Thornhill (Hemlock) (15 page)

She so wasn’t going to like my next suggestion. “I think it should be you,” I said. “I think you should use the charm.”

She stared at me in disbelief. “Are you
insane
? After everything you heard me tell Hank? After everything we just talked about?”

I shot a quick glance at the sanatorium. It was still dark. “Hank wanted to get you out of here. He even made arrangements so you’d have someplace to go after leaving Colorado. That’s a lot more than he ever did for me. He cares about you—enough that you might actually stand a chance at changing his mind about helping the others.”

Eve crossed her arms. “And if he doesn’t listen to me?”

“Then you can try and get some of the other Eumon on your side. There must be some of them who’ve lost people they care about to this place. And you could try approaching the other packs.”

“While everyone else stays in here.” She scowled. “I use that charm for myself and it’s like I’m turning my back on them and running away.”

I shook my head. “Don’t think of it as running away from a problem. Think of it as running toward a solution.”

A look of complete disgust swept her face. “That is the lamest thing I have ever heard.”

“My cousin listens to old self-help books from the eighties on tape.”

She twisted the cuff on her wrist. “All right. Say I agree to use the charm. What happens next?”

A light flickered on in one of the sanatorium windows, and we eased farther back into the shadows.

“We convince Kyle and Jason that we need to break into the building tomorrow night, and we do it without telling them about the charms or Hank’s offer—otherwise, they’ll try to make sure I’m on that truck when it leaves.”

A knot formed in my chest.

Up until now, the biggest secret I had kept from Kyle was the time I had lied about scratching his car. He’d be furious if he knew what Eve and I were planning—so unbelievably furious—but he would eventually get over it. He’d have to.

There was no way I was using that charm for myself.

I
TURNED IN A SLOW CIRCLE ON A DESERTED STREET. THE
restaurant where I worked. The shops that had closed up after the attacks last year. Riverside Square in the distance and the tang of the water on the breeze.

Hemlock. Home.

But there wasn’t a single person or car in sight. It was like the Rapture had come for everyone and left me behind.

“No piles of clothes.” Amy stepped out from a doorway. She wore a white T-shirt that clung to her curves and made her skin look even paler than usual. “If it was the Rapture, there’d be little piles of clothes everywhere. I saw it on one of those
Predictions of the Bible
shows.” Her footsteps didn’t make a sound as she walked toward me. “Besides, you wouldn’t be the only one left.”

I swallowed. “Because I’m not that bad?”

“Because the rest of Hemlock isn’t that good.” She took my hand. Her skin was cold and clammy: a corpse’s grip I couldn’t break. “Come on,” she said, tugging me down the street and around the corner.

“This is all wrong,” I murmured. We were on Windsor even though Windsor wasn’t anywhere near the river. And instead of a paved street, the road was rough gravel.

When I realized where she was leading me, no amount of force could pull me forward. I stared at the alley where Ben had killed her. “I can’t go in there.”

“You can’t avoid it forever.”

I finally wrenched my hand free. “Why are you still here? Is it because I let Ben get away? Because I let them take Serena?”

Amy pulled a piece of bloodred candy out of her pocket and popped it into her mouth. “Maybe I’m here because I’m lonely and you’re my bestie, ever think of that?” She sighed and kicked at the stones beneath her feet. “You don’t really believe that stuff you told Eve, do you? About how maybe your father isn’t the person he used to be?”

I shrugged uncomfortably. I had always avoided talking about my pre-Hemlock life with Amy—at least as much as I could. There was no way she would have understood what it was like to grow up with nothing and to have a father who put you—your safety, your well-being, your everything—dead last.

There was something in Amy’s eyes that looked horribly close to pity. “You had it right the first time. People don’t change. They let you down and betray you. You can’t count on anyone.”

“I’m not counting on Hank.”

“I’m not talking about just Hank.”

A chill swept down my spine. “Whatever happens, I’ll deal with it.”

She shook her head. “You’re not ready for this. None of you are.”

She started to walk away.

“Amy, wait!” I ran after her and tripped. I fell to my hands and knees and the gravel dug into my palms. I looked down. What I had taken for ordinary rocks were shards of bone.

“Three blind mice,” whispered Amy. “See what happens when they run.” She glanced over her shoulder as someone called my name. “There’s never enough time,” she said sadly. As she turned back to me, bloodstains blossomed across her T-shirt and darkness swallowed the street.

“Mac!” someone hissed.

I opened my eyes, and Eve’s red hair and slight frame came into focus.

“Look,” she whispered, nodding across the room.

I rolled over as quietly as I could. It was sometime before dawn, but Eve and I weren’t the only ones who were awake. Halfway across the room, two guards quietly stripped one of the beds and emptied out a dresser. Moments later, a counselor led a new girl to the bunk.

