"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 bethrown 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 addressthe 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."
