Thornhill h-2

by Kathleen Peacock

  Easy.

  No problem at all.

  Definitely not any sort of suicide mission.

  The male wolf paused at the corner of the dorm. “Well?” he asked, shooting Eve an impatient look before rounding the building and disappearing from sight.

  Eve hesitated, then shrugged. “He’s right. No matter what’s going on, the others are counting on us to hit the vault.” She headed after him.

  I glanced at Jason. “We haven’t so much as seen a guard. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?”

  He scanned the area around the dorm and frowned. He didn’t tell me I was wrong. “C’mon,” he said, after a moment. “If something is going on, we should stick close to the wolves.”

  Knowing he was probably right and unsure what else we could do, I followed him around the building.

  Eve and the other wolf had already darted over an expanse of grass and were waiting in the shadowy gulf between two classrooms.

  No sooner had Jason and I taken a step toward them than a voice split the night. “Stay where you are!”

  I whirled. Two guards were racing toward us, their Tasers drawn.

  They slowed to a walk when they were still a few feet away. One pulled a radio from his belt. “We’ve got a couple more stragglers near the dorms.”

  Wherever Hank’s team was, it was safe to say they hadn’t taken out the communications system yet.

  I glanced over at the classrooms. Eve and the other wolf had disappeared. I couldn’t blame them. There wasn’t anything they could do. The guards had already radioed in. Knocking them out and running would just alert the rest of the camp to the fact that something was going on.

  Next to me, Jason kept his head down and his eyes on the ground, trying to give the guards as little opportunity to recognize him as possible.

  “Auditorium,” snapped the one with the radio. “Now.”

  I saw Jason’s fingers twitch out of the corner of my eye. I held my breath, praying he wouldn’t do something stupid like go for the gun at his back.

  I shouldn’t have worried.

  Jason was reckless, but smart. The guards hadn’t hurt or threatened us. He left the gun where it was and started walking.

  Stomach in knots, I fell into step next to him. First the trouble at the fence and now this—I fought back the thought that our plan had been cursed from the start.

  The guards walked behind us. Neither holstered their Taser.

  Why the auditorium? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to say or do anything that would make the guards suspicious.

  I tugged my sleeves down as far as they would go, making sure my wrists were completely covered. The last thing I needed was for either guard to realize I wasn’t wearing a wrist cuff.

  Amy’s bracelet, though hidden, was a reassuring weight. As long as you keep it on, I’ll know where you are. Hank’s words echoed back to me.

  The irony of counting on my father after warning Eve not to do the same was not lost on me.

  We rounded a bend in the path and the auditorium came into view.

  I stopped so suddenly that Jason’s shoulder collided with mine.

  I barely noticed. I was too busy trying to make sense of the scene in front of us.

  Large spotlights blazed on each corner of the roof; they flooded the immediate area with light, obliterating any shadows someone might use to hide—but that wasn’t the bad part.

  A circle of guards—what looked like almost every guard in Thornhill—surrounded the auditorium like a living net. They faced the building, their backs to the camp and their weapons drawn. A few held Tasers but most held guns.

  All of the air rushed out of my lungs with a single thought: Sinclair knows we’re here.

  I didn’t know how—maybe someone had gone to investigate the fence and slipped past Hank’s wolves—but why else would she gather every guard in one place?

  One of the men behind us cleared his throat as a guard with a shaved head and a ridiculously thick neck strode up the path. “These are the two we found near the dorms.”

  The bald guard turned his gaze on us. My heart thudded in my chest as I waited for him to realize we were part of the group who had infiltrated the camp. Any second, he would give the order for us to be dragged to the detention block in shackles.

  “Dorms?”

  “Seven and four,” I said, struggling to keep my voice blank.

  He glanced at the men behind us. “We’ve got reports of a few more kids hiding in that old greenhouse. A couple of guards are already on their way, but they could probably use some help.” He shifted his focus back to Jason and me. “You two, inside.”

