Thornhill (Hemlock) (8 page)

A
SHRILL WHISTLE DROVE INTO MY EARDRUMS LIKE A
spike. My eyes flew open as I half scrambled, half fell out of bed.

A low rumble of complaints and curses swept the room as twenty-nine werewolves were jolted from sleep.

Eve was already on her feet, eyes narrowed as she stared at the door.

I turned and followed her gaze.

The female guard from last night—the one with the crew cut and square build—stood in the archway to the common room. One hand held a clipboard, the other a silver whistle. She fought back a yawn.

I swallowed. “Where’s my friend?”

She ignored the question. “You were the only two assigned here last night, correct?” Without waiting for a reply, she said, “I’m supposed to take you to orientation,” and then turned and disappeared through the arch.

A few girls cast bleary gazes in our direction as Eve and I walked past. One—a brunette with a sharp, foxlike face and features that looked vaguely Native American—glared as she raised herself on one elbow. “Great. More Eumon trash.”

Eve stopped and turned. A predatory grin split her face as she took a step toward the girl.

“Guard outside,” I hissed—more out of self-preservation than concern for her well-being.

“I wasn’t actually going to start anything,” she muttered unconvincingly, before spinning on her heel and heading through the common room. “Seriously, though, someone needs to teach that girl a lesson. She can’t insult everyone just because her mom is the head of the Carteron pack. Like that’s so special. It didn’t keep her from winding up in here.”

I followed Eve out of the dorm, half wishing for a jacket as I crossed my arms against the chill morning air. The guard told us to turn right at the end of the path and then walked behind us, giving directions as we made our way through the camp.

She could tase either of us in the back and we wouldn’t realize it until the electricity hit
. The thought made me shudder.

Daylight didn’t diminish Thornhill’s military school vibe. The buildings and lawns were neat and precise—even the ones that were still under construction—and the sky above the camp was an endless gunmetal gray. As we walked, I occasionally caught glimpses of a silver ribbon in the distance: the fence.

We reached a fork in the path at the same time as a group of boys. Each sported a crew cut and an olive version of the gray uniforms Eve and I wore. Kyle wasn’t with them, but the guard herding the group was the redhead from last night.

“Tanner,” said our guard, “I thought you were supposed to be off with the nightshift at six thirty.”

“Donaldson quit.” The redhead shrugged. “I got stuck with his shift.”

They herded us toward a redbrick building with Auditorium painted on an arch above a set of heavy wooden doors. Though the structure was a simple rectangle with a flat roof, it seemed to match the large building near the courtyard: it looked decades older than the dorms and had the same ivy-covered walls.

We filtered into a space that had clearly once been a gymnasium. The lines of the basketball court were still visible and an ancient scoreboard—the kind where someone actually had to flip the numbers—hung at one end of the former court.

No way could anyone play a game in here now, though. The room was filled with three sections of benches, all facing what would have been the sideline.

Only the first two rows of each section were occupied. I quickly scanned the handful of wolves who were already seated; a small spark of fear raced down my spine as I realized Kyle and Serena weren’t among them.

“You two,” said our guard, “section on the right. First row.”

My eyes were drawn to three huge banners on the wall as Eve and I claimed seats on the mostly empty bench.

My skin crawled.

The banners were white text on black fabric and they reminded me of that book we’d read in English last year:
1984
. Amy had hated it.

Below the banners, a black podium had been placed in the middle of a row of ten folding chairs. The podium had the Thornhill crest stenciled in white on the front and had been carefully positioned so that the center of the crest appeared directly underneath the word
freedom
.

“Subtle,” I muttered.

I tore my gaze away and glanced over my shoulder. One section over and one row back, four boys were finding their seats. My heart gave a small lurch as I realized one of the boys was Kyle.

The guards at the back of the room were talking among themselves. They dealt with wolves as they came in, but only occasionally glanced our way. I darted across the aisle to Kyle’s section.

Relief flashed across his face when he spotted me, and he swept me in a hug as soon as I reached him.

“Longest three hours of my life,” he said, voice rough as he held me tightly.

I buried my face against his neck and breathed in the scent of his skin. “No kidding.”

