Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Rae's office felt smaller than usual.
Maybe it was the weight of the conversation we were about to have. Maybe it was the stack of files on her desk, each one representing a wolf whose future was being decided in rooms like this. Or maybe I was just tired.
I'd come straight from the Healing Center after the incident with RJ. My hands were still shaking slightly—not from fear, but from the residual adrenaline of watching everything almost go wrong.
"You heard what happened," I said. Not a question.
"Neal called me immediately." Rae leaned back in her chair, her expression carefully neutral. "He also sent me his notes. And the security footage."
"Then you saw what Stone did."
"I saw a wolf use shared trauma to de-escalate a crisis that our trained staff couldn't handle." She folded her hands on her desk. "It was impressive. And deeply concerning."
I waited.
"RJ can't stay at Frosthaven."
The words landed heavily, even though I'd been expecting them.
"He'll be one of the first transferred to the new academy when it opens," Rae continued. "The construction timeline is being accelerated. We're hoping to have the initial facilities ready by early spring instead of late."
"Because of what happened today?"
"Because of what's been happening for months." She pulled one of the files toward her, opened it. RJ's name was printed on the tab. "He's had four violent incidents since arriving. Each one more severe than the last. The traditional approaches aren't working. The environment here isn't helping."
"This isn't punishment," I said slowly, repeating what I'd heard in her tone.
"No. It's necessity." Rae closed the file. "RJ needs something we can't provide in a medical facility attached to an active academy. He needs space, specialized support, and peers who understand what he's going through."
"Peers like Stone."
"Exactly." She was quiet for a moment, studying me. "Which brings me to something else. Something I've been discussing with Vince and Council Head Derrow."
The shift in her tone made me straighten in my chair.
"This isn't just about ferals anymore," Rae said.
I waited.
"There's a gap in our system. A population we don't know how to serve." She stood, moved to the window, her back to me. "Wolves aged sixteen to nineteen. Young. Too young to be thrown into adult containment facilities. But not young enough to be handled through traditional youth programs."
"What kind of wolves?"
"Wolves who've been locked up after serious incidents.
Violence. Instability. Behavior that made them dangerous to themselves or others.
" She turned to face me. "They're not feral—not in the clinical sense.
But they're not stable either. They're failing under the current system. Getting worse instead of better."
"And you're thinking..."
"What if the academy isn't just for ferals?"
The question hung in the air.
"The sanctuary was designed for wolves who don't fit anywhere else," Rae continued. "Wolves who need more than a medical facility but less than a prison. What if we expanded that definition?"
I felt the weight of what she was suggesting. The scope of it.
"You're talking about mixing victims and offenders."
Rae didn't flinch.
"I'm talking about wolves who don't belong anywhere else."
"The ferals in that program—they didn't choose what happened to them. They were tortured into what they became." I leaned forward. "The wolves you're describing—"
"Some of them chose violence. Some of them didn't." Rae returned to her chair, sat heavily. "Some of them are products of abuse, trauma, pack dysfunction. Some of them snapped once and have been labeled dangerous ever since. And some of them are genuinely broken in ways that might never be fixed."
"That's a hell of a range."
"Yes. It is." She met my eyes. "But here's what I know: the current system is failing all of them.
The ferals rot in containment or deteriorate in medical facilities.
The young offenders cycle through detention programs that don't address the underlying issues.
And nobody—nobody—is doing anything that actually helps. "
"Until now?"
"Until maybe now." She spread her hands.
"The academy was designed around the idea that some wolves need a different approach.
Structure without imprisonment. Treatment without institutionalization.
What Stone did with RJ today—that's what I'm talking about.
Wolves who understand reaching wolves who can't be reached any other way. "
I thought about it. Really thought.
"This will be controversial."
"Extremely."
"And dangerous."
"Probably."
"And it might fail."
"It might fail spectacularly." Rae's voice was flat.
Honest. "We could put resources into this and make things worse.
We could mix populations that shouldn't be mixed and create new problems we haven't imagined yet.
We could destroy the credibility of the feral program before it has a chance to prove itself. "
"Then why consider it?"
"Because doing nothing is failing already.
" She leaned forward. "Every day, there are wolves in containment getting worse.
Young wolves, traumatized wolves, dangerous wolves—all of them stuck in systems that don't help them.
If we have a chance to do something different, don't we have an obligation to try? "
I didn't have an easy answer.
"This isn't public yet," Rae said. "It's not even settled within the council. Derrow is cautiously interested. Tomlinson thinks it's worth exploring. Others are skeptical or outright opposed."
"Where do you stand?"
"I stand where I always stand." A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "On the side of trying something, even when it's hard. Even when it might not work."
I thought about Stone. About what he'd done with RJ—the way he'd reached into the darkness because he'd lived there. If the academy expanded, if it took in not just ferals but troubled young wolves of all kinds, Stone would be at the center of it. Whether anyone planned that or not.
He'd already proven he could do what trained staff couldn't.
That made him essential.
It also made him vulnerable.
"Stone needs to know about this," I said.
"He will. When the time is right."
"He's already involved whether you tell him or not. What happened today—"
"I know." Rae's expression softened. "I'm not trying to blindside anyone. I'm trying to build consensus before I drop something this big on people who are already carrying too much."
That, at least, I could understand.
"What do you need from me?" I asked.
"Right now? Just your awareness. Your input as things develop." She paused. "And maybe your help when the time comes to explain this to the others. They trust you."
"They trust the bond. That's different."
"Is it?"
I didn't know how to answer that.
"Think about it," Rae said. "We don't have to decide anything today. This is a conversation that's going to unfold over weeks, maybe months. I just wanted you to know the shape of what we're considering."
The shape of the gap.
That's what she'd described. A hole in the system where wolves fell through and kept falling. The academy—whether it was called a sanctuary or something else—was supposed to catch them.
But catching them was only the first step.
What came after was the hard part.
I stood. "I'll think about it. All of it."
"That's all I'm asking."
I walked to the door, then paused.
"Rae."
She looked up.
"Whatever this becomes—the academy, the expanded program, all of it—it's going to change things. For everyone." I met her eyes. "Make sure you're ready for that."
"I'm not sure anyone can be ready for what's coming." She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "But we'll face it anyway. That's what we do."
I left her office and walked through the quiet hallways of the administration building. Outside, the campus was peaceful—students crossing the quad, staff going about their business, the ordinary rhythm of Academy life continuing as if everything was normal.
It wasn't.
The world was shifting. Slowly, invisibly, but definitely shifting. The feral academy was just the beginning. If Rae and the council moved forward with the expanded vision, it would be something else entirely.
A place for the broken. A place for the dangerous.
A place for wolves who didn't fit anywhere else.
And at the center of it—whether anyone planned it that way or not—would be Stone. The proof that understanding could reach places training couldn't. The bridge between worlds that most people would never want to cross.
I'd thought the academy was a clean solution. A purpose-built facility for a specific population.
I was wrong.
It was a necessary risk.
And none of us were ready for what that would mean.