Chapter 4-7

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After yesterday's fake-out visit to the pharmaceutical research lab, I was less nervous when Wilms drove me, Rose, Elena, and Meredith there. After some teary-eyed and lingering kisses goodbye between my friends with actual mates, Cole and Idris left with Raina, Tobias, and a few other Western pack members for the North border.

Based on the amount of food and supplies they took with them, they expected to be up there at least a week. With a weak wave, Elena sniffed and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. Another sniffle showed Rose's eyes were also glossed over, the sight of which pinched my heart.

"Let's go," Meredith grumbled behind us.

The hospital was a rectangular glass-faced building with a cement foundation base and an overhead metal awning at the entrance. The cylindrical-shaped research lab had a similar glass and cement-wall structure that was attached to the hospital by a glassed-in walkway.

Unlike yesterday, Wilms pulled up in front of the hospital and we all piled out. Meredith pulled a lanyard with a plastic card attached out of her coat pocket and handed it to me, which I slipped over my head and let hang over my chest.

"I've never gone this way," Rose whispered to me as we headed left from the reception desk. With Meredith as our escort, we needed no check in process other than a polite smile and nod from the security desk, then stepped into a metal-encased elevator.

"Level two. We need five." Meredith nodded at Elena, who punched that floor button then Level five.

'Link me if you need anything.' Elena gave me a wistful smile as the doors opened for Level two. To avoid extra attention from Meredith, who hadn't said two words to me at last night's dinner and this morning's breakfast, I nodded and returned Elena's smile.

"You too." Meredith narrowed her eyes at Rose, who stayed next to me. "Dr. Edwards is expecting you."

"Oh, I - well, you see..." Rose fumbled over her words. "Dr. Edwards told me to meet with the pharma manufacturing factory, so I can see how the mass production of the vaccinations happens. He added the clearance level onto my hospital ID."

"The manufacturing arm is currently in hold status." Meredith sounded as suspicious as her frowning expression looked. "So nothing is being made right now."

A quick look from Rose's hazel eyes was all I needed to know that she'd gotten the extra clearance at my request, so I jumped in with, "So, there's nothing proprietary being made, right? I'd like to see it too, if that's okay. Even non-moving machines and empty boxes."

"Fine," Meredith sighed and leaned against the elevator wall. The rest of the ride passed quickly and silently through a few soft lurches of the elevator.

Once the doors opened on level five, Rose and I trailed behind Meredith's heel clicks. Our access cards cleared us past the doors, then we walked over the glass walkway, over the access road and surrounding green areas, until we reached another security desk, where two uniformed guards were stationed outside two solid metal doors. After another scan of our badges, the doors parted and revealed an intersecting corridor full of white-coated activity.

To me at least, the Western territory encompassed two separate worlds, each of which segregated different society levels within the same pack. The gun range and silver mines were small, dirty, and grimy spaces for workers. Primarily males worked those blue-collared jobs.

I wasn't sure what I expected from the pharmaceutical company and research lab, but more than half the lab-coated workers were females. They all were literal white-collared workers in their pristine lab coats.

No one discriminated in their curious stares.

Guess that's what Elena meant by bimodal? Doesn't seem cohesive.

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