Thornhill (Hemlock) (21 page)

“One camp is enough to give people hope. No one has ever stood up to the LSRB before. Not like this.” Hank’s gaze carried so much weight that I felt somehow smaller under it. “Even if we fail, wolves in other camps will hear about what we tried to do and they’ll fight back—first in small ways that won’t seem to matter, and then in larger ones that will add up. Soon, other packs will start resisting instead of hiding.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” I shook my head. “If no one ever fights back then nothing will change.”

“Do you remember what happened to Leah?”

My breath caught, and I knew Hank could read the memory on my face.

Of course I did.

Leah had lived down the hall from us in Detroit. She’d been kind and smart and had tried to look out for me. She had also been a werewolf—though I hadn’t known it at the time. After people found out she was infected, a group of Trackers had dragged her into the street and beaten her to death.

Instead of trying to stop them, our neighbors had cheered and watched.

“What happened to her will happen in every city, every day. If we take down a camp, the backlash against wolves will be worse than it was when the epidemic broke.” Hank watched me, gauging my reaction.

Fear settled in my stomach like lead, and the urge to throw up rose in my throat. Suddenly, everything seemed too big, and I felt exactly like what my father probably saw: a naïve seventeen-year-old who was way out of her depth.

It took me a moment to find my voice. “Why, then? Why didn’t you say anything before? If you’re so sure that’ll be the result, why do it?” He had wanted to get Eve and me out. We were out. What else did he have to gain?

Hank shrugged and finally took a swallow of beer. “I told you this morning: what she’s doing is too dangerous to go unchecked.”

I bit my lip. I knew I shouldn’t push, I knew I should just be grateful he had changed his mind, but for some reason I needed to understand. “But it doesn’t affect you. Not directly.”

Hank’s eyes narrowed and I knew he was starting to lose patience. He had always hated questions. “If what they did to your friend is considered a success, then it will affect me. And every other wolf in the country. Sooner or later, the LSRB will come after us. This way, we’re taking the fight to them instead of just waiting.”

“There’s no reason to think the LSRB knows what Sinclair’s doing,” I reminded him. “She’s been falsifying the admission records.”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “Or maybe they’re just covering their tracks in case it ever comes out. Either way, after tonight, things are about to get a whole lot darker for any wolf and anyone suspected of having werewolf sympathies.”

He shook his head and stood.

“You need to go home. You need to pick up your life, and forget about the wolves and Thornhill.”

“I can’t do that.” I took a deep breath. “Serena and Kyle are my friends. I won’t just turn my back on them. I’m coming with you tonight.”

Hank’s response was instant. “Absolutely not.”

“You need regs in case anyone uses an HFD against your wolves. You know you do. You can shoot out the big ones on the poles, but you won’t know who has a handheld one until it’s too late.”

“I’ve got the Tracker.”

“And if something happens to him? If he gets shot or hurt or someone on your team decides trusting him is too big a risk?” Hank scowled and I knew I had him. “I know my way around the camp, I’ve been in the sanatorium, and HFDs don’t affect me. You need me. Whether you like it or not.”

I turned and pulled open the door.

“You don’t have a future with that boy. You know that. Sooner or later, every wolf turns their back on their old life. If he’s the reason you’re insisting on throwing yourself into harm’s way—”

“Maybe you turned your back on your life,” I said, “but Kyle’s not you. And he’s not the only reason I’m going. Even if he was, you don’t have the right to give me advice.”

Before Hank could say anything else, I stepped out of the trailer and strode away.

I
FOUND JASON STRETCHED OUT ON A BROKEN PORCH
swing that someone had dragged under a cluster of trees. He stared up at the branches, too lost in thought to notice me. A low fire burned in a circle of stones a few feet away, casting him in an orange glow.

He cut his hair
. My step faltered as the thought brought me up short.

Jason’s blond locks—practically worshipped by every girl back home—had been trimmed to Thornhill regulation length.