  He didn’t know who we were. Something inside my chest unclenched a fraction of an inch. Even if they knew a group had breached the fence, they didn’t know we were part of it.

  Jason tugged on my hand, urging me forward.

  There were two guards covering the entrance to the auditorium. One stepped aside as we approached while the other pulled open the door.

  I slipped my hand out of Jason’s: If there was trouble, I wanted him to have both hands free for the gun.

  “Out of the frying pan,” I muttered.

  “And straight into hell,” he finished.

  The smell of sweat and an almost claustrophobic sense of mass hit me as I crossed the threshold. The number of wolves crammed inside the auditorium far exceeded the benches. Some sat in the aisles, others crouched between rows.

  I glanced to my left and right. There were five guards on either side of the door. Unlike the ones outside, their weapons were still holstered—at least for now. Maybe they were worried about tipping a room full of anxious wolves from fear to panic.

  And the wolves were frightened. It showed in the eyes of the ones who watched the guards and in the small noises some of them made as they cried. It was in the way most of them held themselves too still—as though they expected someone to strike or shoot them at any moment.

  They’re too scared to do anything; they’re the perfect hostages. The thought was ice water dripping down my spine. What if Sinclair had been told about the planned breakout? Maybe there was a mole in Hank’s pack who had tipped her off. Maybe she had gathered the wolves as collateral.

  My eyes slid to the front of the room. The same black-and-white posters covered the wall—CONTROL OVER ANGER, CONSTRAINT IS FREEDOM, YOUR DISEASE IS NOT A WEAPON—but the podium and folding chairs had been replaced by a small platform that looked as though it had been hastily nailed together. On it stood two program coordinators and the warden, their backs to the assembly as they discussed something in low tones.

  Jason clamped his hand around my arm. “Don’t do anything,” he hissed as he pulled me toward the nearest aisle.

  “Why?” I asked as I sank to the floor next to him. “What would I do?” As much as I wanted to strangle Sinclair, it wasn’t like I was going to rush the stage. Not with ten guards in the room and more waiting outside.

  Jason didn’t answer and he didn’t relax his hold on my arm; if anything, he tightened his grip.

  Two women joined the group onstage. One was Langley, the other was the woman who had injected Serena with some unknown drug or poison in the videos. She adjusted her glasses and gave the crowd of wolves a nervous glance.

  An echo of Serena’s voice—shaking as she begged them to stop—filled my head. I thought of the gun hidden at Jason’s back as a wave of anger swelled in my chest, so thick and black that I practically choked on it.

  Jason swore under his breath as the group moved to the edge of the dais. Suddenly, I knew why he was gripping my arm, what he must have glimpsed when we first entered the auditorium. It wasn’t Sinclair or even the women who had tortured Serena.

  I started to rise, and Jason shifted his hand to my shoulder, forcing me back down while whispering a frantic stream of comfort and caution in my ear.

  “You can’t help him. If you draw attention to us, it’ll all be over. It’s okay. They’ll be okay.”
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  I shook my head and bit the inside of my cheek—bit it so hard I tasted copper—to stop the flood of sounds threatening to punch a hole through my chest.

  Kneeling on the platform were Kyle and Dex. Thick manacles encircled their wrists and were connected by chains that were bolted to the stage. Kyle’s eyes were locked on Sinclair, but Dex stared at the floor in front of the dais as though he didn’t have the strength to raise his head. Someone had clubbed Dex’s temple at some point; blood had run down his face and etched each of his scars in red.

  Kyle’s face was unmarked, but his shirt clung to him, the fabric darkened by stains. I tried to convince myself the stains were sweat—and some probably were—but most of the patches were too dark and had left the fabric too stiff to be anything other than blood.

  How many hours? My stomach flipped and tears filled my eyes. Kyle and Dex were werewolves: as long as their captors paused to let them heal, their bodies would always be able to take more. Jason and I had been gone for nearly an entire day. Sinclair or Langley or the guards could have tortured them the entire time.

