Chapter 8: Will

Chapter 8: Will

“Your bloodwork’s come back from the lab,” Dr. Morris, the commune’s designated healer, said as he gravely took off his stethoscope and set it on the table. “And I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

I expected no good news when I walked into this clinic. The interior design of this place was throwing me off. There were ancient tomes of old medicine on one shelf, which I had managed to salvage from my old home in Germany. But then, right on the next shelf were all these glossy, slick books on modern medicinal topics such as pharmacology, anatomy, and pathology. It was a strange mismatch, a hodgepodge that jarred the senses to look at.

“What does the bloodwork tell?” I asked bluntly, my attention still derailed by the odd design choice of the clinic. There were charts of werewolf body anatomy with Nordic runes written all over them, but then there were also promotional posters of Zoloft, Lexapro, and Venlafaxine, creating discord on those brown walls. Ugh. Brown walls. Why weren’t they plain white as most clinics?

“Oh. I can explain,” Dr. Morris said once he noticed that I was more concerned with how the clinic looked than I was with my diagnosis. “All the old stuff, that’s from the first generation of Grimms who set up this clinic. I felt it sacrilegious to touch what they had left behind. I’m the sixth doctor to hold this office, and it’s been a custom amongst the doctors of the commune not to touch the stuff the previous doctors left behind. Our way of honoring our legacy.”

“It’s extremely visually off-putting,” I stated. “But that’s not why I am here, am I? To pass judgment on how things appear? I apologize.”

“It’s completely fine, sir,” Dr. Morris stuttered.

“Please. Will. Call me Will.”

“Fine. Will it is. Your bloodwork was too complex for me to decipher here in the clinic, so I sent it to the lab in town. It’s…as I said, quite remarkably complex. There are chemicals that I can’t even comprehend the chemical composition of. They have merged with your red blood cells and your white blood cells and have even integrated into your platelets. By definition, this extreme of a mutation should kill you, but somehow, the opposite is happening. Some of these chemicals are even enhancing your abilities. You might have noticed how you haven’t aged a day. You might even be feeling some psychological ramifications. The only possible explanation is that your body and mind have been altered to an extreme extent,” the doctor said. It was hard to get a read on his expressions, as everything that he spoke was a flat statement devoid of any emotion.

“Outbursts of anger? Rage? Would these chemicals account for my agitated mental state?” The way I had behaved with Alexis had still not left my mind. Not once, not twice, but three times. Three is not a coincidence. Three warranted an explanation.

“Let me tell you why someone ages. I’ll try to put it in simple terms. Aggregation of proteins, telomere shortening, oxidative stress, glycation, and damage to your cells over time caused by the disintegration of molecules, organelles, and other structures is basically what causes someone to age. Now, the cells in your body are not disintegrating but rather replenishing their resources faster than most people’s do. Your body’s antioxidants are off the charts, making it immune to oxidative stress.

Similarly, because of this regenerative ability, everything else, including telomere shortening and aggregation of harmful proteins, is completely halted. I would say that we don’t know the long-term effect of these chemicals, but seeing as how you’ve been alive for more than seventy years, I will say that we do know the long-term effects. Overall, they are in your favor,” the doctor said.

“Dr. Morris, most of what you just said went over my head, I won’t lie, but I think I get what you’re saying. You’re saying that the experiments that my captor did on me, they worked in some bizarre way?”

“Worked and then some. Your metabolism is extraordinary. Your wounds heal in real-time. Your hormone levels are optimal. Your bone density is remarkable. Your organs resemble those of a teenager. By medicinal law, none of this should be possible,” he said.

“And yet it is. But you still haven’t explained why my anger overpowers me,” I said abruptly.

“Will, I’m not a psychologist. But I would go so far as to say that what you went through was deeply traumatizing. Anger, bitterness, hatred, and depression—are all traits that follow trauma. But I would not rule out a physical cause, either. As much as these chemicals are benefiting you, they might be serving as catalysts to your mental agony.”

“Mental agony?”

“Yes. They have affected your mind just as they have your body, destabilizing the ordinary perception of sanity, triggering rage, and enhancing negative emotions,” Dr. Morris said grimly. “I can prescribe some lithium, some lamotrigine, and an antidepressant to help you calm down and regulate your emotions.”

“No!” I spoke. “No more chemicals. I’ve had my lifetime’s share of them. I shall have to overcome this myself.”

“Exercise regularly. Meditate if you can. Breathing exercises, yoga, Pilates. These can be your allies. They can help reduce stress and improve your mood.”

“I will take your word for it, doctor,” I said. Then we shook each other’s hands cordially.

