Running from Monday

by Lea Sims

  “Because it would draw too much attention to the property,” Emma retorted emphatically. “The last thing we need is people showing up at the gate wanting to get in for a tour or to take pictures or whatever. That’s not what we’re here for. This place is called a sanctuary for a reason. By definition, a sanctuary is a safe haven—somewhere you know you’re safe, cared for, and able to heal.”

  “So the goal would be to draw attention to the operation but not to the property,” Delaney said, more as a statement than a question.

  “Well…yes, actually. I guess it is,” John said in surprise. Then he sighed and shrugged. “The challenge is that fundraising for something like this requires tugging on the heart strings a bit. People really need to see the animals and understand their needs to have a heart for helping them.”

  “That’s what videos are for, John,” said Emma in exasperation. They’d been over this a thousand times. Emma was a caretaker, and her primary concern was always for her dogs. John understood they were running a business, and businesses needed capital.

  “A video is not the same, woman! They are so one-dimensional. They don’t really give you the sense of how incredible these animals are, and they can’t really display the magnitude of this facility and what our needs really are.” He then turned to Delaney and raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Drew says you do something with marketing, right, Delaney?”

  She blinked in surprise, not expecting the question, but her mind quickly shifted gears. “Actually, I’m a designer and I work in digital media. But a lot of what we create is used for marketing purposes, yes.”

  Emma harrumphed. “See? What did I tell you? Digital media. That’s videos, John.”

  Delaney grinned at the serve and volley going on between the couple. “Well digital media is more than videos, though we do create quite a lot of those. And if they’re done right, they can be very effective.” At John’s crestfallen look, Delaney hastened to add, “But I do think the closer you can get to providing people a real experience with these animals, the more successful you will be in generating interest and investment in the program.”

  “How would you do that, Delaney?” Drew asked her, glad that John had asked her about her expertise. He hadn’t thought of talking to her about marketing. He’d actually forgotten that’s what she did for a living.

  Delaney stepped out of the UTV and stood in front of the enclosure where they had parked. There was a pack of four wolves in that habitat, and at the moment, three of them were flopped over on their sides sleeping under the tree in the nearest corner of the enclosure. There were no words to describe what she had experienced in the last hour. Her heart was deeply stirred by these animals. The stories of their abandonment, rescue and rehabilitation had been powerful, and it was nothing short of amazing what John, Emma and the staff were doing to care for them. She’d pull out her checkbook right now if she had one, and she’d already decided before even knowing their needs that she wanted to contribute to their efforts once she got back to New York. She turned back to face them.

  “If you could give more people the tour you gave me today, you’d have no problem generating contributors. The up-close experience is very compelling. But I could see how frequent tours would be disruptive here.”

  “That’s the dilemma, isn’t it? How can you give someone an up-close experience with the wolves without actually bringing them here?” Drew prompted again.

  Delaney’s eyebrows suddenly shot up and her eyes flared, a smile slowly creeping across her face then widening into a huge grin. She chuckled and pulled out her cell phone, punched a number from speed dial and put the phone on speaker, while the three in front of her looked back and forth at each other in confusion. Delaney held up a finger telling them to “hold on” while she waited for the person on the other end to answer. After a few seconds, a male voice picked up and said, “Blue Muse Creative. This is Devin.”

  “Hey, Badger, it’s Delaney.”

  “A man might befriend a wolf, even break a wolf,

  but no man could truly tame a wolf.”

  —George R.R. Martin

  Ten minutes later, Delaney hung up and looked at John, Emma, and Drew with enthusiasm. “Well? What do you think?”

  Emma looked at John, who was still looking rather dazed, and said hesitantly, “I’m still not sure how this would work. I mean, isn’t virtual reality some kind of video gaming thing?”

  “The earliest applications of the technology were created for gaming, yes,” Delaney agreed, “but it’s being used to put people in immersive experiences for all kinds of things now, especially education. There’s a museum in Nashville that has a VR experience where kids can step into the lost world of dinosaurs and another one where they can ‘walk’ through the pyramids of ancient Egypt. It’s very cool.”

  Drew, who thought the idea was amazing, chimed in to say, “I can just see people putting those goggles on at our fundraising dinner and taking a virtual tour of our habitats. That takes video to a whole new interactive level. It’s brilliant, Delaney. Seriously brilliant.” His voice was full of frank admiration, and it normally would have made Delaney blush, but her cheeks were already flushed from the creative energy of a great idea.

  “Not just for a fundraising dinner, Drew. You’re only doing those once a year or so. You could partner with area vets and animal clinics to put a VR station in their waiting rooms or host awareness events with this technology at pet supply stores or special events. Heck, you could even pitch the idea to NC State…they’re the Wolfpack, right? …to create a fan experience with this tech to raise awareness and donations. There are so many ways to market this narrative.” Her brain had clicked into marketing mode.

  “How is it made? And surely developing something like that has to cost a ton of money,” John frowned, still not quite sure how one would even go about paying for and building that kind of resource.