  “Kyle . . .” The whisper was so low that it was barely more than my lips forming the shape of his name, but his body still tensed.

  His dark eyes swept the crowd and then filled with shock and fear as they found mine. My pulse had been racing from the moment the guards had spotted Jason and me; now it climbed so high I felt like I was having a heart attack. For a moment, I worried surprise and confusion would make Kyle say or do something to give us away, but he buried his emotions as his gaze slid to Jason. The heavy chain tethering him to the dais had a slight amount of give and he wrapped the excess around his hand—almost like a makeshift knuckle ring.

  Jason was still gripping my shoulder. He glanced from Kyle to me and then back. When he was certain that I wasn’t going to do anything crazy, he dropped his hand and pulled slightly away.

  “What are we going to do?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Think. I had to think. But before I could come up with the slightest idea, Sinclair strode back across the stage.

  Even at a distance, her blue eyes were too bright and the wrinkles in her suit seemed permanent. She looked like someone who had substituted Red Bull for sleep. But her voice, when she spoke, didn’t sound tired. It was sharp and focused and filled with threats.

  “I’ll give you one more chance. Last night, three wolves were spotted outside after curfew. They led dozens of guards on an extensive chase and wasted hours of resources. Two of those wolves are behind me. I want to know where to find the third. Eve. Dorm Seven. ID one-three-four-eight. She wasn’t in her bed this morning. She didn’t report for class or her work detail. She is somewhere in this camp, and someone in this room had to have seen something.”

  I glanced at Jason and saw the same confusion on his face that must have shown on mine. This was all about Eve? The wolves weren’t being held as some sort of bargaining chip against Hank and the pack?

  That’s why the guards are facing the building, I realized. If Sinclair knew an attack was coming—if she knew the camp had been infiltrated—the guards would be facing out, not in.

  But why Eve? Why would the warden drag every wolf here over one girl?

  Sinclair waited.

  No one moved. No one spoke.

  “Do you honestly expect me to believe none of you saw a thing? No one so much as noticed her slip out after curfew?”

  Again, silence.

  Sinclair’s gaze swept over us—blue fire hot enough to scorch. I slouched down, praying to go unnoticed. After a moment, when no one came forward, she slipped an HFD from her pocket and pressed the trigger. Most of the wolves collapsed, including Kyle.

  Jason and I quickly slumped to the ground as two of the guards broke away from the back of the room and began walking the edge of the crowd.

  Aside from Dex, only one girl was unaffected. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her. Mystified and frightened, she didn’t have the sense to play dead.

  There were confused murmurs from most of the guards as they realized neither the girl nor Dex had gone down, but the two men sweeping the room didn’t seem surprised at all. I listened, helpless to intervene, as they tased the girl, then dumped her with the guards outside.

  The woman with the glasses crossed the stage to speak to Sinclair. “This is completely unnecessary. A total overreaction.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve started to feel sorry for them.” I watched from under my lashes as a look of disgust crossed Sinclair’s face. “I’ve seen how much you enjoy your work.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” The woman pulled off her glasses and wiped them on the corner of her sweater. “They’re just too valuable to play with—especially in this manner. If my superiors knew . . .”

  Sinclair shook her head and slammed a door on the discussion. “I don’t answer to your superiors, and I am not playing games.” She stared levelly at the woman until she retreated to the side of the stage.

  A few feet away, a boy turned his head slightly, trying to track the woman’s movement. Jason and I weren’t the only ones faking.

  The warden slid her thumb off the trigger of the HFD.

  Gradually, the other wolves came to. I sat up and watched Kyle shake his head and raise himself back to his knees. He wrapped the slack of the chain around his hand again. This time, there seemed to be more of it. I squinted at the dais as he leaned to the side in what looked like an innocent stretch. The bolt holding the chain to the stage seemed to lift slightly. He was breaking free in small increments that would go unnoticed until it was too late.

