Thornhill (Hemlock) (13 page)

I tapped Kyle’s name and an image filled the screen. It was a black-and-white shot of him in the cage yesterday morning. I was just visible behind his shoulder. I touched the photo and it closed.

Now I knew why Sinclair had known my name without being told.

I touched Serena’s name. An image of her slumped behind a steel table filled the screen. She stared at the camera, eyes horribly blank. Underneath the photo was a small info icon. When I tapped it, the information from Serena’s admission form overlaid the photo in a pop-up.

I reached out to close the info window and froze. It was like I had suddenly been dropped into a tank of ice water. All the air was pulled from my lungs and everything seemed to slow down as I read the last line of text:

Candidate for Willowgrove.

W
ILLOWGROVE. IT EXISTED. ACCORDING TO THE URBAN
legends, it was a mystery camp. According to Dex, it was a death sentence. Whatever it was, it was real. It was real and Serena was caught up in it.

Muffled voices drifted through the door and jolted me out of my shock. I jabbed the touchscreen—once, twice, until it was back the way I had found it—then swung the painting into place.

Faint electronic beeps sounded from the keypad outside as I threw myself around the desk and into my seat. My butt barely had time to touch down before the warden opened the door.

Anger filled her eyes. For a heart-stopping moment, I was certain she knew what I had seen, but she simply said, “Mackenzie, it’s time you headed to class.”

I rose unsteadily and crossed the room. A dozen questions fought to get free, but I held them back. It wasn’t like I could just tell Sinclair I had been snooping around her office and then casually ask what Willowgrove was.

She placed a hand on my arm, palm over the scar Derby had left, as she ushered me into the waiting room. My skin crawled until the touch fell away.

“Elliott, would you mind escorting Mackenzie to the remainder of her morning class?”

“Sure,” said a voice capable of seducing an angel out of her halo, “I can make sure she gets there.”

I
knew
that voice.

“Thank you, Elliott.” Sinclair withdrew into her office.

I barely registered her exit.

“Whoa. . . .” Familiar hands were on my arms, steadying me as the room spun. Tan uniform. Blond hair. Green eyes. The colors swirled as I struggled to make sense of the person in front of me.

Jason shot me a tight, guarded grin. “Hi, there. I’m the new intern counselor.”

I just blinked.

He shifted his grip so that one hand rested just underneath my elbow and drew me across the room. “They just had a code twelve—it’s not a good time for you to be in here.”

We stepped into the hallway and then hugged the wall as two program coordinators rushed past. “What’s a code twelve?”

“A guard was scratched.”

Jason guided me down halls and around corners. He released my arm as we approached the entrance where a guard—a woman instead of the man who’d been there earlier—was on duty.

She nodded and Jason returned the gesture, exuding strength and experience and looking years older. There was no way anyone would ever guess he was seventeen.

Outside, guards were milling in the courtyard. There was nothing I could do other than follow Jason and bottle my questions—at least temporarily. I glanced up at the sun, trying to gauge the time. Late morning.

I expected Jason to take the path that led to the classrooms and dorms, but he veered right and headed for an older path that hugged a small rise. The pavement was cracked and crumbling; I had to watch my step as we crested the minuscule hill and passed a long one-story brick building that almost looked like row houses.

“Original staff quarters for the sanatorium,” Jason muttered absently, even though I hadn’t asked. “They’re tearing it down next month.”

Sure enough, the windows were boarded up and yellow caution tape had been strung across the doors.

I stopped in the middle of the path. “
Jason, what are you doing here?
”

He turned and stared. The expression on his face was equal parts frustration and incredulity. “What do you think I’m doing here? I came to get you out.” He turned and started walking again. “Come on. We need to talk.”

I shook my head, even though his back was to me. “Later. Kyle had an accident”—no way did I feel up to telling Jason just what that accident had entailed—“but the warden said he was sent back to class. I need to make sure he’s okay.”

The lawns bordering the path were overgrown with grass that was almost knee high, but cutting across them would be faster than doubling back and taking the path. Trying not to think about rodents and snakes, I stepped off the crumbling pavement and pushed my way through, skirting an abandoned pile of bricks and an old, dilapidated greenhouse.

I heard Jason follow. “Mac . . .”

“Later, okay? I promise.” I couldn’t believe anything Sinclair had said—especially after seeing that list. Until I saw Kyle for myself, I couldn’t be sure he was okay. And until I was sure he was okay, I couldn’t deal with anything else. Not even Jason.