“Orientation will be in an hour,” said the counselor, voice pitched low. “Try to get some rest until then.”

The mattress groaned as the girl sat on the edge. She didn’t lie down. I flashed back on what it had been like—the blood test, the haircut, the shower—and couldn’t blame her for not wanting to sleep.

“Whose bed was that?” I whispered, once the counselor and guards were gone. Eve and I had claimed the last two bunks when we arrived. Someone had gone missing in order for this girl to have a place.

“Shayla House. The one who tried to start something with me the other morning.”

The girl with the foxlike face. The one whose mother ruled one of the other Denver packs. My throat suddenly went dry. In Thornhill, who you were really didn’t matter.

The noonday sun filtered through the dirt-caked roof of the greenhouse. Dust motes hung in the air and left a dry taste on my tongue. The smell was just as bad as it had been yesterday—though continued exposure did seem to make it slightly more bearable. Emphasis on slightly.

I stared at Jason. “What do you mean Serena doesn’t exist?”

The four of us sat around a rickety table—Eve across from Jason, Kyle across from me—with stacks of guard rosters and delivery schedules spread out between us. While we had been stuck in class, Jason had spent the morning gathering information on anything and everything that might help us get Serena out of the sanatorium.

We had to assume she was there. Any alternative was unbearable.

Jason reached up to scratch his neck, but caught himself before he could chip away the makeup covering his tattoo. “The LSRB keeps tabs on every wolf in every camp. There are four Serenas in their database. None are at Thornhill and none are the right age. And that’s not all.” He glanced at Eve. “The Trackers told me they delivered fifty-seven wolves in September. The LSRB only has forty-three Thornhill registrations on record for that month.”

“They don’t want anyone—not even the LSRB—knowing how many heads are really coming in.” Kyle’s brown eyes darkened until they were almost black. “It makes Dex’s theory sound a lot less crazy.”

A chill swept through my body. “That means . . .” I had to swallow and start again. “That means anything could happen to Serena and there would be no record of it. Sinclair could do anything to her”—
could kill her
—“and no one but us would ever even know she had been here.”

“We’ll get her out,” promised Kyle. “We’ll get her out of the sanatorium before anything can happen to her.”

A flurry of “what-ifs” flew to my lips, but I held them back.
What if something’s already happened to her? What if we’re too late
?
What if Sinclair was telling the truth and Serena really is sick
? They were questions we didn’t have the answers to and asking them would only make us go in circles.

“We have to get her out tonight,” I said as I picked up the delivery schedule for the week. Thanks to Hank, I already knew what I would find, but I studied the sheet of paper for a moment before saying, “There’s a delivery coming in tonight at one thirty a.m. If we time it right, maybe we can get Serena on the truck and out of the camp before anyone realizes she’s missing.”

“Getting her on board and through the gates without anyone noticing . . .” Jason shook his head. “It’s a long shot.”

“You have a better idea?” asked Eve.

Jason scowled, but didn’t reply.

After a moment, Kyle reached for the schedule and broke the stalemate. “A long shot is better than nothing. The rest of us can try and come up with a plan for ourselves after Serena’s safe.”

He shot me a small, tight smile. Hank’s charm—tied to Amy’s bracelet and tucked under my wrist cuff—suddenly felt hot against my skin. I hated lying to Kyle and Jason, but I was too worried they’d insist I use the charm to get myself out—especially since a girl had gone missing from my dorm just hours ago.

I needed their help too badly to risk an argument. If I had to, I’d tell them the truth after we got Serena to the truck.

Jason flipped through papers until he found a blueprint. “The sanatorium had a psychiatric ward in the basement. When they renovated, they turned it into the detention block. Odds are, that’s where Serena will be. It’s the only part of the building—other than the offices—counselors don’t have access to.”

“Mental patients and werewolves in the cellar,” muttered Eve. “It’s almost a cliché.” She tucked her feet up underneath her and raised herself to a sort of crouch, perching on her stool like a crow on a wire.

“A very secure cliché,” said Jason. “The elevator goes down to the lower level, but you need a key to access that floor and Sinclair has the only copy. There is a stairwell, but it’s behind a door requiring a six-digit code that only the warden and the program coordinators have. Even guards need an escort to go in.”

My heart sank. The warden and program coordinators rarely ventured into the main part of the camp. And even if we could get to one of them, it wasn’t like they’d just give us the code.

There are always ways to make people talk
. My father’s voice seeped through my mind like a drop of ink spreading through a glass of water. I would do anything to get Serena and Kyle out of Thornhill; suddenly, though, anything was a frightening thought.

With a deep breath, I pushed Hank’s voice aside. My stomach rolled as the smell of decay tried to slither down my throat. I wondered how Kyle and Eve, with their werewolf-sharp noses, could stand to be in here. I was just a reg and it—
smell
.

