Evander left them alone while the recruits ran the obstacle course. Fox stayed on the ground, keeping off his bitten shoulder and watching rain clouds pile up in the sky above him. It started to sprinkle a little bit at one point, but Evander didn’t seem concerned about getting caught in a downpour. 

The recruits finished up their laps around the obstacle course, and Evander told them to take a break.

“Seb, drag your sorry ass back inside the snack shack and start taking orders. And if you make a mess of Fox’s cleanup job, you’re getting another ass-whooping,” Evander ordered the lone wolf. “Fox, you’re coming with me to the med station.” 

At the sound of the word “med” Fox felt his heart rate quicken. Seb groaned and winced his way up to his feet, and began trudging away to the concessions building, his arms wrapped around his stomach. He sent Fox a dirty look over his shoulder, but Evander caught it and released a loud warning growl. Seb turned away.

Seb had taken worse of a beating than Fox had, but maybe making him work instead of letting him rest was still part of Evander’s punishment for him. Fox thought that fighting the winners of the wrestling matches had been enough of a punishment for simple laziness and lying, but maybe Evander didn’t.

Fox heard Evander approach him where he still laid in the grass. The Alpha met Fox’s wide-eyed gaze and sighed. “I’ve been informed that you have specific medical triggers,” he stated. Fox just stared at him, feeling ice in his veins. Evander nudged his leg with his boot. “Up,” he said.

Fox didn’t want to, but he rolled over onto his knees and achingly rose to his feet. Evander began to walk over to a smaller building at the edge of the field, which had a red cross painted on its side. Fox shut his eyes as a memory flashed in his mind, begging for it not to grow vivid and intense.

Fox focused on putting one foot in front of the other, his gaze on the ground. He didn’t look up when he reached the building with Evander. The Alpha opened the door, and Fox held his breath. 

Evander turned on a light, illuminating a small medical room meant to hold at least two injured people and allow enough space for a caretaker to move around. There were two hospital beds and lots of shelves stocked with medical equipment. 

The sight of it all caused a wave of nausea to roll through Fox’s stomach. He shut his eyes again, his body already starting to tremble. He thought about rivers and skies instead of the memories from dark times, but he couldn’t stop trembling. 

Evander made some noise as he gathered some supplies. He paused at the door. “Are you not able to come in at all?” he asked. Fox vigorously shook his head.

“Fine. Sit down,” the Alpha replied. Fox eased himself down onto the grass.

Evander closed the door behind him, and Fox let out his breath. The Alpha tossed a small hand towel at him. “Cover your nose with this,” he said as a way of explanation.

Fox gratefully took it and covered the lower half of his face with it. Then Evander knelt down beside him and laid out his equipment. Fox stared hard at the trees in front of him. “Take your shirt off,” Evander said. Fox complied, wincing as the fabric peeled away from his blood-crusted injuries. He covered his face with the towel again.

He heard the sloshing of liquid, then a burning sensation along his bite wound. Fox tensed and gritted his teeth, stifling a whine by tightly gripping his thigh instead. He could vaguely smell the antiseptic, and he balled up the towel around his nose as another wave of nausea rolled through his stomach.

Evander dabbed at the wound with a rag, cleaning up the blood. Each bit of pressure stung, but this wasn’t anything new to Fox. In the grand view of all the injuries he’d ever gotten in his life, this wasn’t the worst, and he was practiced with toughing it out.

“He got you pretty deep,” Evander noted. “You’ll need stitches.”

Fox tried not to voice his dismay, but Evander seemed to be able to read it in his body language. “I’ll numb you first,” he said.

Fox waited as Evander went to retrieve a numbing solution. He pushed away memories of needles and tubes and fluids, attempting to distract himself by watching the dark gray and light gray clouds swirl above him, promising a heavier rainstorm later.

Evander returned. Fox made the mistake of glancing at him and flinched as he saw the Alpha holding a syringe. Panic flooded his veins and he whimpered, scooting away. 

“Hey, easy,” Evander said, voice gruff as he prepared to handle Fox’s panic. Fox couldn’t help it, he started shaking. He curled up and swallowed down the rising bile in his throat. 

“No no no,” Fox moaned quietly. Evander grabbed the back of his neck and forced his head down. 

“Stay still and it’ll be over in two seconds,” he ordered. Fox’s breathing started getting faster, shallower, and he yelped as he felt the needle enter his shoulder. Evander was quick to pin him down with his weight as Fox tried to thrash. 

“Two seconds, see? You’re fine,” the Alpha said a moment later. He backed off of Fox, who was trying to swallow and inhale at the same time. He flinched when Evander thumped his back, his rough way of patting it.

The throbbing in his shoulder slowly died down as the numbing solution worked its magic. Fox repeated to himself again and again in his head that it was just a numbing agent, nothing sinister, nothing unknown, nothing experimental. 

While Fox worked on controlling his inner panic, Evander stitched him up. He was quick but neat with it, probably from practice, and by the time he was done, Fox was calmer. Evander placed a gauze patch over the wound.

“You good now?” Evander asked as he watched Fox sit up from his hunched fetal position. Fox nodded mutely. “I still have to do your chest.” Fox nodded again, tightening his grip on the towel covering his nose. He leaned back enough for Evander to clean out the cuts on his chest left by Seb’s claws. The smell of the antiseptic was stronger here, and even with the towel blocking most of it, he still felt nauseous. 

