Thornhill (Hemlock) (12 page)

“I think . . . if I can go back to my room . . . I’d feel . . . if I could rest . . .” She twisted the hem of her shirt between her fingers.

The program coordinator ignored her words and started ushering her down my hallway.

Fear constricted my lungs. I tried to make myself smaller behind my plastic plant, but there was no way they could walk by and not see me.

Suddenly, the girl collapsed. The guard just managed to keep her from falling while the program coordinator lunged to catch the IV stand.

“What’s wrong with her?” The guard supported the girl with his left arm, keeping his right hand—his shooting hand—near his holster.

“Exhaustion and stress, probably.” The program coordinator kept one hand wrapped around the IV stand. With his other arm, he helped take some of the girl’s weight. “She hasn’t slept in days. We’d better take her to the infirmary, though. Just to be certain.”

They headed straight down the hall, bypassing my corridor completely. Either I had gotten turned around, or they knew a faster way back to where I had left Kyle.

Relief surged through my muscles as their voices faded.

I crept out of my hiding place and approached the spot where the hallways intersected. The coast was clear.

Nerves buzzing, I turned left. That was the direction they had come from. With any luck, it would be where I’d find Serena. The fact that I didn’t have a plan beyond “make sure she’s okay and don’t get caught” suddenly seemed more than a little problematic, but I forged ahead.

This corridor was different from the others. It had white tile instead of gray carpet, and most of the doors had keypads next to them. After a short distance and another turn, the hall ended in a heavy steel door. I had a feeling I had just found the detention block.

“What are you doing here?”

I whirled. A guard stood ten feet away.

His uniform strained over the kind of bulk that had more to do with Dunkin’ Donuts than muscle. Thick black brows pulled together as he took in my hair and clothes. He stared at me like I was a bomb on the verge of exploding. “How did you get in here?”

I struggled to string words together, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate.

He reached toward his holster.

He’s going to tase me
. The thought ripped through my brain as he hauled his weapon free.

I threw all my weight forward, aiming myself at his shoulder like a cannonball. I didn’t have the strength of a werewolf, but I knew how to hit someone and leave them off balance.

The Taser went skidding across the floor and the guard stumbled.

I didn’t make a grab for the weapon or wait to see if he went down; I just ran.

Within moments, I was lost. Every corridor looked the same. I pressed a hand to my side as my muscles pulled in a stitch. Somewhere behind me, I heard a stream of obscenities and thunderous footsteps. How was it possible for one person’s footsteps to be so loud?

Because it wasn’t just one person. The realization slammed through me, urging my legs to move faster.

I threw myself around another corner and collided with a door. The impact sent me ricocheting and I ended up on my butt on the floor.

I tried to push myself up, but it was too late: a figure was already stepping around the corner, Taser drawn.

I cringed against the wall as the redheaded guard—Tanner—came into sight.

When he saw me on the floor, he let out a deep breath. He lowered his Taser but didn’t reholster it. “Are you going to make me use this?”

I shook my head. My heart hammered so hard that black spots filled the hallway and hovered in front of my eyes like swarms of flies.

The other guard hurtled around the corner, Taser drawn, finger poised over the trigger.

“She’s fine,” said Tanner, eyes locked on the Taser. “She’s not putting up a fight.”

Was he
helping
me?

“She ran,” spat the guard. “Threw herself at me and ran. And she’s covered in blood.”

I raised a trembling hand to my forehead. The skin was tacky
. Kyle’s blood
, I realized. I had gotten it on my face in the infirmary. The guard’s fear suddenly made a little more sense.

“I didn’t . . .” I swallowed and glanced at Tanner. He had taken Serena, but he was definitely the more reasonable of the two men in front of me. “My friend was hurt. I brought him to the infirmary. It’s his blood. I stepped outside and got turned around.” The words came out in a rush and I had to pause and catch my breath. “I only ran because I thought he was going to tase me.”

“You’ll be lucky if that’s all I do.” Turning beet red, the guard reached down and grabbed my arm. He pulled me up so hard and so fast that my shoulder popped and I had to bite back a gasp.

Keeping the Taser an inch from my face, he hauled me around corners and down hallways.

“You really think this is something to bother her with?” asked Tanner from somewhere behind me as I was yanked across a small waiting room and up to a gray door.