After a moment, I eased back and studied him. It was hard to believe it had only been a few hours since we had been pulled apart. Kyle looked years older. The olive uniform deepened the color of his skin, making him look almost tanned, and his newly shorn hair highlighted the strong planes and angles of his face. The stripped-down appearance made his eyes impossible to ignore; they held shadows of everything he’d seen and done over the past few weeks, things no seventeen-year-old should have to carry.

Things he carried because of me.

Turning away before he could catch the flash of guilt on my face, I scanned the auditorium. It only took a second. As far as I could tell, only the wolves caught in last night’s raid were here.

Kyle didn’t have to ask who I was looking for. “I don’t think Serena’s here.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “The two guys who were tased during the blood test are, though.”

I couldn’t remember what the boys looked like—especially with everyone dressed the same—but I took Kyle’s word for it. I bit my lip and allowed him to pull me down to the bench. Why would they be here when Serena wasn’t?

A wolf in the next section turned his head to talk to someone behind him. For a split second, I thought he had a tattoo on the side of his neck, but then I realized it was just a thick mound of scar tissue. I swallowed. “Do you think Jason’s all right?”

“Probably,” said Kyle slowly. “Getting caught in a building full of werewolves doesn’t look great, but Jason could teach a class in bullshitting. He’ll have talked his way out of it.”

Before either of us could say anything else, the auditorium doors closed with a bang that made several wolves jump.

The gunshot slap of heels rang out as a woman strode toward the front of the gathering. She looked oddly familiar, but it took me a moment to place her: Winifred Sinclair. The woman whose photo I had seen in the paper.

The picture hadn’t done her justice. Her hair—a rich, chestnut brown except for the single streak of white—was set in curls so precise they looked sculpted, while her pinstripe suit emphasized her height and slender frame.

Two women and three men—all dressed in white—followed in her wake and claimed the folding chairs on the right as she took her place behind the podium.

Every whisper fell silent as Sinclair’s gaze swept the room. When her eyes passed over me, it felt like someone had slipped an ice cube down my back.

“My name is Warden Sinclair and I’d like to welcome you all to Thornhill. Though the camp isn’t fully operational yet, we’ve been able to open our doors to a select number of wolves to ease overcrowding at other facilities.” She swept a hand over the top of the podium as though clearing away dust. “I want to stress how lucky you are to be here.”

Lucky?
There was a collective intake of breath. How could anyone—even someone who ran a camp—call being rounded up at gunpoint “lucky”?

Something about the raid—some snatch of memory that didn’t quite make sense—hovered at the edge of my mind, but Sinclair pulled my attention back to the here and now.

“Van Horne is the nearest rehabilitation camp. Last month, there were eighteen deaths, food shortages, and riots. Similar conditions are found at almost every camp in the country.”

She paused, letting her words sink in.

“Thornhill is different. We are developing a pilot program that truly focuses on rehabilitation. You were sent here, instead of Van Horne, because you are young enough to make the most of this opportunity.”

Young enough?
I guess that explained why they had separated everyone over eighteen.

The boy in front of me raised his hand and the warden nodded.

“I don’t understand how you can rehabilitate us.” His voice cracked and I realized it was the boy from the truck, the one who had almost lost control. “I mean, there’s no cure, is there?”

There was an oddly hopeful note in his voice. Next to me, Kyle inhaled sharply and leaned forward. The Adam’s apple in his throat bobbed as he swallowed.

“Not yet.”

I was watching Kyle, not the warden. Disappointment and pain flashed across his face. His hands rested on his knees and he stared down at them, studying them. When he glanced up and realized I was watching, he looked embarrassed, then a little angry, like I had spied on something private.

Sinclair was still speaking. “The best medical minds in the country are looking for a cure. There may someday be a breakthrough. If that happens, wolves at places like Van Horne won’t be released. The camps will have robbed them of any humanity LS left behind, and they will not be able to reintegrate into society. Thornhill will help prepare you for life in the event a cure is found. For rejoining the outside world and adjusting to a single physical form. The
right
physical form.”

I thought of Ben and shuddered. He’d gone into the camps a normal teenager. After getting out, he had willingly signed on for a killing spree.

