They couldn’t believe it. The research team couldn’t register the limp body thrown against the tree. They expected her, willed her, to get up, to shake off the impact with a shrug and a snarky comment.

    She didn’t.

    She stayed down. The blood steamed, ghosting into the starry heavens.

    “T-TOP!” The name shuddered from DaeSung’s chest. He pointed a shaking finger towards the vitals scanner. “Is she still alive?” He didn’t perceive the blue haired man stumble towards the screen. TOP began flicking through the different tabs, his hands fumbling from panic. His clumsiness only amplified Big Bang’s fears. JiYong silently edged over to stand next to him, arms crossed. His subordinate finally reached the right window and rapidly scanned the information.

    “TOP!” DaeSung yelled.

    “She’s alive.” JiYong replied, deadpan. Although his voice exuded calm, his hands trembled. The two men hurriedly monitored the beeping heart rate, present but slowing. They saw the body temperature count slowly decrease by decimals, ticking away like the hours she had left. TOP rapidly clicked on the different tabs, absorbing the information in an adrenaline driven fury. He pushed away from the station and released a frustrated growl, a startling reaction from the usually stoic man.

His teammates didn’t hear  it. YoungBae numbly sat at his station, his fingers mindlessly recording the results on his tablet. His eyes didn’t track the progress as the letters formed words on the page.

13:00 Werewolf and human subject meet.

Werewolf attacks human subject. She runs. Throws backpack at werewolf in an attempt to distract it. Fails. Only angers him more.

Human is unconscious and bleeding out. Temperatures are dropping.

Likelihood of survival: Very low.

DaeSung stood, gaping at the camera screens. He shook his head, trying to negate the evidence his eyes were showing him. He gripped YoungBae’s arm, trying to receive acknowledgement that his vision wasn’t reality.

“Medics.” The word slipped past his trembling lips. He turned towards the phone. “I’ll call the medics. They have a helicopter. They can get to her."

“DaeSung, Stop.” DaeSung’s passage was halted before his fingertips could brush the receiver. His eyes widened under his bangs as he stared incredulously at his team leader.

“JiYong!” He cried, “She’s going to die! We can’t let her just-”

“This is an experiment!” JiYong clenched his fists at his sides. “If she dies,” He squeezed his eyes shut. “It’s data. We’ll start from scratch. Again.”

YoungBae lunged forward, JiYong’s shirt collar balled in his fists.

“Jordan isn’t data.” YoungBae spat. “She’s a human being. How could you say that?” A diminutive voice in the back of his head reminded him of the five previous subjects. Did he consider them human beings when they died? Weren’t they just data to him?

“You think I want to say that?” JiYong’s cracked with conflict. “You think I want to leave her to die? I don’t!” He pointed at the screens and then swept a hand towards his team. “I’m just like all of you! We ed up! We’re all too emotionally invested in this! But this is an experiment! We have to be professional.” The room stilled. JiYong panted, defeat tinged his voice. “We. Can’t. Interfere.” YoungBae let go of his team leader’s shirt and turned away slumping into the nearest chair. The rest of the team followed suit with bowed backs and heavy consciences.

After a few loaded minutes, DaeSung abruptly reached into a lab drawer, and removed five shot glasses and a handle of cheap vodka. None of the team was in the mood to question it. They took the glasses without a word, and waited for him to fill them to the brim.

    DaeSung raised his shot.

    “To Jordan.” He muttered. Big Bang nodded, eyes dead, echoing him.

    “To Jordan.” They poured the drink down their throats. None winced at the burn. Nothing could compare to the guilt searing within them.

    After a restless night, they emerged from their bedrooms, red-eyed and groggy. Their remorse had not abated. None of them had bothered with monitoring the human or the wolf through the night. To them, there was no longer a reason to, with Jordan dying in the forest and the werewolf terrorizing the border, there was nothing left to make note of.

    Their spirits had not risen with the sun, but the panic had faded with the night. TOP scanned the vitals again.

    “She hasn’t died from the cold yet.” He reported to his team. Squinting tiredly at the screen, he continued. “It’s not the bite that’s going to kill her; her blood is coagulating at a reasonable pace. What’s going to kill her is the potential concussion or back damage from when she hit the tree. That and the cold. She’s going to contract hypothermia soon.”