“Sinclair’s hand cream!” The idea hit me so hard that I almost fell off my stool. “You said I smelled like lavender,” I said to Kyle. “That’s how we get the code!”

Eve and Jason stared at me blankly, but understanding flashed across Kyle’s face. “You want a werewolf to sniff out her hand lotion on the keys she’s pressing.”

“Would it work?”

He thought it over. “Maybe. That stuff does reek.”

Eve shook her head. “Even if you could pick out the numbers—and that’s a big if—six digits equal a lot of combinations. We’ll need time.” She glanced at Jason and her eyes narrowed. “Are you even listening?”

He obviously wasn’t. All of his attention was focused on the wall behind Kyle even though you could only make out the vague suggestions of shapes and colors through the grime on the glass.

I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong just as one of the shapes moved.

Kyle and Eve were through the door in an instant, Jason fast on their heels.

“Stop!” Jason’s voice boomed out as I crossed the threshold.

I rounded the corner of the greenhouse in time to see Kyle and Eve hit the ground. I caught a glimpse of a small black object in Jason’s hand: his HFD.

Twenty feet away, a boy in an olive uniform froze. He turned, eyes darting from Kyle to Eve.

Dex.

On his feet. Completely alert. Standing there as though the HFD didn’t have the slightest effect on him.

He stared at me in shock for a moment—the same shock, no doubt, that was on my own face—and then his gaze dropped back to Eve. The scars on his cheek twisted as he scowled. “Let them up. I won’t run.”

Jason hesitated.

I went to Kyle and crouched at his side. “Do what he says, Jason.”

“Mac . . .”

I glared at him over my shoulder. I couldn’t believe he had just used one of those things with Kyle and Eve in range. For a horrible second, Jason didn’t move. I held my breath, letting it out only when he finally slipped the remote back into his pocket.

Kyle recovered first. He eased me away, refusing my offer of help as he climbed to his feet.

I straightened and watched Dex help Eve up. “Why didn’t you go down?”

Dex raised an eyebrow. “I could ask you the same question, but I think I know the answer.” He nodded at my arm and I glanced down.

At some point, I had been less than careful and pushed up my sleeves. Derby’s cut was visible on my arm. Jagged and pink and new.

“You’re not past the incubation period.”

“She’s not infected,” corrected Eve as she slipped out from the support of Dex’s arm. “What did she mean you didn’t go down?”

Jason spoke before Dex could. “Is anyone else immune? Have any of the other flea—wolves figured it out?”

Kyle glanced at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Trackers developed the first HFDs four, maybe five years ago.” Though he spoke to Kyle, Jason’s gaze remained locked on Dex. “They don’t use them because wolves develop a tolerance and the amount of time it takes varies. A few wolves aren’t affected at all. Ever.”

Eve stared at Dex. “When did they stop affecting you?” There was a vague note of accusation in her voice, as though she were really asking why he hadn’t told her.

“About three weeks ago. After they took Corry but before I found the graveyard.” Dex paused and swallowed. “Do you know about the restricted zone in the woods?” Eve and I nodded and he kept going. “Until I saw that, I thought there was still a shot of finding Corry and getting out. I kept testing the HFDs by the fence, hoping I’d find one that didn’t work—not that I had a plan for getting over the fence. After a while, setting off the HFDs hurt less. Then it stopped hurting at all. I can still hear them, but it’s like my eardrums have adjusted to the sound.”

Jason scrubbed a hand over his face. “The Trackers don’t use them because they’re unpredictable—they’d rather stick with Tasers and guns. When they found out Sinclair had designed most of her security system around the things, they assumed she had found a way to perfect them.” He shook his head; he looked ill. “She hasn’t. She’s playing Russian roulette with the staff. Guards don’t have the devices and counselors have to fill out a report every time they use one. Everyone thinks it’s because Sinclair has a soft spot for the wolves, but she’s trying to keep them from getting exposed too often and building up a tolerance.”

There was an upturned, broken wheelbarrow a few feet away. Eve sat on it and twisted the cuff around her wrist. “It’s Pavlovian. They scare us to death in the first self-control class, probably figure we’ll go near the fence at least once on our own, and then rely on the memory of pain to keep us in check.”

“The counselors, the guards, hell, the lunch ladies, and the orderlies . . .” Jason ran a hand through his hair. “If they knew the risks they were taking . . .”

“The risks they’re taking?” I stared at him in disbelief. “Jason, all those people signed on to work at a rehabilitation camp.”

“That doesn’t make them bad.”

“It sure as hell doesn’t make them good.”

He tried to stare me down. It didn’t work.

“That’s why the Trackers got you in.” Kyle’s voice was sharp enough to draw blood. “They wouldn’t have done it unless they were getting something in return, and they would have wanted a hell of a lot more than just money. They thought Sinclair had figured out how to fix the HFDs and wanted you to get them one.”