  “There are companies who handle everything from storyboarding the experience to filming everything and developing the application. They use special cameras and drones to build a library of 360-degree views. Then they stitch them all together to create the experience and build it into an app that can run from a device.” Delaney knew she was probably overwhelming them with this information, but her creative wheels were turning. Badger was going to talk to the crew at Escape Artist Media to figure out what it would cost. She also felt pretty certain they could round up some sponsorships, but she didn’t want to get John and Emma’s hopes up until she knew for sure, so she slowed it all down and said simply, “I think there are ways we could get the project funded, John. I’ve got Badg—I mean Devin—checking on it for us.”

  Emma was eyeing her shrewdly. She’d just been given a glimpse into the young woman standing in front of her, and she no longer questioned why Drew might be taken with her. Just a few minutes before, she had witnessed a spark of inspiration ignite Delaney’s face and watched as an idea took shape in the girl’s mind. But what impressed Emma the most was the conversation she’d listened to between Delaney and her team member Devin on the phone. Her tone, her words and explanations, even the directions she gave to Devin—all marked her as a warm and competent leader. She was articulate, enthusiastic and good-hearted to the people who worked for her. But mostly, the girl was smart…really smart. And Emma was always impressed by smart women. There weren’t enough of them running the world, as far as she was concerned.

  “We appreciate your enthusiasm for the idea, Delaney,” Emma replied, nodding at John. “I think we’ll need more information so we can understand it, but it sounds like it could be a big help to us. Let us know what Devin finds out. In the meantime, would you like to come back to the house for lunch? I think Shelby is making tacos.”

  Drew responded first. “Actually, Emma, I want to take Delaney to meet Sasha.”

  “Who’s Sasha?” asked Delaney curiously, thinking Sasha was a staff member. />
  “Sasha is Drew’s project,” John said, casting an appreciative glance at Drew. “She’s a gorgeous wolf we took from a rescue shelter in Texas, where she was causing the staff a lot of problems and they were actually considering putting her down. She had been taken by law enforcement from a man who had been purchasing wolf dogs off the Internet from exotic animal dealers. He had five of them living with him when a neighbor complained about the howling that was coming from his house. When animal control showed up to investigate, they found all five wolves locked inside in a small spare bedroom while the guy was at work.”

  “The animals had been thrown together without any pack assimilation,” Emma continued grimly. “And several of them, including Sasha, had injuries from fighting each other in that small space. All of them were neglected and under-fed, and they all had injuries that had not been tended to. Sasha was the hardest to extract. She had an abscessed bite wound on her hind quarters, and she bared her teeth and tried to bite anyone who came close to her. They ended up having to tranquilize her to take her out. The shelter was able to get all the wolves transferred out to sanctuaries but they were having a really hard time placing Sasha, so they called us. We agreed to take her. And Drew has really been the one looking out for her. She’s taken a liking to Drew.” She patted Drew on the back approvingly.

  Delaney looked stricken. “How long has she been here?”

  “Three months,” Drew answered. “She has an enclosure all to herself. She’s the one you saw when we pulled up to the house, Delaney.”

  Delaney recalled the breathtaking moment she had seen the “dog” along the fence line near the entrance drive. Sasha was the gorgeous red and gray wolf who had sat atop the wooden platform in her enclosure and stared at them unblinkingly as they pulled up in the car. The thought of that beautiful animal being locked in a small room in someone’s house, fighting it out with a pack of strangers brought tears to Delaney’s eyes. She looked at Drew and asked, “Is she rehabilitating well here?”

  “Let’s drive around and see her, and I’ll tell you about her progress,” Drew suggested. “Can we take the Ranger, John?”

  “Sure,” John said readily, stepping out of the UTV. “I’m going up to the house for lunch. See you guys in a few?”

  “Absolutely,” Drew said. “We’ll run around and visit Sasha and then head back for lunch. I know Delaney will want to check on Rogue.” Drew and Delaney climbed back into the UTV and set out for Sasha’s enclosure.

  As they drove along the maze of dirt paths through the enclosure areas, there was a point where a single path led away from those habitats and into a wooded area. Drew turned down that path and headed into the thicket of tall pines. “Sasha is in an enclosure area that we keep out a little ways, on the east side of the property, separated from the rest of the habitats. It is typically used to house a new wolf before attempting to introduce the animal to a new pack, which is the hardest part of rehabilitating them.”

  “How so?”

  “Wolves have extremely hierarchical pack instincts and very specific rules for pack order and behavior. With the exception of a competitive alpha male or an omega submissive, who will often be ousted by their pack and have to find another, most wolves don’t leave their packs. They have a very strong family structure. One of the biggest problems with people trying to domesticate them, even wolf-dog hybrids, is that they don’t understand how traumatizing it is to the wolf to be taken from their pack and then kept in isolation as a single pet or thrown into another pack in the wrong way.”