On Kyle, the cut worked. It made him seem older and harder in a way that could make a girl’s knees go weak. On Jason, the look had the opposite effect. He appeared younger. Less like a soldier and more like a refugee. Without thick waves to draw your eye away, his face gave up the illusion of perfection. His nose was just a little too big and his mouth was just a little too full. He was still handsome—no haircut could change that—but it was the kind of handsome that snuck up on you.

A twig snapped underfoot as I took a small step forward.

“Hey,” Jason said, sitting up.

“Hey,” I mumbled, oddly embarrassed to have been caught watching.

“I was going to wait for you back at the community center,” he said, “but Eve offered to cut my hair. I figured it might make me less recognizable.” He ran a hand over his head. “How bad is it?”

“Not that bad.” I walked over to the swing and flopped down next to him. Not until I was sitting did I realize just how tired I was. Suddenly, my entire body felt heavy, like my limbs were encased in concrete, and it was all I could do not to close my eyes.

We both fell quiet, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. Around us, members of Hank’s pack moved through the trailer park—some preparing for the assault on Thornhill, others hanging out in small groups around campfires or looking for quiet places to catch a few hours of sleep. Twenty wolves had planned the breakout, but close to a hundred would be involved.

“I’m going with you,” I said after a while. “Tonight.”

He nodded as he reached down for a half-full bottle of beer that had been left next to the swing. It was the same brand Hank had been drinking.

Jason took a swig and then offered me the bottle. I shook my head and he finished it.

“You’re not going to try and talk me out of it?” I asked.

“Would there be any point?” He tossed the bottle lightly onto the grass.

“No,” I said—or tried to say. As soon as I opened my mouth, the word turned into a yawn.

“You’re exhausted.” Jason reached out and ran his knuckles—still raw from punching the glass divider in the Town Car—against my cheek. The gesture was strangely gentle and entirely unexpected.

A blush started in the center of my body and quickly worked its way up to my face as I remembered the kiss in the back of the car. I tried not to think too long or too hard about the taste of his lips or the way his body had covered mine.

“Jason . . .” I swallowed. “About what happened this morning. After the crash.”

He shook his head. “Just leave it.”

“But . . .”

He dropped his hand and gave me a small, forced grin. “If we survive the night, then you can tell me it was a mistake, deal?”

The words were similar to something I had said to Kyle back in the sanatorium, and the memory made things twist inside my chest. “Okay.”

“We’ve got a few hours,” said Jason, trying to cover the awkwardness of the moment. “You should try and get some sleep.”

It was tempting—so tempting—but I was too scared to let my guard down. “Hank really didn’t want me going. I don’t want to give him a chance to leave me behind.”

“I’ll stay up and wake you when things start to happen. I managed to get a couple of hours of sleep when they had me locked in the infirmary.”

Still, I hesitated.

“You can’t run on willpower and snark indefinitely.” Jason shifted farther down the bench, making a little more room. “I promise I’ll wake you up.”

“Even after you went to all that trouble to get me out of the camp?”

“Even after.”

I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but I slid down and curled up on the end of the swing. If I just closed my eyes for a while, maybe it would take the edge off the horrible feeling of heaviness.

After a few minutes, Jason gently tugged my legs onto his lap. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing?”

I opened my eyes. A lump rose in my throat and I had to swallow past it before I could speak. “I thought you wanted to help Kyle and Serena. And Dex is only in the sanatorium because we got him involved.”

“I do—it’s just . . .” Jason drummed his fingers on my shin as he tried to find the right words. “There’s a difference between breaking out three wolves we know and a few hundred we don’t. What if some of them hurt people after they get out?”

“Pick three hundred regs at random and not all of them are going to be gems,” I said.

“It’s not exactly random if they’re in prison.”

“You can’t compare a camp and a prison.” I shivered and huddled in my sweatshirt. “Most of the people in Thornhill aren’t there because they committed some sort of crime—unless you count not reporting their infection. They were caught in raids. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Like Kyle and Serena,” he said grudgingly as he moved his hand away from my leg.

