Thornhill (Hemlock) (11 page)

I opened my mouth but then shrugged. Who was I to argue if Eve wanted to sign up for another dose of pain?

Still, just because I wasn’t going to argue with her didn’t mean I wanted to hurt her any more than necessary. I made a run for the opening of the path, not slowing or glancing back as I raced past the HFD. She’d be all right once I was out of range; I just had to get there as quickly as possible.

I rounded the edge of the fence and almost did a face plant as I clambered over the gate. I caught a glimpse of Eve’s red hair out of the corner of my eye as I hurtled down the path, but I didn’t stop until I had gone another fifteen feet.

Eve was already standing by the time I looked back. She nodded at me, once, and I did the same before continuing on.

The chain-link fence rose at least ten feet into the air on either side of the path and left just enough space in the middle for a jeep to squeeze through. It was creepy and claustrophobic and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing was going to snap down on me. The breeze—which had been gentle and welcome when we left the laundry building—picked up strength and pushed at my back.

After a few minutes, the path curved to the right and then ended in a small, overgrown clearing. The fence branched out on either side, looping around an area that was too perfectly square to be anything other than man-made. When I glanced around the edges of the clearing, I noticed HFDs along each side of the fence.

The space was completely empty. I bit my lip. Why go to all this trouble to keep people out of an empty field?

I waded into the straggly grass and tripped as my sneaker caught on the edge of something hard.

I pitched forward and barely caught my balance. Letting out a low curse, I glanced down. A small rectangle had been set into the ground. I crouched and brushed thick weeds away from a granite slab. It was a grave marker, the name and dates worn smooth by time and weather.

I stood and walked down two rows of identical stones. There were fourteen in total, and only one had retained a legible date: 1933.

If the main building had been a hospital for tuberculosis patients, it made sense that there would be a graveyard, but why hide it? Who would care?

The markers in the next row looked different. Curious, I walked forward. The grass was slightly less overgrown, here, and the markers were metal, not stone. They weren’t decades old—the oldest was dated just five months ago—and each had a four-digit number where a name should be.

My blood turned to ice as I glanced at my wrist: four digits.

What if Dex was right?

Pulse thudding, I walked forward, counting as I went. There were six rows of seven markers and each row was progressively less overgrown. When I reached the last row, the graves were covered with plain dirt that looked like it could have been turned yesterday.

All of the dates were within the last four weeks.

I reached the last marker.

I couldn’t look down.

I had to look down.

My knees threatened to give out in relief as I stared at the slab of metal and read the date. Six days. The date was six days past. Whoever was buried here, it wasn’t . . . it wasn’t Serena.

A gust of wind whipped my hair around my face as a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. A flutter of yellow a few feet away caught my attention and all the relief died in my chest.

A wooden stake—the kind they used on construction sites to show where things should be placed—had been driven into the ground right where the next marker would be.

A roaring sound filled my head, louder than the distant thunder.

There were only two reasons why a stake would be there: either a body had been buried and the marker hadn’t been placed yet or . . .

I stumbled back, struggling to keep my balance as the first drops of rain hit my face.

. . . or they were marking where the next body would go.

“P
OP QUIZ, MACKENZIE DOBSON
. . .”

“I’m not playing.”

“Spoilsport.” Amy laced her fingers through the links of the fence and stared at the cemetery. Her pale-blue sundress seemed to glow slightly in the dark and her bare feet and legs were splattered with bits of mud and grass.

She stared at the markers—small, dark shapes barely visibly in the mist. “Why do you think they took their names? They took their names and left them with numbers no one would remember them by. It’s sort of sad.”

Blood dripped off her hands and landed on the grass. For a moment, I thought she had cut herself, but then the moon slipped out from behind the clouds. The entire fence was coated in blood. Thick red beads ran down the links and fell to the dirt below. The earth soaked it up like a sponge, and when Amy shifted her weight, the ground beneath her gave a soft, wet sigh.

“If I could see them,” continued Amy as though nothing were wrong, “if I could talk to the Thornhill ghosts, do you think they’d talk back?”

“Amy . . .” I swallowed, fighting the urge to run, “whose blood is that?” A better question would have been
Why is it on the fence?
but I could only handle one thing at a time.

“It’s everyone’s.” Amy shrugged and nodded toward my arm.

I followed her gaze. Blood soaked the sleeve of my shirt and coated my hand like a glove.

“Everything runs red here.”

A gasp lodged itself in my throat as I woke in a tangle of sweat-damp sheets. The room was filled with blue-black shadows, but early morning light slipped past the curtains. I had overslept.

I dressed quickly, making sure to pull my sleeve down to hide my arm—the same arm that had been bleeding in my dream. I wasn’t sure how my dorm mates would feel if they discovered I was a reg, and I didn’t want to find out. Hank always said people hated being lied to almost as much as being stolen from. He oughta know: he was an expert at both.

Eve raised herself up on her elbow.

From liar and deserter to pack leader and caregiver. How was it possible for two people to have such different opinions and expectations of the same man?

“Sure you’re up for this?” she whispered. Her gray-green eyes reflected the light from the bathroom doorway.

