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"What the hell was that?" Inferi grunts. "Who was that?"

You can just barely overhear Augury whisper back to her. "One of the werewolf spies in the military. She's the wolf we have to thank for setting up the breakout from the Nail. We would never have gotten free without her."

"We're putting out too many fires at once, Sonoma. Real and proverbial," Ahote says, breaking the quiet. "Let's table this newest business with Rivera for now and focus on the more immediate problem of the feral outbreaks."

Sonoma collapses in her chair behind the podium as though the fight has gone out of her all at once. Her muscles are twitching from numerous slowly-healing wounds, and you wonder just how hard she must have been pushing herself to stand in front of a quarreling crowd of factions while maintaining the appearance of a strong leader.

"What…" she asks haltingly. "What exactly happened here in camp while we were away on the raid? Details, please."

"It was after the late meal," Elder Hanska says. "Many wolves suddenly grew irritable and angry. They lashed out physically instead of verbally, and before long it spread like a virus. It was like something released their beasts all at once. It was half an hour before things started to calm down, and by then they'd already torched the stockade."

Next

"Who?" Sonoma asks, her voice cracking. "Who is responsible for this?"

"Too many," Hanska says. "And while they were affected, they weren't in their right minds. Many I've talked to can't even remember who they were fighting, and those of us unaffected kept our distance. Most of our fighters were away on their raid—we couldn't defend ourselves. So we hid."

"We'll need an accounting," Sonoma says. "This is beginning to sound like a poison targeting our inner beasts. One of my warriors captured a virus sample from the HSM lab—they may have laced our food with it during the attack. I'll have my people compare the virus to the remains of our food supply before we have another meal."

While we're all gathered and Sonoma is off-guard, I should tell the pack how Sonoma gassed the humans.

"I'd like to assist with the research on the virus."

Jolon just volunteered to search the pantry for signs of foul play or poisoning. I'll join him.

"I'll interrogate the prisoner, Tayla, and see if she knows anything."

Next

The reaction from the pack is unexpectedly mixed; some look appalled hearing about Sonoma's actions while others cheer the packleader's experiment for killing off the pack's enemies. If Sonoma could murder you by staring, you'd be dead a thousand times over.

The elders' faces are pale and drained of blood. Ahote is the first of them to speak. "That wasn't just an act of war, Sonoma. If Holstein's retelling is accurate, what you did is a war crime. Chemical warfare, contagion, torture! It's everything we should be standing against!"

Sonoma sniffs. "I have done what I've always done—make the difficult decisions necessary for our survival. It's easy to criticize from the cheap seats."

"There will be a reckoning for this," Hanska mutters before raising his voice. "You've grown too accustomed to taking extreme steps without consulting your pack or the Elders' Circle. You're a loose cannon."

"Enough posturing," Sonoma says, clearly at the end of her patience. "We have more important things to be doing."

"I'd like to assist with the research on the virus."

"I'll search the pantry for signs of foul play."

"I'll interrogate the prisoner, Tayla, and see if she knows anything."

Next

Sonoma agrees to your proposal faster than you'd expected. "Yes," she says. "In all this insanity I almost forgot about her; she might have exactly the information we need. Other than Ahote, you're the only one to develop a rapport with the prisoner. Get moving and see if she has any answers."

You leave the council chambers and emerge into the frigid night air, the sound of nervous and busy wolves echoing from every corner of the camp. A muscle under your right eye twitches, and you realize that you can no longer remember the last time you slept. You'd been desperately looking forward to a long night of rest after raiding the HSM base, but instead, you'd returned to fire and chaos. I'm going to need one hell of a long sleep after this, you think to yourself.

Next

"It's been days," Tayla rasps after you close the door behind you. The air in the converted shed is as putrid as always, but at least it looks like Sonoma built a proper cell since your last visit. "Other than the scientist and that computer nerd Kotori bringing me water and food, I thought you'd all forgotten about me."

You shake your head. "Not forgotten, just overwhelmed. There's been a lot going on, but I thought I should speak with you. I think it's time we put things right."

Tayla grunts. "After all this…you're actually asking me for help?" She tries to laugh but ends up coughing instead. "What kind of idiot do you think I am?"

"I think you fell for the HSM's lies about us and you want to make amends."

"I think you'll do anything to save yourself from this place. If you provide good information, perhaps that can be arranged."

"It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is that if you don't tell me what I need to know, you're in for some serious pain."

"Sonoma planned something much worse for you, but I convinced her to let me ask nicely first."

Next

"Thinly-veiled threats of violence," Tayla sniffs. "Disappointing, but about what I expected."

"We're doing what needs to be done," you growl. "Your kind have been slaughtering us. Hunting us everywhere we flee. If you have any humanity in there at all you'd think you want to make amends."

"Is that what you think?" Tayla asks, looking out between the bars of her cell with a curious expression twisting her face. "The amends I need to make are only to my species. For my failure and capture. You left me here to rot just like the others until I had something you needed. But I am curious. What bits of information are you looking for that are so important you'd twist my mind to uncover?"

"We've had several wolves go feral over the last few days and we believe that the HSM had something to do with it. As far as I can tell, it's in your best interests to keep us from randomly going homicidal."

Tayla wrinkles her nose in confusion. "That goes against everything your father stood for. He'd never purposefully drive a whole pack feral. Most of his life he searched for a cure, and failing that, he authorized extermination." Her eyes glaze over with a hint of residual zealotry. "Why do you think it was the HSM that did it? How would they even get it done?"

"We were attacked by the HSM the other night. Could they have poisoned our food supply?"

"Could his scientists have gone rogue? Tampered with Williams's anti-werewolf drugs to make us go crazy?"

"It can't be a coincidence that this started happening right around the time of the HSM attack. You have to know something!"

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