He took a breath.
"I don't remember my name."
His voice was rough. Unused to forming so many words in sequence. But it was clear.
"I don't remember where I came from or who I was before. They took that from me. The people who made me what I am." He swallowed. "I remember the facility. The table. The pain. I remember forgetting how to be human."
The chamber was absolutely silent.
"When I came to Frosthaven, I couldn't speak. Couldn't hold human form for more than a few minutes. The wolf was all there was—the wolf, and the fear, and the need to hide." His grip tightened on the podium. "The Healing Center helped. The doctors, the structure, the people who didn't look at me like I was a monster. But it still felt like a cage. A better cage than before, but still... walls. Locked doors. No sky."
He paused. Gathered himself.
"Then Lumi came."
I felt the eyes of the chamber shift to me. I kept my gaze on Gray.
"She didn't treat me like a patient. Didn't treat me like a project or a problem to solve. She just... sat with me. Let mebe near her. Didn't expect anything I couldn't give." His voice cracked slightly. "The first time I spoke was because of her. Because I wanted to know where she was. Because being near her made me feel like maybe I could be a person again."
He looked around the chamber.
"The run helped too. When they let us out—let us be wolves, run through the trees, feel the ground under our paws—something shifted. We remembered what it was like to be free. To move without walls. To exist without someone watching every breath."
He straightened.
"I'm not fixed. I don't know if I ever will be. But I'm better than I was. More human than I was. And the things that helped—Lumi's presence, the structure of the program, the chance to run—those aren't things that can happen in a medical ward forever."
He met Rae's eyes.
"We need space. Real space. Room to learn how to be people again without feeling like we're in another prison. Opportunities to learn and be social again." His voice steadied. "A sanctuary. That's what Cole called it. That's what we need."
He stepped back from the podium.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then someone started clapping.
It spread through the chamber—not thunderous applause, but something quieter. Respectful. Acknowledging what it had cost Gray to stand there, to speak, to ask for something on behalf of wolves who couldn't ask for themselves.
He made his way back toward the side door. When he passed my row, he paused.
"Did I do okay?" he asked quietly.
"You did amazing."
The ghost of a smile crossed his face. Then he was gone.
The discussion that followed was more technical. Cole walked through the logistics—construction timelines, staffing requirements, security protocols. Council members asked questions about oversight, about the selection process for which wolves would be transferred, about liability and risk management.
But the emotional weight of Gray's testimony hung over everything.
These weren't statistics or case studies. They were people. Broken people, trying to find their way back to themselves.
"The wolves currently in our care fall into roughly three categories," Neal said when it was his turn to present. He'd been asked to provide medical perspective on the proposal. "The first group has stabilized enough for limited integration with the broader Academy population. Supervised classes, structured social interaction, gradual reintroduction to normal life."
He clicked to a chart showing improvement metrics.
"The second group is progressing but not ready for integration. They need more time, more intensive therapy, more support. The sanctuary campus would be ideal for them—structure without the clinical feel of a medical facility."
