no strength at all, still groggy enough that my little amount of energy wanes fastand I jump internally when the door across the room beeps loudly, reverberating through my earsand clicks to signal someone coming in.

"I see you're awake, dear girl. I've been impatiently poised and ready to come introduce myself tosuch a marvel as yourself.” The heavy accent is foreign, almost like the Queen of England that I'veheard on television in the orphanage, and I screw my face up at the man who strolls in towards me,smiles weirdly as though eyeing up a special gift someone has left for him by surprise. I'mmomentarily taken aback by the almost caricature way he has of talking.

He's in his older years with greying fluffy hair, glasses, and a balding head. His midriff is round andportly, which makes his white lab coat look restrictive and emphasizes he's wider in size than inheight. I can tell the second he walks in that he’s not wolf; I mean you would never see a wolf in thisbad a physical shape and we definitely do not go bald. Grey over time, but none of that humanaging flaws like developing weight or saggy bits. Definitely no losing hair. Wolves stay in their primeuntil they cash out past the hundred and so years we live for, and this guy looks like he’s maybehitting human sixty at a push. He has a striped, baby blue shirt on, a peek of green braces, but adark red polka dot bow tie that just adds to his peculiarness.

I just stare at him pointedly; eyes steeped in mistrust and give him no response.

“Quite.” He says absurdly for no obvious reason as his eyes travel up and down me in the mostdisturbing way. I'm definitely being sized up for some sort of alien autopsy. Either that or he’s lost inhis own head and marveling at some wonder that has him smiling like a weirdo.

“Where am 1?” I blurt out boldly, not really caring about polite and friendly given my currentpredicament, and the fact this asshole has me lassoed to a bed, while Willy Wonka style bobbingnearby. My spine is agony at the point of that damn dart, and it feels like I'm black and blue all over.Only just beginning to feel my fingers and toes and despite starting to regain some alert, I feel likeI'm not quite here fully yet, and this still has an aura of dreamlike to it.

“Oh, of course... silly me. How rude and utterly awful. Let me introduce myself first. I'm DoctorGeorge William Robert Adams, I'm the resident chief scientific officer at this facility, and you mydear are our guest. Sadly, we did have to take some measures for both our safety and yours, giventhat like my acquaintances, you seem to possess a certain wonderful gift, but it's a temporaryarrangement until we become better acquainted. I hope you won't hold it against us, that withoutknowing your character or purpose for trespassing on our doorstep, we acted hastily in aprecautionary manner. And your name is?" It's a whoosh of ridiculously precise, queen's English inan exaggerated and somewhat foolish sense. I'm at a loss. I didn’t think people actually talked orbehaved like this, let alone ones who survived living among the aggressive, low patient, temperdriven, wolf kind, like me. He's a little absurd.

I blink at him, stupefied at that whole upper crust, marble mouthed, mass of weirdness, that cameout of him. He seems like some eccentric Mary Poppins type character, and I'm sure I might still behigh from whatever they darted me with. I stare right back at him blankly, dropping my head backon the semi flat pillow underneath it and say not a word.

“I know, I know.... You must be thinking the absolute worst after Mr. Deacon took you down with anelephant dart, and they carted you in here and trussed you up like a Sunday roast on an oven sheet.Truly, we don’t mean any harm, we would just like to ascertain who you are, where you came from,and exactly what you were doing snooping around this rather top secret and out of bounds facility.A boring informality before we can be more hospitable. Please don't hold it against me.” He raiseshis brow at me, still smiling like a demented person and removes his glasses to clean them on hiscoat, only breaking eye contact for a moment before returning them to his face and renewing thatcreep smile. I'm starting to wonder if this one is a sandwich short of a picnic and maybe this is whathappens when you live in a box underground and don't see the sun for prolonged periods.

“Passing through. I have no idea what this place is and no interest in it.” I point out blankly, notreally willing to elaborate, but it only gets a strange hmmm noise in return as he nods at me.

"I see. Except the little issue with that is, you were very clearly caught on our surveillance, snoopingaround, and checking Tyron’s truck out, before high tailing it into the forest. Oopsy. I believe you,but they don't, which is rather disastrous. May I add though... wow, just wow, I've never seen,literally ever, in the real flesh and bone myself, an actual pure and full white furred wolf. It truly wasa remarkable sight, not to side-track the main point and negate the seriousness of your currentposition, but I just had to put that out there.” He raises his palms in a quirky little jazz handmovement that perfectly times with the happy wide eyed, lifted brow thing he does. The dude isstrange.

Who the hell is this guy, and did he swallow a thesaurus in his formative years? He sure takes thelong way to say anything and it totally throws you off. I honestly can't tell if this is a tactic to disarmyou and pull information, or if he really is a conversation starved oddball and tends to offload.Maybe he’s just weird, he has the whole odd outfit thing down to a T for being a weird one.

I'm also shocked to be told my fur is now fully white, although I did have hints and suspicion it wasturning that way, but he just solidified the fact for me. It's not like I've had a mirror, or an ability totake my head off and use it to look at my full body when turned. No idea why my turning white ishappening, and I wonder if mother experienced the same thing. A flaw, just like everyone said itwas, maybe some kind of disease that spreads.000