“We’ll figure something out,” promised Kyle, and I knew part of the determination in his voice was the belief—or hope—that I’d leave once we knew Serena was safe.
But even if we found her, how could anyone ever be safe in a place with counselors like Langley and where—according to Dex—people disappeared?
I took one last glance at the sanatorium roof before it slipped from view.
No: finding Serena was just step one. There was no way I was leaving Thornhill until I figured out how to take both her and Kyle with me.
12
MY ARMS THROBBED AS I TRANSFERRED ANOTHER LOAD of wet sheets to a dryer that was big enough to sleep in. The humidity in the air plastered my shirt to my skin and made my lungs ache. Before this afternoon, I wouldn’t have said laundry was actual torture, but before this afternoon, I had never tried to do laundry for a few hundred people.
“You! Over here!” The counselor—a chubby woman with a nose ring and olive skin—raised her voice above the din of the machines.
Twelve pairs of eyes turned toward her as we each tried to figure out which one of us she was talking to. At the machine next to me, Eve dropped the armful of Thornhill shirts she was holding and pushed back her sweat-damp hair.
The counselor’s gaze locked on me. “Over here,” she repeated.
I followed her across the long, narrow room to where two-dozen wheeled bins awaited an ever-rotating supply of uniforms, sheets, and towels. She gestured at two smaller bins set off to the side. Unlike the others, they had lids but no wheels. One was labeled Gloves, the other Smocks.
“These need to go to the garden sheds by the produce fields. Can you manage?”
A sinking feeling filled my stomach as I tried to figure out how much each bin might weigh.
When I didn’t immediately answer, the counselor frowned. “Are you going to pick one up?”
Good question, I thought.
There was no choice but to try. Hoping gloves would be lighter than smocks, I lifted the nearest bin—
And almost dropped it. Not because it was too heavy—though I could feel the strain in my arms and shoulders—but because I could barely reach around it; no wonder the counselor had asked if I could manage.
“You’ll need help.” She turned to the room and asked for a volunteer.
I tried to keep the surprise from my face when Eve raised her hand.
The counselor waved her forward and gave us directions as Eve gracefully lifted the bin full of smocks. “They go in shed fifteen. Head past the auditorium and take a left at the next path. Don’t worry about making it back for the end of the detail. We only have ten minutes left and it’ll probably take you that long to get there.”
We made our way out of the building. For a few moments, I luxuriated in the sensation of the afternoon breeze cooling the sweat on my face and the chance to breathe air that wasn’t as heavy as a wet gym sock. But the mental break lasted only until the laundry building was out of sight.
“What do you want, Eve?”
“Who said I wanted anything?”
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye. Her expression was too guarded for someone who wasn’t working some sort of angle. “Come on. First you bailed me out in self-control—thanks for that, by the way—and then you volunteered to lug this stuff across the camp.”
“Beats staying in the laundry room,” she said with a shrug.
Up ahead, a pair of men rounded a bend in the path. Both wore jogging shorts and blue T-shirts—outfits that were completely at odds with the holsters bouncing on their hips. Even at rest, the guards were armed.
We stepped off the path to make room. Once they were out of sight, Eve set down her bin, readjusted her hold, and then picked it back up. I was tempted to do the same, but given the way my arms were starting to shake, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to lift it a second time.
“We need to get out of Thornhill,” she said. “We can’t just sit around, doing nothing.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What happened to all that stuff you said about Hank getting us out?”
She considered her answer as we passed the auditorium and took the left the counselor had told us about. Here, close-crowded trees bordered the path, and I realized we were on the other side of the woods we had passed on our way to self-control earlier in the day.
“Curtis is going to try and get us out,” Eve said slowly, ignoring the short, skeptical noise I made, “but if he can’t, then we have to figure out something on our own. This whole place was built to control wolves like me, not regs like you. You can go places I can’t. We can use that.”
She blew a strand of hair off her face. “I am not spending the rest of my life in here.”
We neared the edge of the produce fields and Eve fell silent: enough wolves were working that private conversation was impossible.
The fields were located on the farthest outskirts of the camp and were nothing more than glorified vegetable patches—straggly ones at that. An old water tower rose near the edge of one. Covered with rust and balancing shakily on four spindly legs, it looked like it had been here long before the camp—maybe even before the sanatorium.
Shed fifteen was just past it. Beyond that was the fence.
Large signs warned wolves not to get within eight feet of the wires, and someone had enhanced one of these by adding a stick figure with lightning bolts shooting out of his fingertips and the top of his head.
“Funny,” muttered Eve as she headed for the shed.
She pulled open the door and stepped inside, but I stopped when I was still several feet away. On the other side of the fence was some sort of steel grid. I stared at it, puzzled, but then my stomach lurched as I realized I was looking at the early stages of a reinforced concrete wall.
All of the camps had them. They kept regs from getting near the electrified fences and wolves from talking to anyone on the outside. Some regs left memorials along the walls or spray-painted tributes to infected loved ones inside the camps. There were websites where you could see photos of the graffiti.
This wall was barely under construction—there couldn’t have been more than sixty yards of steel set up and only a few feet of solid concrete in place—but once completed, it would rise forty feet and completely encircle the camp. You wouldn’t be able to see out unless you looked up.
I was suddenly hit by a wave of loneliness that left me feeling like one of those paper snowflakes kids made: all stretched out and full of holes. If I couldn’t find a way to get Kyle and Serena out of here, they would spend the rest of their lives cut off from everyone and everything—including me if I ended up on the outside of the wall.
And if I didn’t end up on the outside—if I stayed in here with them—I would never see Tess or Jason again.
The thought of never hearing another one of Tess’s sugar-fueled rants about men, or never seeing Jason’s green eyes or that look he got on his face when I was driving him crazy, made my chest ache.
I pushed the feeling away. I couldn’t afford to think like that. I couldn’t afford to get bogged down in what-ifs and maybes.
I headed into the shed and deposited my bin. The muscles in my arms spasmed, and my spine twinged as I was able to stand up straight for the first time since leaving the laundry building.
Eve watched me stretch, a strange look on her face that made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t quite define. It looked a little like longing, but more . . . wistful.