Music resided in my heart, the song of my pack, comforting me. For the first time since I'd recovered, I was able to sleep without the terror of watching the deaths of those I cared for. There was a knock on my open door, as I'd adopted the custom of leaving my cell open.

I was already awake, basking in the serenity that I'd thought I would never know again. I rolled over and looked and saw one of the soldiers was there. I sat up.

"Atanarjuat, I just wanted to say good morning to you. You missed breakfast, so I came to see how you are doing." He stooped and entered, I noted he was pretty tall, about six and a half feet. He looked around and saw where Bruna had put up a poster of a verdant landscape. He gestured at it and said: "Major Hazel's artwork. She's pretty good. She copies postcards to make these."

"Bruna?" I hadn't heard anyone call her Major Hazel.

"Only you call her that. It's understandable. It would be strange if you referred to her by her rank, don't you think?"

"I'm a soldier aren't I? Shouldn't I address my commanding officer with the respect and honor that is due?" I asked him.

"Not you, not with her. You know that. Don't be coy." He flashed his teeth in a smile, and I could sense the wolf in him. I just sat and stared at him, my hair rising up. I wasn't sure he had entirely friendly intentions. His smile had told me something, some instinct telling me to watch out. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, having no need to dominate the conversation.

"Did you come here to discuss Bruna with me? Have I gotten in your way?" I eventually asked, refusing to be intimidated or to feel defensive about my relationship with her. He nodded but didn't say anything. "I realize there aren't very many women down here, but she has plenty of men to choose from if she that's what she wants to do."

"I know. I meant to congratulate you. I apologize for expressing envy instead. It just seems unfair, like you don't appreciate her." He sat in Bruna's chair, and he was still taller than me as I sat across from him on my bed.

"Does she seem unhappy?" I asked.

"Not really."

"Then perhaps you should just let it be. I promise you, I don't take her friendship for granted. Without her I would still be buried alive down here, consumed by nightmares. I won't ever forget that."

"We would have hazed you in if she hadn't kept you all to herself." He showed me his teeth again, his smile looking more threatening than friendly.

"I haven't caught your name." I told him.

"Dale Slate, Corporal. Just call me Slate. You already know how names are among us Type Three. We'd sooner forget them." Slate said.

I got up and started getting dressed. "When's lunch?"

"Pretty soon. I wasn't gonna let you skip chow twice." Slate assured me.

We started walking together towards the mess. I asked Slate if anyone else had done the name ceremony. "No, but we've always sang for new pack members. Lieutenant Colonel Rose always gathers us and gives a big speech. The rest of us just use our surnames, we own our pain."

"I lost everyone." I told Slate. "I am haunted by their ghosts, and when I slept, I saw how each of them died, one by one."

"Brother, we've all lost someone." Slate stopped for a moment and I turned and saw his expression had changed. He looked conflicted, like he needed to tell me who he lost, but it was too painful to revisit.

"I'm sorry, Slate. I didn't mean to..." I tried apologizing but that made him angry.

"Don't apologize to me. Never apologize to me. You are nothing like me." Slate growled. I wanted to apologize for apologizing, but I kept my mouth shut. He stood there and told me his story, and as he spoke his anger dimmed, and I could see all his rage that had boiled up was something that he internalized:

"I was bitten. One night a dog came running up to me while I was getting ready to go home. I couldn't escape, there was nowhere to run, and my car was across the parking lot. It wasn't a dog, I found out. I called the police but by then they had already cornered it. After it had bitten me, it had gone into a backyard and killed an actual dog. The owner had shot it multiple times and called the police. I found out they shot it many times before it finally died. Then the body was incinerated at the animal control facility. I was under the radar of Wolf Hunt, who have a system to listen for reports of animal attacks involving human deaths. Since I was only bitten, and there was no weird coroners' report, nobody noticed."

"So you went home." I nodded. I felt a coldness in me, a chill in my spine. I didn't want to hear the rest. Slate continued:

"On the night before the full moon, I was taking out the trash. As I opened the back door, the moonlight caught me, burning me as it came out from behind the clouds. Did you know moonlight has a unique light spectrum?"

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"Your family?" I asked. Slate just nodded and stood there with his eyes downcast, and an excruciating look on his face. "What were they like?"

Slate's eyes watered and he leaned on me, taking a hug from me. I held him for a moment, and he started to sob. I wondered how long he had gone without thinking about them. Would I do what he had done? Would I forget the people I loved, so that I wouldn't have to feel the pain of remembering what happened to them?

"I can't remember." Slate's voice was high and full of pain. "I'm so sorry."

"It wasn't you. You loved them dearly. They wouldn't want you to be in pain. They would be proud of how you turned this awfulness around. How you've suffered in the name of justice, you're atoning for their loss." I reminded Slate.

"Thank you." Slate let go of me and wiped his tears. "I think I am going to skip lunch. Go on without me. I need some time alone. I will see you later, okay?"

"Yeah, it's okay." I nodded. I watched him go and then I went to go get something to eat.

As I walked alone I realized there were probably only a few days left until the full moon. I started wondering what would happen. Did the whole base go on lockdown with all the lycans confined tro their quarters? I almost forgot my curiosity as I entered the hall of the mess.