Sinclair curled her fingers around the edge of the podium, clutching it so tightly that her knuckles stood out like sharp points. “You’ve been given this opportunity over hundreds of other werewolves, but be warned: If you do not treat Thornhill like the privilege it is—if you cause trouble or fall behind in your classes—the program coordinators behind me will hear about it. If they decide that you are not a suitable candidate for our program, you will be transferred—either to Van Horne or to work on one of the other camps currently under construction, all of which are being built using wolf labor. Neither option will improve the quality of your life.”

She flashed a small, empty smile. “I hope we’re all on the same page.”

A
FTER AN HOUR OF SPEECHES AND LISTS OF DOS AND
don’ts, we were ordered to stay in our seats while the warden and program coordinators left. Once the last white uniform disappeared through the doors, timetables were handed out and guards were assigned to each row of werewolves.

Group by group, we were led outside.

“Line up in twos and follow me,” snapped our escort, a grizzly of a man with acne-scarred cheeks. “And pay attention. After today, you’ll be responsible for finding your own way around this place. Guards and counselors have enough to do without walking you to and from every class and work detail.”

“Right,” muttered a female voice from somewhere behind Kyle and me, “because it would really be possible to get lost in this place.”

She had a point. Sooner or later you’d just hit the fence.

I glanced at Kyle’s timetable and compared it to my own. Every day of the week was scheduled, though evenings were considered “free time” until curfew. We had the same morning classes, but our afternoon work details—physical labor assignments to help us build character and the camp save money—were all different.

“Self-control,” said Kyle, reading off this morning’s class. “Sounds . . . cheery.”

I looked up, a reply on my lips, and caught a glimpse of white on the path ahead.

One of the male program coordinators had stopped to talk to a counselor. According to the orientation speeches, the tan-clad counselors oversaw classes and work details while the program coordinators designed the curriculum and made bigger decisions—like who got to stay and who ended up being transferred.

We weren’t supposed to talk to the program coordinators directly, but if anyone could tell me where Serena was, it would probably be one of them. I tugged on Kyle’s sleeve and glanced meaningfully in the man’s direction. Kyle nodded and we slowed our pace, falling back to the end of the line and then falling out completely.

“Excuse me?” I said as we approached the pair. The coordinator turned. I had a second to register his sandy-blond hair and a birthmark like a thumbprint on his cheek before my gaze slid to the woman at his side. A lead weight settled in my stomach as I recognized the counselor from last night: Langley.

She stared at us and her mouth pressed into a line that was ruler straight. I had never seen her before arriving at Thornhill, but I had the distinct impression she hated me—hated anyone interned here—on principle.

I swallowed and focused on the coordinator. He held a computer tablet under one arm and he seemed very young—maybe as young as his midtwenties—for his position. Somehow, I hoped youth would make him more sympathetic. Determined to get my question out before the guard leading our group noticed Kyle and I were missing, I spoke in a rush. “One of my friends was held back last night and she wasn’t at orientation this morning. I was wondering where she was?”

“A few wolves were over eighteen. They were transferred this morning.” He turned back to Langley, clearly dismissing us.

“She was seventeen,” interjected Kyle. “They didn’t hold her back until after we were through admissions.”

Langley’s eyes narrowed. “I suggest you spend less time worrying about others and rejoin your group.”

“But . . .” I started to object, and Kyle placed a warning hand on my arm. Our guard had brought the others to a halt and was making his way back down the path toward us.

I knew we should walk away—quickly—but I still hesitated.

A flicker of annoyance crossed the coordinator’s face. He lifted the tablet. “What are your names?”

A chill swept through me. He hadn’t said or done anything threatening, but he had the power to move either of us to another camp if he decided we were troublemakers—the warden had said as much herself. I shook my head and backed away. “Never mind. Sorry to have bothered you.” The words were cardboard and paste in my mouth as I turned and followed Kyle back to the line.

The guard scowled and rested his hand on the top of his holster as we rejoined the group. Thankfully, his ire seemed only to last until Langley and the program coordinator looked away, then he muttered something about not being paid enough and headed back to the front of the line.

I slipped my hand into Kyle’s as we passed a dorm and a few classroom buildings. “Do you think she’s all right?”