    JiYong nodded at the flow of information. He wasn’t sure how to proceed next. How long until the experiment was all over? Jordan was unlikely to make a full recovery, if at all. He chose instead to think about the other subject.

    “Where’s the wolf?” He turned away from the blue-haired man at the vitals scanner to the remaining three at the camera screens.

    “At the fence.” YoungBae replied, hugging an uncharacteristic number of layers to his body. He pointed to a screen on the far right, indicating the grey wolf on the screen. “It’s giving the guards trouble. By the looks of it, it hasn’t slept all night.”

    They watched as the fully transformed wolf paced to and fro in front of the barrier. Its shoulders were slumped and its paws dragged on the dusty ground with every step. It’s cold blue eyes were exhausted, scanning its surroundings for any form of escape. Its pants whooshed from its chest, massive bellows powering an explosive engine.

    DaeSung noted the wolf’s exhaustion, then scooted over in his roller chair to the vitals sensor, writing down Jordan’s progress. His thoughts brightened when he saw that her body temperature had risen. She may survive yet.

The other team members had wandered off to do their respective jobs. The team leader was on the phone, in contact with the captain of the security detail. DaeSung performed the usual routine check to make sure that the cameras were functioning properly. TOP and YoungBae compiled the relevant camera data and notes from the previous day and readied it to be sent to research base. No one spoke, they were too lost in their own thoughts.

YoungBae debated with himself over his own comment last night.

Jordan isn’t data. She’s a human being.

Did that make the previous subjects not-human? Were they monsters? What did that make him? He had stood there and watched as their limbs were ripped from their bodies. He had analyzed potential reasons for their time of death. He was the one who had reported to the Variant Maintenance Team that there was another eviscerated corpse they had to clean up. He had sighed at the inconvenience of sorting through the prisons again. He was a part of an institution that led people to slaughter. Wasn’t that just as bad as being a murderer himself?

Was he human?

He wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly cold. He glanced at the man next to him: the blue-haired man that a lot of the researchers within the lab found intimidating. Did TOP feel the same way about this experiment? Did anything get past that expressionless facade? Did he feel anything under it?

For a minute, YoungBae’s hands paused at the keyboard. TOP glanced at him.

“Everything okay?” Both of them knew the answer to that question. The response hovered in the air.

“I’m fine.” The shorter responded shortly, and resumed his work. TOP raised an eyebrow and turned back to the words on the screen.

    At the fence, the squadron of heavily armored guards tensed. The wolf had not attacked since earlier that morning, but it kept them on constant edge. It would pace back and forth, occasionally glaring through the chain links, but did nothing. It didn’t stop to hunt or to drink. Escape was its sole focus, and its focus never wavered. But as the sun began to sink in the sky, it snarled. Snapping at the air, it leaned back on its haunches and launched itself at the towering fence. Claws hooking into the chain link, ignoring the harsh electrical current, it propelled itself skywards. Its eyes glowed blue, and flickered only when the electricity shocked them into a brighter shade.

“Holy .” A guard muttered, as they watched the beast’s ascent. It had never gotten so far up before. One final push from a hind paw allowed the top half of its body to hang over the edge of the fence, its front paws hooking onto the other side. Its body shuddered as the electricity threatened to force it off.

“Gun it down if you have to!” They heard their squad leader shout. The squadron readied their guns, an assortment of semi-automatic rifles and tranquilizers. The wolf released a yelp as the electricity surged.

They didn’t need the guns. The wolf, unable to stand the shocking pain, fell back from the fence into the enclosure, writhing in the dust one more time before it calmed. Its panting was the only sound.

The guards relaxed. They would never admit it, but most of them had never even seen a werewolf in a full transformation before. Although they had undergone training, their chances of legitimately taking down a full werewolf was incredibly slim. Werewolves were always captured in their human form.

The dust settled. Slowly, the wolf hauled itself into a sitting position, shoulders drooped, ears lowered. Its eyes no longer blazed, but glistened with something they could only liken to tears. It was unnerving.

