I rounded the edge of the fence and almost did a face plant as I clambered over the gate. I caught a glimpse of Eve’s red hair out of the corner of my eye as I hurtled down the path, but I didn’t stop until I had gone another fifteen feet.
Eve was already standing by the time I looked back. She nodded at me, once, and I did the same before continuing on.
The chain-link fence rose at least ten feet into the air on either side of the path and left just enough space in the middle for a jeep to squeeze through. It was creepy and claustrophobic and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing was going to snap down on me. The breeze—which had been gentle and welcome when we left the laundry building—picked up strength and pushed at my back.
After a few minutes, the path curved to the right and then ended in a small, overgrown clearing. The fence branched out on either side, looping around an area that was too perfectly square to be anything other than man-made. When I glanced around the edges of the clearing, I noticed HFDs along each side of the fence.
The space was completely empty. I bit my lip. Why go to all this trouble to keep people out of an empty field?
I waded into the straggly grass and tripped as my sneaker caught on the edge of something hard.
I pitched forward and barely caught my balance. Letting out a low curse, I glanced down. A small rectangle had been set into the ground. I crouched and brushed thick weeds away from a granite slab. It was a grave marker, the name and dates worn smooth by time and weather.
I stood and walked down two rows of identical stones. There were fourteen in total, and only one had retained a legible date: 1933.
If the main building had been a hospital for tuberculosis patients, it made sense that there would be a graveyard, but why hide it? Who would care?
The markers in the next row looked different. Curious, I walked forward. The grass was slightly less overgrown, here, and the markers were metal, not stone. They weren’t decades old—the oldest was dated just five months ago—and each had a four-digit number where a name should be.
My blood turned to ice as I glanced at my wrist: four digits.
What if Dex was right?
Pulse thudding, I walked forward, counting as I went. There were six rows of seven markers and each row was progressively less overgrown. When I reached the last row, the graves were covered with plain dirt that looked like it could have been turned yesterday.
All of the dates were within the last four weeks.
I reached the last marker.
I couldn’t look down.
I had to look down.
My knees threatened to give out in relief as I stared at the slab of metal and read the date. Six days. The date was six days past. Whoever was buried here, it wasn’t . . . it wasn’t Serena.
A gust of wind whipped my hair around my face as a low rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. A flutter of yellow a few feet away caught my attention and all the relief died in my chest.
A wooden stake—the kind they used on construction sites to show where things should be placed—had been driven into the ground right where the next marker would be.
A roaring sound filled my head, louder than the distant thunder.
There were only two reasons why a stake would be there: either a body had been buried and the marker hadn’t been placed yet or . . .
I stumbled back, struggling to keep my balance as the first drops of rain hit my face.
. . . or they were marking where the next body would go.
13
“POP QUIZ, MACKENZIE DOBSON . . .”
“I’m not playing.”
“Spoilsport.” Amy laced her fingers through the links of the fence and stared at the cemetery. Her pale-blue sundress seemed to glow slightly in the dark and her bare feet and legs were splattered with bits of mud and grass.
She stared at the markers—small, dark shapes barely visibly in the mist. “Why do you think they took their names? They took their names and left them with numbers no one would remember them by. It’s sort of sad.”
Blood dripped off her hands and landed on the grass. For a moment, I thought she had cut herself, but then the moon slipped out from behind the clouds. The entire fence was coated in blood. Thick red beads ran down the links and fell to the dirt below. The earth soaked it up like a sponge, and when Amy shifted her weight, the ground beneath her gave a soft, wet sigh.
“If I could see them,” continued Amy as though nothing were wrong, “if I could talk to the Thornhill ghosts, do you think they’d talk back?”
“Amy . . .” I swallowed, fighting the urge to run, “whose blood is that?” A better question would have been Why is it on the fence? but I could only handle one thing at a time.
“It’s everyone’s.” Amy shrugged and nodded toward my arm.
I followed her gaze. Blood soaked the sleeve of my shirt and coated my hand like a glove.
“Everything runs red here.”
A gasp lodged itself in my throat as I woke in a tangle of sweat-damp sheets. The room was filled with blue-black shadows, but early morning light slipped past the curtains. I had overslept.
I dressed quickly, making sure to pull my sleeve down to hide my arm—the same arm that had been bleeding in my dream. I wasn’t sure how my dorm mates would feel if they discovered I was a reg, and I didn’t want to find out. Hank always said people hated being lied to almost as much as being stolen from. He oughta know: he was an expert at both.
Eve raised herself up on her elbow.
From liar and deserter to pack leader and caregiver. How was it possible for two people to have such different opinions and expectations of the same man?
“Sure you’re up for this?” she whispered. Her gray-green eyes reflected the light from the bathroom doorway.
I nodded. After what I had found in the woods, Eve and I had regrouped with Kyle. There was no way I could wait another day before trying to get into the sanatorium—not with the implications of the grave markers and that yellow stake.
Since injury and detention were the only excuses a wolf had for being in the building, Kyle would injure himself. I’d play the part of the hysterical girlfriend and insist on going with him. Once inside, I’d try to slip away and find some sign of Serena. Eve had volunteered for the job, but given that we didn’t know if there were HFDs inside, I was the logical choice.
Plus, there was no way in hell I was letting Kyle go in there without me.
As far as plans went, it was about as sturdy as a house of cards in Tornado Alley. We just didn’t have much choice.
“Good luck,” said Eve. Then, just in case I was in danger of thinking we were on our way to becoming BFFs, she added, “Don’t screw it up.”
Tossing her a glare, I bent down and grabbed my shoes. Then, sneakers in hand, I walked past the sleeping girls and out of the dorm.
Puddle water soaked my socks as I stepped outside.
It had stopped raining sometime during the night, but the paths and grass still shimmered wetly as the sky lightened to mauve.
A shadow broke away from the side of the building: Kyle.
Warmth flooded his eyes, and for a brief, heady second, I actually believed I could be the center of someone’s world. A small voice in the back of my head reminded me that he had left me and run away to Denver, but I pushed it aside.
“Tired?”
“Exhausted,” I admitted as I pulled on my sneakers. I curled my toes inside my damp socks. “I spent most of the night trying to figure out if there was a way to get inside the building that wouldn’t involve you hurting yourself while trying not to think about the graveyard and trying to convince myself that Serena is all right.”