“Serena’s tough,” he replied.

It wasn’t an answer.

We reached a large white building with the personality and charm of a shoebox. I dimly remembered walking past it last night.

The guard’s voice rang out. “Dining hall. You’ve still got twenty minutes for breakfast—assuming the other wolves left you any.”

Waves of conversation and the smell of burned eggs crashed over me as Kyle and I followed the others into a cavernous cafeteria. The whole room seemed to be shades of brown and beige: brown tile floors, brown painted walls, long beige tables. The rest of the camp had risen while we were in orientation and there had to be close to three hundred wolves inside.

The last thing I felt like doing was eating, but Kyle headed for a stack of trays—brown, of course—and pushed one into my hands. I tried to object, but he just said, “You won’t be any help to Serena if you pass out from hunger.”

I tried to remember the last time I had eaten. The only thing that came to mind was the coffee I’d had yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday.

I followed Kyle down the line, mindlessly accepting helpings of food without realizing—or caring—what any of it was. How was it possible that so much had changed in less than twenty-four hours?

“I asked her to come to Denver.” The words carved a hollow in my chest. “I’m responsible. If anything happens to her, it’s my fault.”

“I know the feeling.”

We reached the end of the line. I lifted my tray and glanced up at him. “You didn’t ask me to come after you.”

Kyle held my gaze for a handful of heartbeats and then shrugged. “But you’re still here.”

Before I could respond, he headed for an empty table at the far end of the room.

My sneakers squeaked against the linoleum floor and I could feel curious eyes on me as I crossed the cafeteria. Eve sat at a table with a bunch of kids I dimly recognized from last night. At orientation, we’d been told that packs were banned in the camp—like Thornhill was a big, happy family or one of those colleges that outlawed sororities—but it looked like the Eumon wolves were intending to stick together.

I slid into a seat across from Kyle and halfheartedly pushed my food around with my fork. “The program coordinator didn’t seem big on answering questions,” I said, stating the obvious.

“None of the staff are.” A boy with a blond crew cut was suddenly towering over my right shoulder. “Cool if I sit?” Without waiting for a reply, he set his tray—and himself—next to me.

Kyle made introductions. “Mac, this is Dex. He’s in my dorm.”

The boy turned his head and I bit back a gasp.

He had the kind of rugged jaw you saw in shaving commercials and wide-set brown eyes that a girl could lose herself in, but his right cheek was covered in a network of intricate white scars. It looked like someone had carved symbols into his flesh with a scalpel.

“Freakish, isn’t it?”

“Umm . . .” I had seen some horrible scars before—Kyle’s back, Ben’s chest—but never anything like this. They had the pull of a car wreck on the side of the highway: I didn’t want to stare, but I couldn’t look away. “Are those . . .
letters
?”

“I think so.” Dex rubbed his cheek with a hand big enough to palm a basketball. “But don’t ask me what language it is or what it says. A werewolf decided to use my face as a Post-it after I broke into his car.”

“What . . .” I swallowed. “What happened to the wolf who did it?” There were other questions I wanted to ask—things like
Were you conscious?
—but I figured I was better off not knowing the answers.

“Curtis dealt with it.” Eve slid into the seat next to Kyle and snagged a piece of toast from his plate. I had been so focused on Dex’s scars that I hadn’t noticed her arrival until she sat. “The wolf wasn’t one of ours, but the Denver packs have an agreement not to draw attention to ourselves.”

“And my face is pretty high profile.” Eve started to object, but Dex swept her words aside. “It’s not like I haven’t seen a mirror, Evelyn.”

She shook her head and a smile flashed across her face. “Damn, it’s good to see you. I think I even missed you calling me that.”

Dex pressed a hand to his chest. “Don’t tell me you were actually worried about me.”

“Kinda. But tell anyone and I’ll deny it.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” He sobered. “I heard the club got raided.”

“Raided and torched.” Eve dropped the toast back onto Kyle’s plate, her appetite apparently lost. “Where’s your girlfriend?” she asked as though trying to distract herself from the memory of last night.

A pained look crossed Dex’s face, twisting the shape of his scars. “Don’t know.”