“Exactly.”

Silence stretched between us and this time it was uncomfortable. The fire was almost out, but neither of us got up to do anything about it.

“Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you so worried about the regs at Thornhill? You were right—if the wolves don’t try to limit causalities, the LSRB and the Trackers will use it against them—but that wasn’t the only reason you said what you did, was it? You said something else back at the camp, once. Something about how working at Thornhill didn’t necessarily make people bad.”

He let out a deep breath. “Some of them are bad—I’d like to kill the ones who hurt Serena—but I think a lot of them have never stopped to wonder whether or not the system they’re part of is wrong.”

“They remind you of yourself,” I said slowly. The tattoo on his neck was just visible in the dying firelight.

Jason nodded.

Neither of us spoke for a long while. Eventually, my eyes started to flutter closed again.

“Jason?” His name came out a near-unintelligible mumble as I fumbled weakly for his hand.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

I tried to say “for choosing us,” but the tide carried me away.

A layer of decaying leaves covered the water in the fountain.

“Gross,” muttered Amy, wrinkling her nose as she stepped up onto the ledge encircling the basin. Her gray high-tops slapped the concrete as she walked around the water.

It was dark—the sky completely devoid of moon and stars—and the only light came from the windows of the sanatorium. “This isn’t right.” I knew this fountain: it was the one from Riverside Square. It should be back in Hemlock, not in the middle of Thornhill.

Amy completed the circle and hopped down. Her shirt—one of Jason’s Italian dress shirts—flapped in the breeze.

“You’re always so stuck on landmarks and geography. Places are more than just GPS coordinates. Sometimes, they overlap.”

She sat on the edge of the fountain. “Like you. You take pieces of Hemlock with you wherever you go, so parts of it exist even inside a place as bad as this.”

“Very deep,” I said.

“I have a lot of free time on my hands. It leads to moments of self-reflection and philosophy. And memory.” She leaned back and stared up at the empty sky. “I finally remembered the story. The one my grandpa told us.”

“Okay. . . .”

“Once upon a time—”

“That’s for fairy tales, not ghost stories,” I pointed out as I sat next to her.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine.
Once
there was a woman who owned a doll shop. She was obsessed with making a doll so lifelike that people would forget it was just fabric and porcelain.”

“Seems like a lame obsession.”

“Shut it.”

“Sorry. It’s a brilliant obsession. Please continue.”

Amy mock-glared. “One day, a small girl was run over by a horse and carriage just outside the shop. The doll maker ran out to help, but the girl was dead by the time she reached her. As the woman watched, a puff of air the color of sunset passed through the girl’s lips—the child’s soul carried on her last breath.

“The doll maker began visiting hospitals and gutters, catching the last breaths of dying children in glass bottles and then sewing those bottles into dolls.”

“Let me guess,” I said, “the dolls looked more lifelike.” Now that Amy was telling it, I did sort of remember listening to the story while toasting marshmallows in her grandfather’s fireplace.

She nodded. “But no one would buy them because when they looked into the glass eyes, they swore they heard the echo of screams.” She stretched. “Trapped in a bottle and sewn inside a doll for all eternity? Who wouldn’t be screaming?”

I shivered.

“You do know why I’m really here, don’t you?”

I shook my head. I didn’t. Not anymore.

Amy looked at me sadly, then glanced over her shoulder at the fountain. Something churned the leaves and gave off a sharp, metallic scent. With horror, I realized the liquid in the basin was blood.

I scrambled to my feet, but Amy stayed sitting as though nothing were wrong.

She dipped her finger in the fountain and it came back coated in red. “Things are about to get so interesting.”

A
THIRTY-FOOT-TALL ELECTRIC FENCE WAS INTIMIDATING
no matter which side you were on. After all, a fence couldn’t distinguish between someone trying to break in and someone trying to break out, and it wouldn’t discriminate between reg and wolf. It was an equal-opportunity killer; everyone who had gathered in the narrow space between it and the concrete wall that would eventually encircle the camp was at risk.