  They came to a clearing in the trees and a large fenced habitat. Like the others Delaney had been introduced to that day, the enclosure was spacious, though this one was smaller than the others, probably less than 5,000 square feet. Each habitat had a connected series of wooden platforms at various heights for the animals to climb, with a large central “pool house” platform in the middle of the enclosure. The platform was elevated a few feet off the ground and sat under a tin-covered roof. A large galvanized steel pool sat in the middle of the platform, filled with water for the wolves to swim, cool off, and play. The space under the pool deck served as a den and had been dug out to be partially underground.

  When they drove up to the enclosure, a fluffy head suddenly peered out of the den space under the pool deck. When Sasha saw Drew climbing out of the Ranger, she slipped out of the den and walked slowly to the fence, with her ears forward. Delaney got her first good look at the wolf she had glimpsed from far off earlier in the day. “Wow, Drew, she’s gorgeous,” Delaney breathed in admiration.

  Sasha was an incredible mix of red, gray, black and white, with prominent red markings covering her nose, wrapping her eyes and outlining her ears, though the prominent color of her ears and back were charcoal. She had the kind of thick, rich-hued fur you wanted to bury your face in. Her eyes were alert and assessing, and at the moment, she had eyes only for Drew.

  They went to stand a few feet from the fence, and while Drew stood, Delaney lowered herself to one knee. Sasha’s head turned to look at Delaney for just a moment, then swiveled back to stare at Drew. “Good morning, gorgeous,” Drew said to Sasha in a clear, even voice. Then he lowered his voice softly and continued to talk to Delaney, though he did not take his eyes off Sasha.

  “There were two females in the group that were rescued, and we’re not sure what had transpired with them as a pack. Sasha exhibits a lot of behaviors that suggest she’s an alpha female, so we think she may have been fighting to push the other female out, but of course when a group like that is confined in a small space, there is no way to push a competitor out, as they would in the wild. It raises the anxiety level of the whole pack and gets worse if there is no outlet. In addition, several of the animals, including Sasha, had contusions and injuries that suggest they had been struck with something like a belt or leather strap, so we think there was also a lot of abuse on the part of the owner. He probably thought he was trying to keep them all in line, but again, he was clueless about what he was dealing with. If the abused wolf is an alpha or a beta, it will get aggressive and combative. If it’s a submissive, it will hunker down and take the abuse, but you can push even an omega dog too far. Wolves don’t take too kindly to being abused.”

  “Neither do humans,” Delaney whispered, and Drew turned his head slightly to look down at her, his heart constricting at her words. His conversation with Claire had been weighing on him since he’d left her house the night before. He had debated heavily whether to step back from the situation and put some distance between himself and Delaney. The desire to do so had nothing to do with being repelled by what he’d learned and everything to do with knowing that they were in very different places spiritually. The closer he got to her, the more impressed by and attracted to her he was, but getting closer had also meant learning her story. She needed healing and to find her way to back to God. Drew wanted very much to be a help, not an obstacle, to that outcome. He decided to bring Delaney to see Sasha for just this reason, with the hope that hearing Sasha’s story would somehow help Delaney process her own.

  Help me, Lord, he prayed in that moment. Help me to be sensitive to her story. Give me the words to convey your heart. And most of all, help me get out of your way. I want her to see and hear you clearly.

  “I believe that all abused animals can be rehabilitated,” Drew responded, pretending not to hear her. “Healing is a process.”

  Healing. The word gave Delaney pause. The idea of emotional healing had always seemed very abstract to her. She understood treating a physical wound. She understood being able to heal the body, but she’d never understood how you could truly heal the mind. How can you surgically excise a memory? Or mend the thousand little shrapnel wounds to someone’s thinking that are inflicted by the explosive bomb of abuse? What’s done can never be undone, and what’s stolen can never be returned. How can you give someone back the innocence of their childhood, return something as sacr
ed as their virginity, or rebuild their faith in humanity? You could medicate emotional pain, of course, or drown it in a bottle of Jack Daniels, but medicating pain wasn’t the same thing as healing it.

  “How do you heal an animal’s mind, Drew?” She asked tentatively. “How do you help Sasha get over her abuse?”

  “By loving her back into wholeness,” Drew said, smiling tenderly at Sasha and resisting every urge in his body to look down at Delaney as he spoke those words, “which starts with getting her to safety, giving her the resources for her wounds to heal, and being respectful of her story while she figures out that she’s no longer in danger.”

  The hairs on Delaney’s arms stood on end, and she shivered as though something had just passed through her. His words were infused with light and almost visible in the air that hovered between them. For a few moments, a surreal stillness fell over the three of them, and none of them moved, including Sasha, who continued to sit on her haunches with her ears alert and eyes fastened on Drew.

  Drew took a few careful steps forward until he was at the fence and then dropped down into a squat. Sasha shifted slightly on her front paws but stayed where she was. “When Sasha arrived at the shelter in Texas, she was heavily sedated and in pretty bad shape. The abscess on her backside was very infected, and she had other scrapes and abrasions that needed attention. Treating her injuries in that first week or two was a nightmare. When she would awaken from sedation, she was extremely aggressive toward anyone who would go near her, thrashing around and baring her teeth. It was why the shelter wanted to put her down. She wouldn’t let anyone get near her because she didn’t understand they were trying to help her.