Eve stared. “What do you mean you don’t know? Everyone said you got picked up during the same raid.”

“We did. Six weeks ago, Corry and I arrived together. After we were here a few days, two guards showed up and took her out of class. They said they had some questions for her.”

A prickly feeling crept down my neck. It was what the woman had said last night before they had taken Serena—that they had questions for her. Kyle reached under the table and skimmed my knee with his fingertips, a quick, comforting touch.

A guard walked by. Dex waited for him to move out of earshot before continuing. “Corry didn’t come back. When she didn’t show up at dinner, I went to her dorm. Her bunk was completely stripped. I kept asking where she was—asked so much I got tased. Finally, they told me she had gotten violent and was transferred.”

Eve frowned. “Corry’s never struck me as someone who has a lot of self-control issues.”

“She doesn’t. She has more control than any wolf I’ve met.” Dex’s words were fierce and sharp. They cut through the air, and I realized the noise around us had died down. I glanced at the next table. All conversation had ceased. The wolves were staring at their trays, but they were obviously hanging on every word.

“There are things you don’t ask about here,” continued Dex as he ran a hand over the numbers on his wrist cuff. “Classes. Work details. Disappearances.
Especially
disappearances.”

“Next, he’ll be telling them about Willowgrove,” muttered a voice at the other table, just loud enough to carry.

The words were accompanied by a scattered chorus of nervous laughter.

A faint blush darkened Dex’s cheeks, but when he spoke, his voice was low and angry rather than embarrassed. “They think I’m crazy. They’d rather pretend this place actually cares about rehabilitating us than admit something strange is going on.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s Willowgrove?”

“A Thornhill urban legend. The bogeyman for werewolf boys and girls.” Dex shrugged. “People say it’s a secret camp—one so bad they don’t tell anyone about it. If you disappear from Thornhill, that’s where you get sent.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.” Werewolves didn’t have rights and the camps already had horrible reputations. It was hard to imagine one so bad the LSRB would keep it secret.

“No,” agreed Dex, staring at me levelly, “it doesn’t.”

Kyle leaned forward. “So what do you think it is?”

“A fictional camp to balance the books or a lie to tell the wolves they nab so they’ll go more quietly.” Dex’s eyes darkened. “Do you know why prisons let inmates out early for good behavior?”

“As an incentive,” said Kyle with a shrug.

“To save money and free up beds,” I corrected softly. I shot a quick glance at him, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house where conversations didn’t regularly start with some variation of “If-slash-when I go to prison.”

“Every wolf they pick up is a lifer,” said Dex. “You and I? We represent sixty years of taxpayer dollars going down the drain, and I’m guessing budgets at the camps are already stretched thin. Sooner or later, they’re going to need a way to keep the population in check. Sinclair is just doing it sooner.”

Eve cleared her throat. When she spoke, her tone had a razor edge. “What, exactly, are you saying?”

“I’m saying Willowgrove is the ultimate solution. Kill a few wolves here and there and no one gets suspicious. Do it often enough, and eventually the whole overcrowding thing sorts itself out.”

The silence at the other table had spread. Every wolf in the dining hall seemed to be listening, and guards were starting to notice the change in atmosphere—notice and pinpoint our table as the epicenter.

Dex pushed himself to his feet. His gaze locked on me. “Kyle said they took your friend during admissions?”

Throat dry, I nodded.

“If she’s still alive, she’s probably in the sanatorium.”

The words
still alive
hit me like a slap. I struggled to find my voice. “Sanatorium?”

“The big building near the courtyard. It used to be a hospital for tuberculosis patients. It’s off-limits to wolves unless you’re dying or sent to the detention block.”

Two guards headed our way, and the look Dex shot them was enough that one of the men unsnapped his holster and placed his hand on the butt of his Taser.

Eyes on the guards but still speaking to me, Dex said, “In the whole camp—unless you count the gate and the fence—that’s one of only two places they really don’t want you to go.”

“What’s the other?”

But he was already walking away, guards trailing him until he left the building.

I rose from my seat, intent on following and getting an answer, but before I could, an amplified voice boomed through the air with a crackle of static. “All new wolves scheduled for self-control class proceed to the lawn in front of the dining hall.”