It was a risk I was all too willing to take.

I stared at the handful of lights that were visible in the distance. It was impossible to know whether they came from the dorms or the sanatorium, but the sight was a hook in my chest. Anything could have happened to Kyle and Serena after Jason and I had left the camp. Anything could be happening to them right now.

I crossed my arms and shivered.

The gesture didn’t slip past Hank, though he mistook the cause. “It’s not too late to go back to the park. One of the wolves can take you.”

I was struck, again, by how little my father knew me. I was afraid—of course I was afraid—but that wasn’t going to stop me. “I already told you: I’m staying. Besides, you can’t afford to be a man down.”

The recon team consisted of ten werewolves—including him and Eve. There wasn’t a single one to spare.

For a second, I was certain Hank was going to argue, but he let it drop and walked away.

A hand skimmed my temple and I jumped.

“Your hair was coming loose,” said Jason as he tucked a lock underneath my cap.

He was wearing an outfit identical to mine in every way but size. Everyone was dressed in the same all-black ensemble: black cap, black long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, and black boots. We looked like a gang of cat burglars. Or mimes.

“Thanks,” I mumbled, trying to ignore the blush that rose to my face. I had promised Jason we wouldn’t talk about the kiss, but I could still feel it between us. I knew I didn’t have anything to feel guilty about—we had both been positive we were going to die—but this close to the sanatorium, this close to Kyle, it seemed like a betrayal.

“Outer patrol!” hissed a female voice. “Hit the dirt!”

Along with the wolves, Jason and I dropped to the ground and crouched behind the wall. A moment later, I heard the low roar of an engine. A spotlight swept the fence to the left and right of our hiding place. I held my breath, but the guards didn’t bother getting out to check behind the concrete barrier.

The sound of the engine faded, and people slowly got to their feet.

“All right,” snapped Hank. “They’re running extra patrols. We’ve got thirty minutes at the most. Let’s get this done.”

Construction crews working on the wall had erected scaffolding on the outward-facing side. Hank leaped onto the first platform and began climbing. He scaled the rigging easily, his movements infused with a wolflike grace he hadn’t possessed a few years ago. Two of his men followed in his wake.

Eve wandered over to Jason and me. Lines creased her brow as she stared up at the top of the wall. “This is insane.”

“It was your idea,” I pointed out, trying to ignore the way my stomach churned.

“It didn’t seem so crazy when we were just talking about it.”

“A jump over a razor wire–topped electric fence from forty feet in the air without a safety net below,” said Jason, “what could possibly go wrong?”

In unison, Eve and I told him to shut up.

One of the wolves handed Hank a backpack—black like our outfits. He hurled it over the fence. It cleared the top wires easily and landed with a soft thud several feet inside the camp. I tried to tell myself it was a good sign as Hank hurled a second bag over, but there was a world of difference between a pack and a man.

“At least the wall is higher than the fence,” said Eve. “Ten feet, easily. That’s a huge advantage.”

I didn’t see how ten feet was a huge anything—especially not when there was almost twice that much space between the wall and the fence—but I didn’t say so. Pointing out the obvious wouldn’t be good for anybody’s nerves.

There were only two ways into Thornhill: through the gate or over the fence. We could have waited a few days and hijacked a delivery, but no one wanted to risk leaving the wolves in the detention block that long. By now, Sinclair would know that the hit she had put out on Jason and me had failed and there was no telling what she might do to Kyle, Serena, and Dex as payback.

Unfortunately—short of driving a tank through it—there was no way to disable the fence from outside the camp.

The zip line had been Eve’s idea. She was the one who had remembered the ancient water tower near the fence. If a wolf could survive the drop to the ground, they could run a line to the tower from the wall. Then the rest of us could propel across.

“I still don’t understand why your father is doing it,” said Jason as we watched Hank gauge the distance he’d have to clear to make it over. “Shouldn’t they have picked someone who’s not completely indispensable?”