“Alpha?” Fox queried quietly, trying to distract himself again. Evander hummed short and gruff in reply. “Why did I have to fight?”

The Alpha sighed. “You did good with the task I asked you to complete, and you told me the truth about Seb instead of taking his side. But this is your first day here, and you need to know your place. You’ll be rewarded for that good behavior, but you’re still a lone wolf.”

Fox cautiously met Evander’s gaze. He could see distrust and low tolerance in his eyes, and Fox wondered how many lone wolves Evander has had to deal with. Fox understood now, though. He knew what lone wolves were like, and he knew that Evander only saw him as just another loner, albeit one with manners. Fox would have to work to prove to him that he was different, that he wasn’t a threat or a problem. 

Evander finished patching him up. Then he went inside the med shack to put the supplies away and wash his hands. As Fox waited, his gaze roamed around the bruises littering his arms and legs. He would be sore for the next couple days, but it could’ve been worse. Fox pulled his shirt back on just as the Alpha came back outside.

From then on, Fox was instructed to help Evander with setting up the rest of the training courses for the remainder of the evaluations. The new recruits would take short breaks, where they would get a drink from concessions or a snack to gain more calories. Evander filled his binder with notes, and by the time late afternoon rolled around, he finally called it quits.

The new recruits were dismissed, which was met with a chorus of relieved noises. Evander took a look inside the snack shack to see if Seb had made it dirty again. Aside from some stains on the countertops and some melted ice on the floor, it was decently clean. Evander dismissed Seb.

He turned to Fox. “Time for the rest of your tour,” he said. Fox followed as the Alpha began walking off in a specific direction. He took Fox out of the field through the trees again. This walk took a lot longer, but Fox was used to walking for long periods of time, so it didn’t bother him.

Evander showed him the holes in the ground that served as prison cells. They had four cells, each one in its own hole, and each one spaced out from each other. Each entrance to the holes were square metal doors on the ground, with grates for the sake of air ventilation. Fox didn’t like being back here, remembering how dark and time-bending the hole had been for him. 

Evander explained that they only kept one prisoner in each hole separately to avoid scheming, either for escape or for an attack. It was rare they ever had big groups of prisoners, though. Fox only half listened, too busy focusing on being grateful for the sky and daylight and fresh air.

Then Evander took him somewhere else, walking for a while again, traversing through more trees. Fox was realizing that a good majority of their territory was made up of forest, with very little adjustments to the plant life to make room for their human activities, hence why everything seemed to have its own designated field. Fox had to appreciate their concern for conservation.

Evander showed him their border patrol barracks, where a group of Betas and well-built fighter werewolves were stationed. Evander explained that this was where they traded shifts and randevoused for information exchange. Evander didn’t take Fox inside to show him, but he said that they had a detailed map of their territory, and that whenever outside threats were detected, they would convene there to discuss defense tactics. 

He turned to Fox and took his jaw in his hand, angling Fox’s head up so he had to meet eyes with the Alpha. His gaze was intense and serious, and Fox wanted to pull away. “If I ever catch you here without an Alpha with you, or without an Alpha’s permission, your ass is mine.”

Fox shuddered at the growl in Evander’s voice, the intense promise in his eyes. He knew a punishment from any Alpha would be hard to bear, but a serious punishment from Evander would probably land him in their medical sector.

“Yes, sir, I understand,” Fox whispered in a strained voice. Evander let his jaw go.

Then Evander took him to their last stop: the lone wolves’ bunkers.

Fox’s stomach dropped as he laid eyes on them. There were ten in total, and they were situated similarly to the prison holes. Each one was separate, and two-thirds underground. Each one seemed to only have one long but extremely narrow window, not allowing for even the smallest werewolf to squeeze through, and it was right at ground level. Each bunker was made of cement, ensuring that digging was not a way out. The doors to get inside were slanted and small, almost similar to the square metal doors of the prison holes. And each bunker was very, very small. 

There were a few Betas here as well, standing guard. They nodded to their Alpha as the two of them entered the field. 

“You would’ve been assigned to one of these, but they’re all full and can’t accommodate two lone wolves. We wouldn’t allow two lone wolves to stay together, anyway. Too big a risk of fights and scheming,” Evander told Fox. As they walked around the bunkers, Fox spotted a long picnic table in the middle of all the bunkers that was big enough to seat at least twelve people.

“Here is where they all have supervised meals. A lot of you tend to have food aggression,” a fact Fox already knew, “so each mealtime is supervised by a group of Betas or even myself, if I have time. Any fighting or stealing of someone else’s food results in punishment. Each one of you has a decent amount of scraps and water, so there shouldn’t be anyone left wanting. I would expect you to eat here, too, but it probably won’t happen too often if you’re spending every day with one of us Alphas.”

Fox nodded to show he was listening. He was glad to hear that he wouldn’t have to spend too much time here. He wanted to avoid the other lone wolves as much as possible. It seemed like most of them were out doing their assigned labor, but Seb was probably already back here in his own bunker.

As Fox stared at the cement huts half buried in the ground, he really hoped that nobody would be dying anytime soon.