A receptionist froze in the act of hanging her coat on a hook. A purse and brown paper bag sat on the desk behind her. “She said she’s not to be disturbed.”

“She’ll be disturbed for this.” Still holding my arm, the guard holstered his Taser, then pounded on the door. The door, like the others, had a keypad next to the lock, but it also had something the others didn’t: a small nameplate bearing fourteen letters.

T
HE WARDEN WASN
’
T WEARING SHOES WHEN SHE OPENED
the door. It was a ridiculous thing to notice, but it was the first thing I focused on. Her office had cream carpet—thicker, more expensive carpet than I’d ever seen in an office—and her nylon-clad feet sank into the pile.

I dragged my gaze upward. Sinclair was wearing a black suit with the blazer unbuttoned over a bloodred silk camisole. Her hair was pulled back in a twist, but strands had fallen free, especially around the white streak at her temple. She looked younger up close—maybe even as young as thirty—but fine lines had begun to appear at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth.

Her expression said she was a million miles away, but that lasted only until she took in the scene in front of her. The lines on her face stretched and deepened as her gaze slid over me and then locked on the guard holding my arm. Something dark shifted behind her eyes: a storm cloud passing over a blue sky.

“I told them you weren’t to be interrupted.” The receptionist’s voice, high and anxious, drifted across the waiting room. “I tried to stop them.”

“It’s all right, Sophie,” said Sinclair. She arched an eyebrow and waited for the guard to explain.

He seemed to deflate slightly under her sharp gaze. “Found this girl wandering the corridors. Practically threw me through a wall before running.”

I twisted and stared.
Through a wall?
I had barely touched him.

Sinclair turned her attention to me. “How did you get into the building?”

Like the guard, I could almost feel myself grow smaller. I had the sudden, irrational urge to tell her I was sorry, to apologize for everything and anything. I forced the feeling down. “My friend was hurt. The guard at the main door told me to take him to the infirmary. I stepped out into the hall to get some air and got turned around.”

“Claims she was lost.” The guard finally let go of my arm. “Biggest pile of—”

“Did you check?” There was a layer of frost in Sinclair’s smooth voice that made things inside my stomach clench. “Did you call the infirmary?”

The guard’s face flushed. “No . . . I . . . like I said, she attacked and—”

A barely perceptible sigh escaped the warden’s lips. “Never mind. I’ll handle it. Sophie, call the front entrance and find out who was on duty.” The guard opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else, Sinclair ushered me through the door and into a windowless office that looked like it belonged to a principal and smelled like church.

The door clicked shut.

“Sit,” she ordered as she crossed to her desk and picked up the phone. “Doctor LeBelle?” There was a pause. “Was a wolf taken to the infirmary a short time ago?” Another pause. “I see.” Sinclair’s eyes locked on mine. “There’s a girl here. Mackenzie.”

How did she know my name? The guards hadn’t bothered asking. Shivering, I lowered myself onto one of two heavy wooden chairs as Sinclair listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

I scanned the walls. Framed diplomas and newspaper articles dotted seas of white to my left and right, but the space behind the desk was dominated by an enormous painting depicting a woman in a tattered Grecian dress. She knelt in the dirt, struggling to close the lid of a flaming box as shadows closed in around her.

It was beautiful. And creepy.

I frowned and squinted. Maybe it was my imagination, but the painting’s heavy black frame didn’t look like it was flush to the wall.

My attention was pulled back to Sinclair as she thanked the doctor and hung up the phone. She walked around her desk and sat in a massive leather chair. “Your friend was given permission to shift. His wound healed and he was sent to his morning class.”

I started to breathe a sigh of relief but then thought about Serena and the graveyard in the woods. If Dex was right, Thornhill was a gallows and the woman in front of me was probably signing the execution orders. I couldn’t let myself believe anything she said. “There was so much blood, though. . . .”

Sinclair’s smile slipped, and my throat filled with dust. “Surely you know how much damage your body can heal?”

According to my father, the best lie was always the one mixed with the most truth. “I don’t know many other werewolves,” I said, trying to keep my voice level as I forced myself to meet her cold blue eyes, “and all I’ve ever had were cuts and bruises.”

