Chapter 78: The Researcher's Defense

Felix Voss refused a plea deal.

He wanted trial.

Of course he did.

Men who believed they were misunderstood geniuses rarely accepted quiet consequences.

His defense was simple.

He claimed his research served public health.

Most early samples had been anonymized.

Later monitoring, he argued, used legally purchased commercial datasets.

He had never physically forced me to lose weight.

Never injected me.

Never kidnapped me.

Therefore, according to him, no meaningful harm occurred.

Evelyn hated the argument.

Rhea hated it more.

I hated how reasonable it sounded if you removed the person from the story.

At trial, Felix's attorney displayed graphs.

My weight trajectory.

Shift performance.

Hormone levels.

Training records.

My life turned into lines.

The attorney asked Felix:

"Did you ever instruct Nessa Arden to starve herself?"

"No."

"Did you ever contact her before adulthood?"

"No."

"Did you alter her food?"

"No."

"Then what exactly did you do?"

"I observed."

The word echoed.

Observed.

As though observation couldn't violate.

The prosecutor asked whether he accessed private records after my identity became known.

"Yes."

"With permission?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Scientific necessity."

"Whose necessity?"

Felix paused.

The prosecutor continued.

"Yours?"

That landed.

Several other subjects testified.

One man had undergone massive muscle gain after recovering from illness.

Felix tracked him for seven years.

A woman lost weight after pregnancy.

Tracked.

Another wolf gained significant weight after an injury and later returned to training.

Tracked.

Different bodies.

Same entitlement.

One subject, Daniel Cho, said:

"I would've participated if he'd asked."

The courtroom went quiet.

"That's what makes me angry. He didn't even give me the chance to say yes."

Exactly.

When I testified, Felix watched me with almost paternal pride.

It made my skin crawl.

His attorney approached.

"Alpha Nessa, you have publicly discussed your weight transformation many times."

"Yes."

"You've posted photographs."

"Yes."

"You've described training."

"Yes."

"So this information is not private."

"Some isn't."

"Isn't it true your transformation contributed to your public platform?"

"Yes."

"And your improved physical performance contributed to becoming Alpha?"

"No."

He paused.

"Your current athletic ability—"

"Helps me do my job."

"So physical transformation benefited you."

"Parts of it did."

He smiled slightly.

He thought he had me.

I continued.

"That doesn't give Felix ownership of the process."

The attorney changed direction.

"Dr. Voss argues his findings could help wolves safely undergo major weight changes."

"Then he should conduct consensual research."

"What if asking changes behavior and ruins observational validity?"

I stared at him.

"Then maybe some research is harder to do ethically."

Silence.

"Harder isn't permission to ignore people."

Felix's expression finally changed.

After testimony, I felt exhausted.

Rowan met me outside.

"You did well."

"I hate that phrase after court."

"Want fries?"

"Yes."

We ate in the car.

Supreme Alpha.

Alpha Lunaris.

Greasy fries.

Perfect.

The verdict came five days later.

Felix was convicted on unlawful medical data access, research misconduct, conspiracy to violate protected health systems, and several charges tied to the synthetic scent intrusion.

Not every charge held.

Some older actions fell into legal gaps.

That frustrated people.

It frustrated me too.

But the case produced something larger.

The Council passed the Individual Research Rights Act.

Medical data could not be used for identifiable longitudinal research without explicit consent.

Pack rank did not create an exception.

Public figures did not lose medical privacy.

Withdrawal rights were mandatory.

Independent ethics review became law.

Felix received a long sentence and permanent loss of research credentials.

As he left court, reporters shouted questions.

One asked me whether justice had been served.

I thought about it.

"Partly."

They looked surprised.

"Why partly?"

"Because law can punish what happened."

I looked toward the courthouse.

"It can't give anyone back the years they didn't know they were being watched."

That night, I took the old photograph from my office shelf.

I looked at seventeen-year-old me.

Felix had observed her.

Knox had judged her.

Strangers had mocked her.

I had punished her.

Too many people had treated her body like public information.

I touched the frame.

"You're mine."

Not ownership.

Belonging.

My history belonged to me.

Finally.

Felix appealed the verdict, as everyone expected. I did not follow every filing. Lawyers could handle it. That decision was another kind of recovery. For months, every threat had demanded my direct attention because survival depended on it. Now institutions existed that could work without me standing over them. I could delegate. I could attend a Pack school opening while attorneys argued somewhere else. The world did not collapse because I chose an ordinary afternoon over watching someone who had violated my privacy.

Later, I wrote the day's lesson in my private Alpha journal. I kept the uncertain parts instead of polishing them away. I wanted future me to remember that good decisions rarely arrived with perfect confidence, and that becoming stronger had never meant becoming incapable of fear. It meant learning what I would do while fear was present.

Later, I wrote the day's lesson in my private Alpha journal. I kept the uncertain parts instead of polishing them away. I wanted future me to remember that good decisions rarely arrived with perfect confidence, and that becoming stronger had never meant becoming incapable of fear. It meant learning what I would do while fear was present.