    It raised its head and howled to the slowly emerging moon. The volume stunned the guards, shocked the researchers enough to drag them back to the camera screens.

The howl spread like sadness, permeating into the air and the dust. The wolf lamented for its lost brothers and its lost freedom. The sound never seemed to end, even long after the wolf ended its cry.

    A sigh huffed out from cavernous lungs followed by the shuffle of paws against the dirt. The werewolf got to its feet, fur ruffled from the sparks, and slowly lumbered in the direction of the forest.

    For a minute, it paused, and narrowed its eyes at the full moon. The wolf’s head tilted, as if confused, and then dashed off with sudden urgency.

    “What’s got it in a hurry?” DaeSung wondered. JiYong meandered over.

    “Full moon is short this time. Their transformation time periods are never consistent. It must be looking for a place to shift back.” The team leader’s voice was lifeless. He considered calling into the main research base to prepare their lab again. When he checked the weather for the night, there was a ninety percent chance for rain. Jordan had already weathered many troubles, but rain would certainly kill her. Luck wasn’t in her favor.

    The team stared intently at the camera screens. The wolf had reached the trees. It slowed, limbs already beginning to distort. The head snapped back, snout retracted, and spine shortened. The cracking of bone could have been mistaken for camera static.

    Chen stumbled in his human form to where he had originally transformed, back to the sweatpants he had shed when he prepared for his shift. He pulled them on and slumped against a tree trunk, head leaning against the rough bark.

    Exhausted and defeated, he prepared to lose himself to dreams again. He missed his brothers. He missed others.

    Others. Chen’s head snapped upright, eyes widened in panic. Jumping to his feet, he frantically scented the air. He registered pine, deer, bears, and blood. He knew that scent.

It was the smell that he’d gotten familiar with. The smell belonged to the tall girl with the brown eyes that didn’t look at him with loathing. The smell belonged to the girl that shared, that didn’t run screaming from him but fought back. The girl who didn’t reek of bloodlust and anger.

Memories flooded back, back from the side of him that he wasn’t fond of. Blood flashed in his vision, a high-pitched scream echoed in his ears.

Chen shook his head, distressed noises escaping from his mouth. His feet propelled in the scent’s direction. He weaved effortlessly through the trees, focusing instead on the scent that his brain wanted to deny.  

He couldn’t miss it. There was a crumpled body at the base of a towering pine tree. Chen ran a hand through his hair, a cry slipped from his lips. Guilt stabbed at his chest. Carefully, he rested his trembling fingertips on the side of her neck, eyes closed. He felt it, her weak heartbeat. He huffed a sigh of relief and carefully slipped a forearm under her shoulder, moving her from the tree base. Red blood smeared onto his bare forearm. The guilt writhed again. Chen examined the bite. He was familiar with them. He’d been in enough pack wars. He knew what to do.

Images flickered across his mind of the things he would need to help her. He stood to go search when the memory of bears reemerged. He glanced down at the girl. He ducked down once again, and lifted her closer to him. Chen rubbed her bony hands against his cheek, lightly rubbing the inside of her forearms against his neck. He quickly nosed at her neck and breathed out into her hair. He wrinkled his nose at the streaks of blood that found themselves on his nose and his arms, hurriedly rubbing them away with his palms. Certain that he had scented her enough, he wandered off to go find what he needed.

He wasn’t sure of why he was helping her. Chen only knew that she was different than the other ones. She helped him. He had to pay back the favor.

He followed her scent to the backpack she had chucked at him. Chen sorted around the insides, satisfied with the contents. He examined the straps for a moment before easily slinging the bag on his shoulders. He proceeded to go down into a crouch. Chen creeped around the forest floor, eyes scanning for silver leaves. The infringing darkness did not deter him. He had gone quite a distance away from Jordan when he found it.

He greeted the low-growing, silver plant with a small cry of excitement. Chen rubbed the woolly leaves between his fingers, reinforcing the identity. He picked a few leaves from the plant and moved to the next bunch until he gathered several dozen. After stuffing the leaves into the backpack, the gatherer hurried back to his charge.

He removed her backpack with care and placed it delicately on her stomach. Making sure to avoid the puncture wounds, Chen supported her back with his right arm, slipping his left arm under her knees.