Sinclair regarded me for a moment before seeming to accept the explanation. “I’m happy to hear that. Too much time spent among other wolves on the outside can make adjusting to a program like Thornhill’s more difficult.” I tensed as she reached into a drawer, but she only pulled out a container of aloe vera wipes. “For your face,” she said, not unkindly, as she set them on the corner of her desk next to a container of hand lotion.

Hesitantly, I took a wipe from the package and passed it over my forehead. The white cloth came back tinged with Kyle’s blood. Feeling slightly sick, I balled it in my hand.

“Blood bothers you?”

“Not because I’m a werewolf,” I said quickly. “I’ve just always found it gross.” My eyes returned to the painting behind the desk.

Sinclair glanced over her shoulder. “Pandora’s box,” she said, turning back to me. “I’ve always seen parallels between that particular myth and lupine syndrome. Some people see the disease as a gift without realizing how dangerous it is to lift the lid.”

I swallowed. “And that’s what Thornhill is? A way to help us keep the lid on?”

“For the wolves who commit fully to the idea of rehabilitation, yes.”

With her dark skin and shoulder-length curls, the woman in the painting looked a little like Serena.

It gave me courage.

“I have another friend,” I said, taking a plunge, “she was held back during admissions, but no one will tell me where she is or what’s going on.”

Sinclair plucked a file from atop a stack of papers. She opened the folder and glanced down. “Serena?”

I nodded even though she wasn’t looking at me. “Yes,” I managed, heart in throat.

Sinclair glanced up. “There were a few abnormalities in her blood. We want to make sure she isn’t sick before putting her in with the general population.”

“Sick?” I thought about the girl with the IV. Feeling like the ground was crumbling beneath me, I said, “How could she be sick? There’s no way she has bloodlust.”

Sinclair folded her hands on the desk, and I caught sight of a silver and garnet ring on her right index finger. Amy’s mother had a ring like that, one with a garnet for Amy and a sapphire for her brother. A birthstone ring.

“Mackenzie, LS is a new disease. We barely understand how it works. We’ve recently found a virus—similar to the canine parvovirus, which affects dogs—in some cities where large numbers of werewolves tend to congregate. We believe Serena may have contracted it.”

She’s lying
, I tried to tell myself,
there’s no new disease
.
It’s a trick
. But I remembered the way the girl had looked in the hallway. It was like something had been eating her from the inside out. I gripped the arm of my chair so hard that my thumbnail bent and snapped. When I spoke, I didn’t recognize my voice. “Are you . . . are you sure she’s sick?”

Sinclair stood and walked around the desk. She placed a hand on my shoulder and the scent of lavender wafted up from her skin. Her touch was heavy and stiff. When I glanced up, I spotted an HFD in her other hand. Trusting, but not that trusting.

“She may be fine. It’s too early to tell.”

“Can I see her?”

“We have to hold her in isolation for now.”

I shook my head. “I don’t understand. If there’s this other virus out there, why haven’t any of us heard about it? If there’s a disease, why don’t the other wolves talk about it when . . .” I trailed off and cursed myself. Fear for Serena had made me say too much.

“When wolves are held during admissions or removed from the dorms? When a few wolves start spouting conspiracy theories about disappearances?” Sinclair lifted her hand from my shoulder and stepped back. She perched on the edge of the desk. “Mackenzie, Thornhill is my first post as warden, but I’ve worked at three other camps. Each place is the same. Anytime anything happens to a wolf, conspiracy rumors swirl.”

She crossed her arms. “As to why the disease hasn’t been made public, I suspect the LSRB is waiting until they have enough information to assure the reg population that they’re not at any risk from this new condition. No one wants a return to the riots we had when lupine syndrome was first announced.”

But wouldn’t the packs have noticed people getting sick?

Sinclair picked up on my uncertainty.

“The LSRB aren’t evil, Mackenzie. We’re not bogeymen. I applied for a job at the camps right after college. Do you know why?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “Because I wanted to help people. Infected people.”

A short, skeptical noise escaped my lips before I could stop it.