I nodded. After what I had found in the woods, Eve and I had regrouped with Kyle. There was no way I could wait another day before trying to get into the sanatorium—not with the implications of the grave markers and that yellow stake.

Since injury and detention were the only excuses a wolf had for being in the building, Kyle would injure himself. I’d play the part of the hysterical girlfriend and insist on going with him. Once inside, I’d try to slip away and find some sign of Serena. Eve had volunteered for the job, but given that we didn’t know if there were HFDs inside, I was the logical choice.

Plus, there was no way in hell I was letting Kyle go in there without me.

As far as plans went, it was about as sturdy as a house of cards in Tornado Alley. We just didn’t have much choice.

“Good luck,” said Eve. Then, just in case I was in danger of thinking we were on our way to becoming BFFs, she added, “Don’t screw it up.”

Tossing her a glare, I bent down and grabbed my shoes. Then, sneakers in hand, I walked past the sleeping girls and out of the dorm.

Puddle water soaked my socks as I stepped outside.

It had stopped raining sometime during the night, but the paths and grass still shimmered wetly as the sky lightened to mauve.

A shadow broke away from the side of the building: Kyle.

Warmth flooded his eyes, and for a brief, heady second, I actually believed I could be the center of someone’s world. A small voice in the back of my head reminded me that he had left me and run away to Denver, but I pushed it aside.

“Tired?”

“Exhausted,” I admitted as I pulled on my sneakers. I curled my toes inside my damp socks. “I spent most of the night trying to figure out if there was a way to get inside the building that
wouldn’t
involve you hurting yourself while trying
not
to think about the graveyard
and
trying to convince myself that Serena is all right.”

Kyle wrapped an arm around my shoulders as we started walking. “She’s okay,” he said. “We’ll find her and figure out what’s going on.”

I wanted to believe him, but I knew he was just telling me what he thought I needed to hear.

We walked in silence until the sanatorium came into sight. If possible, the building was even more imposing in the early morning light. It threw a shadow over the entire courtyard and loomed over the admission building and the small cluster of white vehicles near the gate. It was a photographer’s dream—all harsh angles and creeping ivy. In its own way, it was oddly beautiful, but I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that its dozens of dark windows were somehow watching us.

Kyle let his arm fall from my shoulders as we stepped off the path and headed for the side of the sanatorium where an extension was being built. We reached the edge of the construction site, and he gracefully hopped up into the partially completed wing.

I hoisted myself up after him—much less gracefully—then brushed wood shavings from my clothes as I stood and looked around.

There wasn’t much to see. Piles of lumber and discarded tools littered the floor while skeletal walls supported wires and plumbing. The wing was larger than it had looked from the outside. Almost cavernous.

I turned to Kyle. There was a familiar, unsettling expression on his face: it was the one he always got right before telling me something he knew I’d hate.

He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’ve been thinking. Me slicing my arm might not be enough.”

I tried to ignore the twinge of alarm in my chest. “What do you mean it might not be enough? What do you want to do instead?”

“We’re not supposed to shift outside the zone and class. I have to be hurt badly enough that the injury won’t heal without shifting but not so badly that I lose control.” Kyle hauled his shirt over his head and let it fall to the floor. “It’s going to take more than my arm.”

I swallowed. “How much more?”

In response, Kyle walked a few feet away and picked up a long copper pipe. It was at least two inches in diameter and the edges were jagged, like it had teeth. He came back and held it out to me. “I figure it’ll look like I fell and accidentally impaled myself.”

“Kyle, no. . . .” I took a step back as bile rushed up my throat. “This isn’t what we agreed on.” This was crazy. Insane.

Kyle let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m a werewolf, Mac. I’ll heal.”

“Like you healed after the fire at Serena’s? You were in a coma for an entire night! They weren’t even sure you would wake up.” The memory of sitting at his bedside—scared and bargaining with God—sent a shiver rocketing up my spine.

Kyle shifted his grip on the pipe. “This is different. I know how much damage my body can take.”

“Bullshit.” I meant the word to sound fierce; instead, my voice broke over the second syllable. “You’ve only been a full-fledged werewolf for a couple of weeks. How do you know?”

“Think about Serena,” he shot back. “This is our best chance of finding out if she’s okay.”

My vision blurred. “We’ll find another way.” Without giving Kyle a chance to respond, I turned and headed for the edge of the construction site.

There was a sudden clang—metal on wood—followed by a heavy thump.

I spun.

Kyle was on his knees, fumbling for his shirt. He balled it up and pressed it to his stomach. Blood soaked the fabric in the three seconds it took me to reach his side.

He pushed himself to his feet and swayed. I caught his weight and just barely managed to keep him from hitting the floor.

I pressed one hand over his, trying to help him hold the bloodstained shirt against his stomach. “Shift.” I swallowed. “Please, just shift.” He was hurt badly—a reg would be in real trouble—but if he shifted, he would be okay.

Probably.

Panic threatened to pull me under.

“I’m fine.” Kyle’s voice was pinched and far away. “Werewolf, remember?” A shudder wracked his body, and his face shone with sweat. “I’ll be okay. I can hold on.”