Chen made his way in the direction of the lake. He would run, but fear of jolting her injuries prevented him from doing so. The werewolf easily carried her the several hundred feet to the trees. Through a veritable feat of maneuvering, he managed to remove both backpacks without dropping the girl and leave them under a pine. Shifting Jordan in his arms, he strided towards the lake.

He waded easily into the icy waters, going far enough until the water reached the bottom of his ribcage. He balanced on one foot, resting Jordan on his other leg. He cradled her head in his elbow, keeping it above the water. He hesitated to disturb the wounds under her shirt, but he couldn’t risk the dirty threads infecting the wound. Hesitantly, eyes narrowed to innocent slivers, he moved the tank top strap from her shoulder and tucked it under her armpit. His mind was on edge, careful not to expose anything other than the bite wound. Finally, when he was certain that the shirt was secure, he proceeded to gently scrub the blood from her skin, to pull the pine needles and dirt from her tentatively scabbing scars.  Under his surgical care, skin appeared from under the dirt and blood. The bite wounds were now ragged holes, not clumps of congealed debris. He painstakingly repeated the process with her back, struggling to keep her face away from the water.

When he finished, her skin was clear of blood and dirt, pale white from the cold. Although Jordan wasn’t the same yet, she looked more like the girl that had punched him a long time ago.

Chen paused as he hefted the dripping girl from the water. Upon reaching the shore, his head fell in frustration. He had just realized. She was going to freeze. He hurried back to the tree and rustled through the bags. He grabbed the closest piece of cloth - a sweatshirt - from a backpack and gingerly dried her hair into a fluffy pouf, making sure to support her head and neck. He proceeded to dry her arms, neck and face. He pressed the shirt into her tank top and pant legs, trying to absorb what water was possible. He was not going to let her die, not on his watch.

The werewolf began his next plan of attack. He sat in the dirt, legs spread. He positioned Jordan between them and kept her propped upright with a hand on her shoulder. With the other, he placed the woolly leaves with a surgeon’s precision on the bite marks. Soon her upper back was patterned with silver-green leaves, a mask that hid the gore beneath.

When finished with her back, he crouched next to her and let her head rest on his shoulder. He delivered the same leaf treatment to her shoulder, slipping leaves under the straps when necessary.

Finally, he tore a spare shirt into shreds, using them to bind her shoulder and keep the leaves in place. The werewolf finished his medical care, surprised to feel that he was tired. He reached into the backpack to use the spare sweatpants. He laid Jordan on out her back, placing the cloth under her head. He paused, hope flashing on his face. She stirred. Jordan uttered a small murmur, head lolling to the side. Her shoulders shivered. Goosebumps rose on her arms.

The werewolf, for the first time of the night, was unsure of what to do. There were no more clothes to put her in. The t-shirt had gone towards bandages, the sweatshirt was damp, and the sweatpants were being used. He didn’t want her to be wearing another layer over her wet clothing anyways, it wouldn’t keep her warm.

Slowly, every nerve in his body screaming with uncertainty, he laid down next to her. With a last nervous exhale, he wrapped his arms around her, cocooning her in his warmth.

Chen was oblivious to the presence of cameras. He was oblivious to the warming hearts.

JiYong chuckled to himself, shaking his head in happy disbelief. It didn’t rain. Ten percent chance. Jordan survived. Less than twenty percent chance. Chen saved her. A fraction of a percent chance.

DaeSung sat, eyes glued to the screen, hands pressed to his heart, a cheesy smile inadvertently spread on his face.

“Oh, look.” He gushed, “They’re spooning.”

    Jordan opened her eyes.

    So she was alive. She narrowed her eyes at the sight in front of her and registered a comfortable sensation she hadn’t felt in years. For a minute, she closed her eyes again, and let the feeling of fingers running through her hair seep in. She opened her eyes again as a new realization dawned on her.

    She must be dead. The wall of family pictures belonged to her house. The little blue house with white trim, home to a computer science professor, a high school calculus teacher and their daughter. Jordan felt the moisture build behind her eyes as she took in the memories: the beige walls she’d painted with her parents, the white crown-molding her father had slaved over for a year, and the pictures that her mother had forced her to pose for. Jordan let her eyes wander.