“I’ve got a letter from your father.”

My step faltered and I turned.

Jason crossed the distance between us and wrapped a hand around my arm. Before I could ask what he thought he was doing or why he had a message from Hank, he pulled me toward the greenhouse.

I tried to break his grip, but Jason was the only seventeen-year-old I knew whose house had a live-in physical trainer and a full-sized gym. He might not be a werewolf, but he was still above average in the strength department.

“Kyle’s fine,” he said, letting go of me so he could force open the greenhouse door. “I saw him leave the sanatorium from across the courtyard.”

He managed to get the door open.

Before he could turn or step aside, I shoved him through, slapping my hands against his back so hard that I felt the sting in my palms. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me that in the first place instead of just grabbing me?”

Jason stumbled over the threshold. “Might have if you had slowed down for two seconds.”

Of course. Stupid me. I followed him inside, resisting the urge to strangle him.

The greenhouse’s tinted glass walls were caked with decades of grime, and the light that managed to filter through was almost murky.

It felt like we were standing in a dirty fishbowl. I pulled in a deep breath and immediately regretted it. “Ugh. It smells like something died in here.”

Jason glanced at the corner and frowned. “Something did.”

“Oh, ewwww.” I turned back for the door, but he got there before me and blocked my way.

“Sure. Sneaking into a rehabilitation camp? No problem. One dead gopher? She runs for the hills.” He reached into his pocket, then held out a folded sheet of paper. “From your father.”

I ignored the snark and snatched the letter.

An old wooden counter ran the length of one wall. I walked over to it and leaned against the edge as I turned the letter over in my hands. I glanced up. Jason was watching me with an expression I couldn’t read. It almost looked like hunger, but that didn’t make any sense.

“How did you get in here?” I asked, shaking my head. “What happened to you after the raid and”—I stared at his neck and frowned—“where’s your tattoo?”

He started with the last question first. “One of the local guys was a makeup artist in Hollywood. Supposedly it’s the same stuff Johnny Depp uses to hide his ‘Wino Forever’ tattoo on shoots.”

“Local guy as in werewolf or local guy as in Tracker?”

Jason just looked at me and I knew it was the latter. “They got you in.” My throat constricted. “Why would they help you?”

“Money, mostly.” There was a small crate near his feet and Jason stepped on the edge, flipping it over onto its side. “Plus, being the last person to speak to Derby before his death comes with a weird sort of prestige. Thornhill’s hard up for counselors and guards. It wasn’t too difficult for them to get me in.”

I shook my head. “But why would they think you wanted in? Someone doesn’t just wake up one morning and decide they want to see the inside of a rehabilitation camp.”

“Kyle. I told them I followed a wolf from Hemlock—one I thought might have killed Amy. Trackers are big on revenge.”

I stared at him, horror-struck. “You told them Kyle might have killed Amy?
KYLE?
”

“I needed an excuse. That’s all it was.”

“And what happens when we get out of here? Don’t you think they’ll want to hunt the wolf they think killed both the granddaughter of a senator and Branson Derby?”

“I didn’t give them Kyle’s real name or age or anything that would lead them to him. Give me some credit.” Jason ran a hand over his face. “Look, I had to tell them something. I had to get in here long enough to get you out.”

“What about Kyle and Serena?”

“They’re werewolves, Mac.”

I pushed away from the counter. After everything that had happened in Hemlock . . . After everything he’d seen . . . “So, what? They deserve to be in here? They’re infected so just write them off?”

Jason’s eyes narrowed and his face flushed. Just for a second, he looked like a man who desperately wanted to hit something. “Of course not. But they can take care of themselves. They’re not going to get electrocuted by a souped-up Taser or gutted by someone who doesn’t know what they are. You need to get out of here. Once you’re outside the camp, we’ll figure something out. They’ll be safe until we do.”

A harsh, bitter laugh clawed its way out of my throat. “They’re not safe,” I said miserably. “They’re probably in more trouble than I am.” Briefly, I recounted what had happened since we arrived: Serena being taken and maybe being sick. Dex and his theory about Willowgrove. The graveyard. Sinclair and her sister.

When I was finished, Jason frowned and tugged on his shirt collar. “I’ve never heard anything about a secret camp or anything called Willowgrove. And I’ve heard a lot over the last few days.”