Most of the pack was there at chow time. I scraped the last of something that smelled really good onto a heap on my tray. It was all just different colored mush, but the day's special was very popular, everyone had dug in and after I took the last of it there was none left. I took my tray and sat next to Bruna.

"Missed you this morning, Atanarjuat ." Bruna nudged me. "How'd you sleep?"

"I slept very well. I don't know how to thank you." I took a deep breath, the smell of the gathered pack was comforting.

"Seeing you rested and happy, sitting beside me, it is thanks enough." Bruna tapped the table lightly. "I was hoping you'd come to play basketball with me. Please?"

"I don't know how to play basketball." I admitted, feeling a little embarrassed about it.

"Cool." Bruna giggled. "That means I get to teach it to you. You'll come to play with me, right?"

"Yes, I suppose." I agreed.

"They're gonna have a whole team someday, just watch." Someone commented. I looked around but couldn't pick out who had said that. I shrugged and noticed Bruna had a wry smile, having heard it too.

"I've got a few questions." I voiced my curiosity.

"About me?" Bruna asked. I hesitated to say no and thought for a second:

"I do have questions about you. But right now, I'm more concerned with what happens."

"Oh, that." Bruna nodded a little. "Not table talk. You understand."

"It's on my mind." I left it alone, intent on bringing it up after chow. Bruna took me to the balcony overlooking King David's Cave and said:

"Alright my friend, let's get you educated." Bruna sounded like she was ready to answer my questions.

"How long till it happens?" I must have sounded worried. Bruna laughed and patted my back:

"There's no moon down here. It won't happen." Bruna controlled her mirth and said: "Sorry. I guess I'm not ready for this."

"How can you find this funny?" I was annoyed.

"It's not me, it's you." Bruna leveled her smile. "You've never transformed, and you probably never will. We've never gotten deployed. We might never get sent out."

"Never? Probably?" I sighed in relief. After that, I asked my questions with less anxiety: "Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, it hurts. Feels like your bones are breaking, your muscles tearing, cramping, a migraine, and your lungs burn inside you. Hurts like hell. With Type Three it is triggered by moonlight. The more intense the light is, the harder it is to resist. If you were exposed to the light of the full moon directly it would trigger the change, you could never resist it. Looking at a crescent moon through a window, you could keep yourself from transforming." Bruna spoke like she was educating me and then she added in a different tone: "Or you could just let go, give in, let it happen."

"So, I can let myself change in any moonlight?" I asked.

"You wouldn't be able to. Hurts too much."

"And you? You're Type One, what does that mean?" I asked her.

"I was always a lycan." Bruna said quietly and personally. Then she shook her head slightly and changed what she was saying, "Type One have at least one lycan parent. There are different degrees such as a half lycan, a full lycan, and a lycan from a very long bloodline, such as the lieutenant colonel. Type One can resist the change, even in the light of a full moon. We can also change at will. It still hurts, but we can push through it if we want to."

"If you want to?" I asked, confused.

"Type One retains a lot of self-control in wolf shape. In exchange, the wolf has a lot of control when we are in human form. In a way, we are always the wolf and the human simultaneously." Bruna sounded like she was avoiding something. I sensed there was something wrong with the conversation and chose to ask:

"What is your story?"

"Please don't compel me Atanarjuat. I don't want you to know what I did." Bruna's voice wavered. "I am sorry, I wish I had chosen another path. I am here to atone for what I did."

"You've never lost anyone. So that means whatever made you angry, was something that happened to you." I sensed she did want to tell me; she just didn't want me to reject her again.

"Yes. Something happened to me. Afterward, I went crazy, and I made myself change. Then I hunted down the men who had hurt me. I knew what I was doing, and I did it anyway." Bruna sounded like she deeply regretted what she had done. "Tod found me and brought me here. I was the first to join his pack."

"The lieutenant colonel?" I asked. "What about your family?"

"I was always an orphan. This is my whole world, my whole life. I was lonely before you arrived, the whole pack doesn't make me feel like just you do. With you, it feels like I am home." Bruna's voice gave away how insecure she was feeling, after revealing her past to me.

"I don't hold it against you. We're still friends." I reassured her.

Bruna exhaled. "That means a lot to me. I wish I knew you felt the same way I do."

"I feel loyal and grateful to you." I told her.

"There's one more kind of lycan." Bruna changed the subject back to the one at hand.

"Type Two? Yeah, what is that?" I asked.

"Type Two independently change, usually on purpose. They use magical means such as lapping water from the pawprints that wolves have left in the mud, tying on a cursed wolfskin belt or becoming possessed by a wolf demon. There could be more ways, but Type Two is unpredictable. Nobody here is Type Two." Bruna concluded. "All of you are Type Three."

"You mentioned collars?" I reminded her. "What are those?"

"Devices we'll all wear outside. They're so we can be tracked, controlled or put down."

"Sounds safe." I nodded. "Can't wait to get fitted for one."

Bruna let herself laugh.

"Can we go play now? Nobody will shoot hoops with me. We've got a team to start, remember?" Bruna elbowed me gently.

"Yeah." I laughed. "Let's start with me making a basket. Hopefully before we get called out on a suicide mission with explosive dog collars on."

We went to the gym and played our first game of basketball. I lost.