    BTS was there, sprawled out in a big, blanketed, puppy pile, using each other as pillows. Jordan saw TaeHyung’s head poking out from the bottom, his body serving as a pillow for his friends. JungKook’s foot poked out from the top of the pile, and Jordan spared a moment of concern regarding the location of his head. Upon closer inspection, she found it hiding between the torsos of YoonGi and HoSeok. NamJoon snored contently, and as she watched, SeokJin prodded him with a half-asleep finger. The younger shifted and ceased his snoring. Jordan chuckled lightly.

    “You awake?” She froze at the voice. The last time she heard that voice was over the phone on that fateful rainy day. She looked up.

    “Mom?” Jordan's voice was like a child’s. She was there. Her mother was there, with her smile lines and laughing eyes. Ming YuJian regarded her daughter with a wistful smile. She ran her fingers against the smooth black strands.

    “We’re so proud of you, Jordan. You’ve been so brave.” She whispered. Tears clouded her voice. “My brave, brave baby.” She wiped at the tears that forced themselves into her eyelashes.

    “Where’s Dad?” Jordan didn’t move, she didn’t want to. She could hear a hustle and bustle in the kitchen.

    “He’s-” her mother paused. “He’s making dinner.” Jordan immediately moved to sit up, to go help her Dad like she usually did, but her mother placed a cool palm against her forehead, forcing her back down. “He’ll be okay on his own. Stay with me for a while.”

    “Okay.” Jordan laid back down, but not before noticing that the kitchen door looked different. Had it always looked so ornate? Wasn't there only one light in the kitchen?

    “Where did you get the puppy?” Amusement leaked into YuJian’s voice. Jordan looked away from the kitchen and glanced down at her body.

    A puppy was tucked into her side. It looked a little like a husky, but with red patches. It seemed familiar, somehow. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

    “I don’t know.” She mused. “I never had a pet.”

    “He’s cute.” Her mother cooed, and patted the puppy’s head. It let out a small squeak, and burrowed itself under Jordan’s arm. “You should keep him -”

    “Mom?” Jordan, for the first time in her life, cut off her mother. Her mother didn’t get angry, like she feared.

    “Yes?” Jordan’s mother knew the question that would follow.

    “Where am I?”

    “You’re home.” was the short reply. Jordan could hear unsaid answers in her mother’s voice. She didn’t prod. She tried to cling onto the moment, to remember this. She memorized every detail she had forgotten about her mother: the shoulder-length hair, the white clothing, the large, almond-shaped eyes.

    “Can I stay?” She whispered. Jordan never wanted anything so bad as an affirmative answer. She wanted to stay here, in the warmth, in the safety, with her family. Her mother bent over and planted a kiss against her forehead.

    “Go back to sleep.” Jordan felt her mother’s unmanicured fingers run through her hair once more. “Dinner will be ready soon, okay? I’ll wake you then.” It was like a signal. Immediately, sleepiness dragged her eyelids down, and a dark partition stole away her vision. She clung onto consciousness, panic flaming again as her mother disappeared.

    Before she succumbed completely to sleep, she heard it. She heard her mother through a haze, like in a dream.

    “Go back to sleep, honey. It’s not time for you to wake up yet.”

    Jordan opened her eyes.

    So she was alive. She narrowed her eyes and registered a comfortable sensation she hadn’t felt in years. For a minute, she closed her eyes again, and let the feeling of another person sleeping next to her seep in. She opened her eyes again.

    She was warm. She felt safe.

    That was new.

***

Hello everybody! This chapter was beta'd by the beautiful and wonderful Shooka24. Thank you my dear, you are awesome for beta'ing this so last minute.

Just a quick heads up, I'm not sure if I (or my beta) can keep up with updating once a week. College is much busier this year than I anticipated :P If things go according to schedule, chapters will continue going up on Thursdays. Otherwise, I will probably be updating biweekly (I hope that this doesn't happen super often.) I'm sorry!

Once again, I am loving all of your support! Your comments and encouragement mean so much to me!

As always, please comment, constructive criticism is WELCOMED and ENCOURAGED (*cough cough cough*), and see you next week!