The muscles in his back writhed under my arm, jumping and crawling like things lived under the skin. It took everything I had not to cringe back.

The only way this would work would be if Kyle had the self-control not to shift. When the plan had been for him to cut his arm, I hadn’t been worried. But this . . .

He started walking and I supported as much of his weight as I could. “Just need to get inside,” he said through gritted teeth. He repeated the words like a mantra.

By the time we reached the glass doors at the front of the building, his voice had faded to barely audible, nonsensical mumbles. At one point, he called me Amy and the mistake cut like a blade.

The guard at the door took one look at Kyle and told us to take a left followed by a right.

We finally staggered into the infirmary, and a doctor with hair as white as his lab coat looked up from his coffee and donut.

“What happened?” Keeping just out of Kyle’s reach, he ushered us through a door and into a tiny room with metal walls. It was like a vault.

I hesitated on the threshold, holding Kyle back as I bit my lip and took in the heavy bars and locks on the door.

“It’s all right,” said the doctor. “The room is just reinforced in case a wolf needs to shift.”

The explanation didn’t make me feel any better, but Kyle pulled free of my grip and walked forward, bearing his own weight until he sank onto an examination table in the middle of the small space.

He closed his eyes. For a horrible second I thought he had passed out, but then he shifted his weight and arranged himself more comfortably. A ripple swept through his torso as his muscles tried to tear themselves apart. Kyle clenched his fists and the movement stopped.

I brushed a strand of hair from my face and caught sight of my bloodstained fingers. My stomach did a slow flip. You couldn’t catch LS through blood—you had to be bitten or scratched by a fully or partially transformed werewolf—but it was Kyle’s blood and the idea of it on my skin left me feeling shaken and sick.

The doctor was speaking to me—had clearly been speaking to me for at least a minute or two. I forced myself to focus on his repeated question.
What happened
?

“He spotted something up in the rafters at one of the construction sites. He climbed up to take a look, but the boards were slick and he slipped. . . .” My voice cracked.

“Why didn’t he shift?”

Kyle’s face twisted in pain, but he opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. That had to be good, right? Eyes open had to be better than eyes closed.
Focus
.

“He was scared he’d get in trouble. I would have taken him to the zone, but the infirmary was closer.”

The doctor’s gaze fell on my hands, and a sympathetic look flashed across his face. “There’s a sink in the outer room,” he said as he turned his attention fully to Kyle.

He asked Kyle a series of inane questions, and something inside my chest unknotted when Kyle choked out his favorite color and the name of the president.

Legs shaking, I walked to the sink. The water ran pink and I couldn’t get all of the blood out from under my cuticles, but I could at least stand the sight of my hands.

I headed back to the small room—the vault—and hovered in the doorway.

The doctor was still asking questions.

Kyle’s eyes locked on mine and he gave me a small nod.

Telling myself that wasting this chance would mean he had hurt himself for nothing, I slipped out of the infirmary.

The wing housing the infirmary was made up of locked doors and identical gray hallways that were all empty save for the occasional—improbably healthy-looking and utterly ginormous—potted plant. I passed three of the things before realizing they were fake.

How long had I been gone? Five minutes? Ten? Long enough for the doctor to send someone after me, probably.

I had to find Serena, but so far all I’d managed to do was run around like a rat in a maze.

I rounded a corner and froze. A white-clad program coordinator and a guard were standing at the end of the passage. Their backs were to me as they spoke in hushed tones.

Move
, I ordered my legs.
Move!

I rocketed back around the corner.

Someone had wedged one of the plastic plants into a small nook. I squeezed in behind it and crouched down. My knee hit the base, and my heart went into cardiac arrest as the plant tilted and almost fell.

Please don’t look this way
.
Please don’t look this way
. I mouthed the words like a prayer as footsteps approached.

“It’s just a few more tests. You want help, don’t you? You don’t want to be sick, do you?”

“No,” said a frail female voice, the syllable uncertain and unspecific.

Hope leaped in my chest. The voice was so weak that it was barely audible, but it was Serena. It had to be.

I peered around the plant as the voices reached the intersection of the two hallways. The program coordinator half turned in my direction just as I got a clear look at the girl. It wasn’t Serena. It wasn’t anyone I had seen before.

Disappointment threatened to crush me, but was quickly shoved aside by the girl’s appearance.

Her skin looked like tracing paper and the shadows under her eyes were so dark they could have passed for smudges of ink. Her lank brown hair grazed the collar of a shapeless white tunic. She was wearing the same sort of wrist cuff we’d all been fitted with, but her arms were so thin, I wasn’t sure how it didn’t slip off.

She really did look sick—desperately sick.

The guard wheeled an IV stand. The plastic bag was filled with liquid that was the same light blue as the windshield wiper fluid Tess kept in the trunk of the car. It dripped down a tube that wound around the girl’s arm and into her skin.

I bit my lip. Werewolves weren’t supposed to get sick—except for bloodlust. And whatever was wrong with the girl, it couldn’t be that. Less than 2 percent of people with LS developed bloodlust. It left you wild and frantic, and she didn’t look like she had any strength at all. She looked like she was being drained from the inside out.