“You don’t get to be the head of a werewolf pack without being insanely tough,” said Eve. “There are two, maybe three wolves who are stronger than Curtis, but not by much and they don’t heal nearly as fast. We need someone who can recover quickly.”

“And you’re sure he’ll be able to? Recover quickly?” I didn’t ask what would happen if he hit the fence. No werewolf, no matter how tough, would survive that.

Eve pressed her mouth into a thin, hard line and didn’t answer.

She has no idea.

I peered up at the top of the wall, trying to ignore the sudden lump in my throat. An old, familiar feeling settled over me as I watched Hank back to the very edge of the concrete. It was the same knot of uncertainty and fear I used to get when he left on jobs.

Hank shook the tension out of his arms and said something to the other wolves on the wall. Then, without warning, he ran the three steps to the edge and launched himself out into space.

For a horrible second, I thought he wasn’t going to make it, but then he twisted in midair and cleared the razor wire with just inches to spare.

Relief sparked in my chest. Before it could take hold, Hank plummeted to the ground like a bag of bricks.

He hit the earth with a horrible thud. Clouds of dust billowed around him, and when the air cleared, he wasn’t moving. He lay half-sprawled on his back, arms and legs twisted at unnatural angles.

“Get up.
Get up
.” Eve’s voice was low and urgent, half command, half plea. She approached the fence. “C’mon, Curtis. Get up.”

He didn’t move.

I reached for Jason’s hand and squeezed, squeezed so tightly that I was probably hurting him.

Kyle had once fallen from a second-floor window, but those had been residential stories. And as badly hurt as he’d been, he hadn’t looked nearly as broken.

The minutes dragged on. Eventually, Jason detangled his hand from mine. “Eve . . .”

“He’ll be all right,” she said. “Just give him time.”

But her voice shook with uncertainty, and around us, the other wolves had begun exchanging nervous whispers.

Years ago, I had convinced myself that I was fine with never seeing Hank again, but there was a difference between a world in which Hank chose not to be part of my life and a world in which he simply didn’t exist. The first I could handle, the second I wasn’t ready for.

I stared at Hank, willing him to get up. I stared so long and so hard that when his arm twitched, I was sure I had imagined it.

But Eve had seen it, too. “Curtis? Can you hear me?”

In response, my father’s body tore itself apart. Muscles shifted and the few bones that hadn’t shattered on impact snapped with the sound of a dozen cracking whips. When it was over, a massive wolf with fur the color of ash and snow rose to its feet.

The wolf—I still had trouble thinking of it as “Hank”—tossed its head and took a few experimental steps before breaking into a slow run.

Eve stumbled back a half step in relief. She shook her head, grinned, and then glanced up at the two wolves on the wall. “You’re good to go!”

As they began assembling and positioning equipment, the gray wolf circled back and sniffed one of the packs. It lifted its head and the air around it seemed to shimmer before fur flowed into skin and my father was left kneeling on the ground, his back to the fence.

I quickly looked away as he pulled clothes from the backpack and dressed.

“It’s safe to look,” said Jason drily, a moment later.

I turned as Hank grabbed both bags. He jogged to the water tower, scaled the ladder on the side, and then tied a white cloth around a rung near the top. I wasn’t normally scared of heights, but seeing him climb so high on the rickety structure made my stomach flip.

Jason glanced at his watch. “We’re cutting it too close.”

“They’re going as fast as they can.” I glanced back at the wall. The wolves had assembled a tripod. On it was a contraption that looked like the misbegotten offspring of a telescope and a fire extinguisher.

They waited until Hank climbed down to the ground and then adjusted their aim. With a small blast, a grappling hook shot through the air and sailed over the fence. It hit the water tower with a metallic clang and snagged the rung Hank had marked with the cloth.

Everyone seemed to collectively hold their breath.

The water tower was far from the center of camp, but if a guard had heard and decided to investigate, everything we had planned would fall apart.