“It’s true.” Something passed underneath Sinclair’s perfect facade, something that was sad and a little messy and maybe slightly damaged. Something that was full of regret. It was a look I sometimes saw in the mirror after I had been dreaming of Amy. “My sister was infected. I joined the LSRB because I wanted to make things better for people like her. After I saw how horrible the other camps were, I lobbied for Thornhill. I wanted to create a place that was more than just a dumping ground where the infected were left to die.” She paused for a long moment. “No one chooses infection.”

I swallowed. “Your sister is in a camp?”

“No. Julie died when I was seventeen.” Sinclair twisted the garnet around her finger, and I wondered if the ring had belonged to her sister.

“I’m sorry.” The words weren’t a lie, but they weren’t quite genuine: I wanted to feel sorry for her, but I didn’t trust her. She was the person keeping us here. For all I knew, everything she had just said was a lie. “Why tell me?” I asked hesitantly, trying to figure her out. “The disease? Your sister? Any of it?”

“Because I want the wolves in Thornhill to understand that I have their best interests at heart. I don’t want what I’m trying to accomplish here being undermined by fear and rumors.” She leaned forward. “I receive daily reports on the self-control class. Do you have any idea how remarkable what you did yesterday was?”

A lump rose in my throat. “I didn’t do anything.”

It was like I hadn’t spoken.

“Part of the reason we restrict shifting to a single area is that, over time, people associate the pain and rush they experience with that environment. It eventually becomes harder to shift in other places and helps improve control. If you repeated the same exercise your class underwent yesterday in two months, fewer people would transform. In six months, almost none of them would.” She gave her words a moment to sink in. “For a wolf to resist shifting on the first day is rare. You’re already ahead of the curve when it comes to control. You can be an example to your peers.”

A bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck. I didn’t want to be an example; I wanted to be invisible.

A sharp crackle emanated from the phone. I breathed a sigh of relief at the interruption as Sinclair reached behind her and pressed a button.

“Warden? There’s been a code twelve. He’s in the building, but he’s panicking.”

Sinclair inhaled sharply. “I’ll be right there. Tell them not to agitate him.” She stood and quickly retrieved a pair of heels from underneath the desk.

I started to rise.

“Stay here.” She shoved her feet into her shoes. “I’ll be back in a minute.” The warden I had glimpsed flashes of over the past few minutes—the one who seemed sympathetic and concerned—had been replaced by the woman I had seen at orientation.

She crossed the room. The door closed behind her and there was an electronic beep as the lock engaged.

Silence.

I counted to ten and then darted for the phone. I punched in Jason’s cell number. There was a click and then an automated voice told me to enter my phone code.

My vision swam and my ears filled with a faint buzzing sound as a wave of frustration rose up. I started to slam the handset down before checking myself at the last instant. With a deep breath, I slowly set it into the cradle.

I shot a nervous glance at the door and lifted Serena’s file. The only thing inside was her admission form. There were no test results or doctor’s notes—nothing to indicate there was anything wrong with her. The only thing out of the ordinary was a red circle around the age she had been when she became infected.

If Serena really was sick—if there really was a new disease—could it have something to do with age? No one knew why, but people who contracted LS before fifteen only had a 40-percent chance of surviving their first shift. Serena had been infected when she was eleven.

I closed the folder.

There was a laptop on the desk, but it displayed a login, and the stack of papers underneath Serena’s file were just class schedules and budget sheets—nothing that would help me figure out what was happening to her and nothing that might help us plan a way out of this place.

Quickly, I moved on to the desk drawers. Only the top one was unlocked. When I opened it, I saw why: all it contained was a pen, three paperclips, and a box of meal replacement bars. I guess being a prison warden didn’t leave a lot of time for balanced nutrition.

I closed the drawer and turned.

The painting filled my vision.

What I had taken for shadows behind the woman were smokelike men, contorted and screaming as though they were damned. This close, I could see that her dress wasn’t tattered; it was scorched.

Not exactly something I’d want hanging in my office.

I frowned. The painting really wasn’t flush with the wall. I ran my fingers over the frame and jumped back as the whole thing swung out and revealed a touch screen almost as large as the TV Jason had in his bedroom. A list of names filled the screen.

The list was broken into two sections, “assets” and “raw,” and there were twenty names under the first category. My stomach lurched as I realized that Serena’s name was third and that my name and Kyle’s—each followed by a question mark—appeared near the bottom.