“Most of your injuries have healed completely. If you care about aesthetics, there is an excellent plastic surgeon in town who can remove your scars.”

“As I said, I’ve spent enough time under needles and scalpels to last me a lifetime. I’m okay as it is,” I said.

I stepped out of his clinic and into broad daylight. The training grounds were filled with werewolves to whom I had delegated training exercises—balancing techniques. Fighting stances. Teamwork tests. At night, they trained as wolves. During the day, they worked on their human skills. I’d been working them like this for a week, and as such, there were no improvements in their overall behaviors. I could not believe that many of them were miserable during their training, as if they preferred to relax and be complacent.

How would they even stand up for themselves if they were so defenseless?

“Will!” Vincent called out from behind me. “I’ve had them run ten laps just now.”

“Did you run with them?” I asked.

“Of course. I was leading them. They finished a mile sprint in record time,” Vincent said.

“That’s an improvement, but I would want to see more of an improvement. They’re werewolves. Not werecats.”

“Don’t you think you’re going a little too hard on them?” Vincent asked, panting and wiping the sweat off his face.

“Too hard? I have barely exerted them. They would all rather fling their fingers on their gadgets and watch their televisions than do something productive. I have barely begun!”

“Those gadgets are called smartphones,” Vincent laughed. “And you should get one before you complain too much about them.”

“All the smarts I need are in here,” I prodded at my head. “I don’t need to rely on a phone.”

“Suit yourself,” Vincent said. I watched him run off into the training ground to resume his exercises. He had been a most helpful, most accommodating person so far. Perhaps the only one in the pack who treated me like a normal human being. It almost felt as if we were friends. Almost.

It turned out that a week was not enough time for the pack to get over my outburst. They never spoke of it to me, but I could sense their hushed whispers when they thought I was not around. But I had kept a lid on it for quite a while, not resorting to my violent nature.

Remorse was a strange emotion. It is birthed after you make a mistake, not before. As much as I felt justified in rejecting Alexis—as much as I tried to justify, that was—I couldn’t help but regret in my heart of hearts that I had been so absurdly angry with her. I should have been kinder. I had driven her off, and I don’t know where.

But would I be able to control my rage if she were in my presence? Would I be able to stop myself from verbally abusing her, from inflicting emotional damage on her? I had no way of knowing that.

It was too late. I had severed our bond. I had turned away fate’s gift, and now fate was taunting me, leaving me stranded in time, purposeless. What good was I as a leader to these people, these people who weren’t invested in their own prosperity? Where were my kin and kith of old, my friends from days gone by? Only Fred remained, but he mostly rested in his cottage, and most of our talks were very formal.

I had been given a second chance, and I had thwarted it before it could blossom into a real possibility.

Moreover, the consciousness that I possessed was a consciousness beyond my control. I could reason, communicate, and perform my daily tasks and duties, but whenever I thought of Ariana’s passing, of my bonding with Alexis, the knots of bitterness tugged into my chest and made me uncontrollably enraged.

The pack had been cordial enough to prepare my old home for me—the place where I used to live before I was kidnapped. Fred told me that after I had disappeared and a couple of decades had passed, the pack decided to close off the home in my memory. As much as I respected the notion, I would have much better liked it if someone in need had started living there. Adjusting to this new world has been a challenge for me. The only semblance of sanity that prevailed in my life was when I was inside my old home, where it felt like time had stopped in the 1940s and everything was just the way it should have been.

But I never got to enter my home now.

Just as soon as I had touched the doorknob to the main door, the same electricity that I had felt when I had bonded with Alexis took hold of me, jolting me where I stood, filling my body with a sense of frenzy.

What was happening? Was this the bond at work? Had I not severed it? Had I not rejected her outright? Why, then, was I feeling this magnetic force pulling me? What was it trying to say?

And in return, the answer that came wordlessly was this: Danger. Grave danger. Not for me, but for Alexis. Wherever she was, she was not safe. I could not understand how I was able to intuitively know this. All I knew was that Alexis was facing a terrible peril.

The electricity seeped into my body and paralyzed me with its strength, forcing a vision on me. My eyes closed under the strain of the force, and at once, I could see her lying on her back, her hands held over her face defensively, her nose dripping blood.

In place of wrath, I felt… protectiveness. I had to save her, regardless of how I had behaved with her in the past. She needed help.

Would I be able to save her? And if I did, would I be able to confront her regarding the way I had been with her?

There was no time to ponder the abstract answers to these pointless questions. Instead of heading into the house, I raced out of the commune, allowing that mystical electricity to guide me to where she was.

I would not be able to forgive myself if something happened to her, and I never got to make amends. It had already happened once with Ariana. I was not going to let it happen to Alexis, rejected mate or not.