  Frightened whispers filled the air, growing in intensity and pitch as the wolves realized one of their own—the girl—had just gone missing.

  Sinclair held up the remote. “Until someone comes forward with information, this HFD will go off every five minutes.”

  It was complete overkill. I could understand why she had sent men after Jason and me, but she had no reason to think Eve had made it out of the camp; she had no reason to think Eve was in any kind of position to hurt her.

  “Thornhill is a choice.” A tired, frustrated note crept into the warden’s voice. “If any of you would prefer to be elsewhere, I will happily put you on a truck to Van Horne and you can find out firsthand just how horrible a camp can be.”

  Find out.

  It suddenly clicked. Eve hadn’t been caught with us, but that didn’t guarantee that she hadn’t seen or heard something about Serena or the detention block.

  Thornhill worked because the things that didn’t make sense or were too frightening to think about stayed under the surface. People whispered about the disappearances, but no one talked about them openly. If the inmates started questioning too much, cracks would form.

  Sinclair would do anything to stop that from happening. She would do anything to protect her work. And right now, anything meant finding Eve before she could spill any of the camp’s secrets—even if that entailed punishing an entire auditorium full of teens.

  The brightness in the warden’s eyes wasn’t exhaustion: it was fanaticism. She was absolutely convinced that what she was doing at Thornhill was noble and right and worthy of protection.

  Hank believed they were just looking for a way to make wolves easier to manage and control, that none of what was happening here was about finding a true cure. Looking at the way Sinclair’s blue eyes gleamed, I wasn’t so sure he was right. My gaze fell on the garnet ring she wore and I thought of the sister she had told me about. Everything Sinclair had done was horrible and twisted, but what if it hadn’t started out that way?

  I swallowed and leaned into Jason. “How long until Hank hits the gates?”

  Surreptitiously, he pulled back the cuff of his sleeve and checked his watch. “Twenty minutes. At most.”

  Twenty minutes.

  Even if Sinclair hadn’t taken the wolves as hostages, she’d be a fool not to use them once she realized the camp was under attack. We had to come
up with a plan before that happened.

  My eyes locked on Kyle. “We’ll find a way to get you out,” I whispered. “I promise.”

  Just as the last syllable left my lips, an explosion ripped through the camp.

  26

  THE WINDOWS RATTLED AND THE WALLS SHOOK. PEOPLE surged to their feet and bodies churned around us like water. Jason and I were ripped apart and pulled to opposite sides of the room. I fought against the sea of wolves and craned my neck, desperate to get a glimpse of the platform.

  Sinclair was shouting at the guards, but her voice was lost under the roar of the crowd. Behind her, Kyle strained against his restraints. The muscles in his shoulders and arms writhed under the skin. I shouted his name, terrified he would lose control and give the guards a reason to shoot him.

  He gave a final tug and the chain snapped. The end of it whipped through the air and forced Sinclair to jump back. In her haste not to get hit, she lost her grip on her HFD. The small device went flying and landed harmlessly among the wolves.

  Kyle scanned the mob—checking to make sure Jason and I were all right—before crouching next to Dex and working to free him.

  Langley turned toward them, HFD in hand. A chunk of the wall next to her exploded and she dropped the device.

  My eyes found Jason.

  He stood in the middle of the crowd, gun drawn, eyes darting between the two program coordinators and the woman with the glasses in case any of them went for their HFDs. A few people around him dove down and covered their heads, but most of the wolves were so panicked that they didn’t realize where the shots had come from.

  “Trackers.” The word tore through the auditorium and grew in strength until it drowned out everything else. It made no sense—why would Trackers attack a camp?—but the wolves had lived under the threat of raids and attacks so long that it was the first conclusion they rushed to when things started exploding.

  Faint gunshots could be heard outside, lending credence to the cries.

  “It’s the Eumon pack! It’s not the Trackers! It’s a rescue!” I couldn’t make myself heard over the chaos.