He nodded at the letter I still held clasped in my hand. “It was your father’s idea for me to use the Trackers to get in. Don’t get me wrong, I would have thought of it on my own, but he suggested it before I had a chance.”

“Why?” I unfolded the paper. A set of instructions and a time were scrawled in my father’s looping handwriting. I turned the page over. There was nothing else. Not even his name. Either name.

I scanned the instructions. “Western fence. Unscrew casing. Cut white wire. Replace casing. Test with reader.” I glanced up. “Jason, what is this?”

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a slim black case. He held the case out to me, and I set the letter down on the counter before taking it.

Inside were two screwdrivers, the smallest pair of wire cutters I had ever seen, and an electronic device the size of an iPhone. I pulled out the device. It was black with a yellow power button and a small digital display on the front. There was a volume wheel on the side. I turned it over. A label reading
Property of Thornhill
was plastered on the back.

“They use them to check the HFDs,” explained Jason. “It picks up the frequency they emit and converts it to a sound regs can hear. No sound and the HFD is down—usually because of weather or animals.”

I remembered that Eve and I had seen that guard, Tanner, checking the HFD in the woods.

“That’s why Hank wanted me to get in,” Jason added. “He needed someone to give you or Eve the letter and to get you one of those readers.”

I frowned. “Me or Eve?”

Jason nodded. “Whichever one of you I saw first.”

I glanced at the letter. I tried to tell myself that it was stupid to feel hurt and rejected over a folded sheet of paper, but part of me wondered how Eve and I could be interchangeable. How, between us, we hadn’t warranted a single “be careful.”

“He’ll meet the two of you tonight along the western edge of the fence at two thirty. Just pick a spot and disable any HFDs in the way. It should be pretty easy—though I didn’t have a chance to test the instructions. We can do a trial run before curfew. If you want.”

I slid the device back into the case, then slipped the whole thing into my pocket. “How did he know any of this? How did he know there were HFDs in the camp or how to disconnect them?”

“Apparently, one of the women who designed Thornhill’s security system was laid off. Without severance.” A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Revenge really does make the world go round.” He glanced down at his watch. “Ten minutes until lunch. I guess I’d better walk you back in case Sinclair checks up on me.”

He headed to the door and pulled it open.

I grabbed Hank’s letter and shoved it into my pocket. “Jason?”

He turned in the doorway.

I swallowed. “What now?” He stared at me, confused, and I elaborated. “You want me to go, but I’m not leaving without Kyle and Serena. Where does that leave us?”

He stepped outside. I followed.

“What class do you have?”

“The Impact of LS on Society. Classroom D.” He started walking. Uncertainly, I fell into step beside him. “Jason?”

He sighed. “You were right. We can’t leave them here. We have to find a way to get them out.”

“A Tracker who cares about two wolves.” I meant it as a joke, but the words came out soft and without a trace of humor.

“Yeah, well . . .” Jason suddenly had that deer-in-headlights look all boys got when you asked them about their feelings. Staring straight ahead, he said, “Kyle’s my best friend. And Serena . . . Don’t tell anyone, but I’d be kind of pissed if anything happened to her. She’s a pain in the ass, but she grows on you after a while. Like a tumor with really bad fashion sense.”

A small smile crossed my lips at the thought of what Serena would say to the uncompliment. But just as quickly as it came, the smile vanished.
She’ll be okay
, I told myself, trying to ignore the hitch in my chest. “Jason . . . what if she really is sick?”

“Then we’ll figure something out. We’ll find some way to fix it.” His voice was so confident and matter-of-fact that I almost believed him.

We walked in silence for a moment.

Hank’s letter felt heavy in my pocket and made me think of the one family member who mattered. Who was probably worried sick about me. “Have you . . . did you . . .” My cheeks flushed with guilt as I thought of how I had just run out on my cousin. “Did you call Tess? Does she know where I am?”

“There wasn’t time, and I wouldn’t have known what to say. Sorry,” Jason added, even though he had nothing to apologize for. “Cells are jammed inside the camp and they monitor the calls we make on the landlines, but if I’m here more than a week, I’ll have an afternoon pass. I can call her then. Kyle’s folks, too, if he wants.”

Given that Kyle hadn’t told his parents he was infected or where he was going when he left Hemlock, I was pretty sure he’d be vaguely horrified at the idea of Jason calling them.