The night stayed quiet.

Gradually, in small increments, the muscles in my chest unclenched.

Hank scaled the tower again. After pulling the cord taut, he slipped the grappling hook free and then secured the line using a series of intricate knots. When finished, he raised a hand to signal that everything was ready.

Eve arranged the team in order of importance. Jason and I ranked low; there were only two wolves behind us. The men on the wall would stay and protect the line on this side of the fence. If things went wrong, it might be our only way back out.

Eve started up the scaffold. As the smallest and lightest, she had the dubious honor of being the group’s guinea pig.

“Be careful,” I called up to her.

When she reached the top, she paused and pulled on a pair of heavy black gloves.

There was no harness or safety gear: Eve simply lowered herself to the edge of the wall and grabbed the rope with her gloved hands. She crossed her ankles over the line and began shimmying across. She moved impossibly fast, using the strength and speed that came with lupine syndrome.

I bit my lip as she neared the fence. There were just a few feet between her back and the top of the razor wire.

Eve made it over, but she wasn’t in the clear, yet. The wall was seven yards from the fence; the water tower had to be at least twice that.

After another few moments, she reached the tower. In an impossibly graceful move, she swung off the rope and onto the ladder. She climbed partway down, jumped the last eight feet to the ground, and then held up her arms in a Rocky pose.

The other wolves crossed the line just as quickly. There was a tense moment when one man looked down and almost lost his grip as he was passing over the fence, but he made it.

Then it was Jason’s turn.

He shot me a cocky grin as he pulled on his gloves. “See you on the other side.” He ascended the scaffold so quickly and lithely that it was almost possible to mistake him for one of the werewolves.

I glanced at the line and frowned. Was it my imagination or was the rope hanging a little bit lower? Before I could ask the woman behind me, Jason started across. All that time he spent working out definitely had benefits: He wasn’t quite as quick as the wolves, but most regs would never have been able to keep up with him—not unless they were professional athletes or members of Cirque du Soleil.

Even so, I didn’t blink until he reached the other side.

My turn.

I climbed the scaffold, slipping on my gloves as I went.

“It’s easy,” said one of the wolves with a small, slightly flirtatious smile as I reached the top. “Just hold on and don’t look down.”

“Right,” I bluffed. “Piece of cake.” I sat on the edge of the wall and grabbed the rope. It didn’t look like it was hanging low at all now.
Just my imagination
, I told myself as I hooked my ankles over and gracelessly half squirmed, half flopped off the concrete.

The others had made it look easy. It wasn’t. Within minutes, my arms were shaking and my legs were cramping.

I kept pushing myself. I could see the fence out of the corner of my eye. If I could reach it, I would be a third of the way across.
Don’t think about how far it is to the tower
, I told myself.
Just concentrate on getting to the fence. Focus on that first third
.

Almost there . . .

My muscles were on fire.

One hand over the other. That’s it. . . .

I made it past the fence and felt a ridiculous swell of pride that I hadn’t lost my grip and barbecued myself.

See? Not so bad.

The rope suddenly shook beneath me and dropped an inch.

I yelped and stopped moving.

“Mac!” Jason yelled my name as the line dropped again.

The bottom fell out of my stomach as I held on for dear life.

“Mac, you have to keep going! You have to get to the water tower. Now!”

Jason’s voice came from almost directly below me. I turned my head.

I had never seen him look so scared—not even in the car when it seemed certain we were both about to be killed. “The ladder is coming free—the tower’s too old. There’s no way to hold it. When the line goes down, it’ll hit the fence. You can’t be holding it when that happens.”

There was wire in the line: If I was still holding it when it fell—
Oh, God
. I’d complete the circuit. Even if I survived the fall, I’d be fried.

I started moving again. This time, my arms shook from fear as much as strain, but adrenaline masked the pain.

“You’re doing fine, Mackenzie.” Hank’s voice came from somewhere below, but I didn’t slow to look. “Just a little farther.”