WARDEN SINCLAIR
14
THE WARDEN WASN’T WEARING SHOES WHEN SHE OPENED the door. It was a ridiculous thing to notice, but it was the first thing I focused on. Her office had cream carpet—thicker, more expensive carpet than I’d ever seen in an office—and her nylon-clad feet sank into the pile.
I dragged my gaze upward. Sinclair was wearing a black suit with the blazer unbuttoned over a bloodred silk camisole. Her hair was pulled back in a twist, but strands had fallen free, especially around the white streak at her temple. She looked younger up close—maybe even as young as thirty—but fine lines had begun to appear at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth.
Her expression said she was a million miles away, but that lasted only until she took in the scene in front of her. The lines on her face stretched and deepened as her gaze slid over me and then locked on the guard holding my arm. Something dark shifted behind her eyes: a storm cloud passing over a blue sky.
“I told them you weren’t to be interrupted.” The receptionist’s voice, high and anxious, drifted across the waiting room. “I tried to stop them.”
“It’s all right, Sophie,” said Sinclair. She arched an eyebrow and waited for the guard to explain.
He seemed to deflate slightly under her sharp gaze. “Found this girl wandering the corridors. Practically threw me through a wall before running.”
I twisted and stared. Through a wall? I had barely touched him.
Sinclair turned her attention to me. “How did you get into the building?”
Like the guard, I could almost feel myself grow smaller. I had the sudden, irrational urge to tell her I was sorry, to apologize for everything and anything. I forced the feeling down. “My friend was hurt. The guard at the main door told me to take him to the infirmary. I stepped out into the hall to get some air and got turned around.”
“Claims she was lost.” The guard finally let go of my arm. “Biggest pile of—”
“Did you check?” There was a layer of frost in Sinclair’s smooth voice that made things inside my stomach clench. “Did you call the infirmary?”
The guard’s face flushed. “No . . . I . . . like I said, she attacked and—”
A barely perceptible sigh escaped the warden’s lips. “Never mind. I’ll handle it. Sophie, call the front entrance and find out who was on duty.” The guard opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else, Sinclair ushered me through the door and into a windowless office that looked like it belonged to a principal and smelled like church.
The door clicked shut.
“Sit,” she ordered as she crossed to her desk and picked up the phone. “Doctor LeBelle?” There was a pause. “Was a wolf taken to the infirmary a short time ago?” Another pause. “I see.” Sinclair’s eyes locked on mine. “There’s a girl here. Mackenzie.”
How did she know my name? The guards hadn’t bothered asking. Shivering, I lowered myself onto one of two heavy wooden chairs as Sinclair listened to the voice on the other end of the line.
I scanned the walls. Framed diplomas and newspaper articles dotted seas of white to my left and right, but the space behind the desk was dominated by an enormous painting depicting a woman in a tattered Grecian dress. She knelt in the dirt, struggling to close the lid of a flaming box as shadows closed in around her.
It was beautiful. And creepy.
I frowned and squinted. Maybe it was my imagination, but the painting’s heavy black frame didn’t look like it was flush to the wall.
My attention was pulled back to Sinclair as she thanked the doctor and hung up the phone. She walked around her desk and sat in a massive leather chair. “Your friend was given permission to shift. His wound healed and he was sent to his morning class.”
I started to breathe a sigh of relief but then thought about Serena and the graveyard in the woods. If Dex was right, Thornhill was a gallows and the woman in front of me was probably signing the execution orders. I couldn’t let myself believe anything she said. “There was so much blood, though. . . .”
Sinclair’s smile slipped, and my throat filled with dust. “Surely you know how much damage your body can heal?”
According to my father, the best lie was always the one mixed with the most truth. “I don’t know many other werewolves,” I said, trying to keep my voice level as I forced myself to meet her cold blue eyes, “and all I’ve ever had were cuts and bruises.”
Sinclair regarded me for a moment before seeming to accept the explanation. “I’m happy to hear that. Too much time spent among other wolves on the outside can make adjusting to a program like Thornhill’s more difficult.” I tensed as she reached into a drawer, but she only pulled out a container of aloe vera wipes. “For your face,” she said, not unkindly, as she set them on the corner of her desk next to a container of hand lotion.
Hesitantly, I took a wipe from the package and passed it over my forehead. The white cloth came back tinged with Kyle’s blood. Feeling slightly sick, I balled it in my hand.
“Blood bothers you?”
“Not because I’m a werewolf,” I said quickly. “I’ve just always found it gross.” My eyes returned to the painting behind the desk.
Sinclair glanced over her shoulder. “Pandora’s box,” she said, turning back to me. “I’ve always seen parallels between that particular myth and lupine syndrome. Some people see the disease as a gift without realizing how dangerous it is to lift the lid.”
I swallowed. “And that’s what Thornhill is? A way to help us keep the lid on?”
“For the wolves who commit fully to the idea of rehabilitation, yes.”
With her dark skin and shoulder-length curls, the woman in the painting looked a little like Serena.
It gave me courage.
“I have another friend,” I said, taking a plunge, “she was held back during admissions, but no one will tell me where she is or what’s going on.”
Sinclair plucked a file from atop a stack of papers. She opened the folder and glanced down. “Serena?”
I nodded even though she wasn’t looking at me. “Yes,” I managed, heart in throat.
Sinclair glanced up. “There were a few abnormalities in her blood. We want to make sure she isn’t sick before putting her in with the general population.”
“Sick?” I thought about the girl with the IV. Feeling like the ground was crumbling beneath me, I said, “How could she be sick? There’s no way she has bloodlust.”
Sinclair folded her hands on the desk, and I caught sight of a silver and garnet ring on her right index finger. Amy’s mother had a ring like that, one with a garnet for Amy and a sapphire for her brother. A birthstone ring.
“Mackenzie, LS is a new disease. We barely understand how it works. We’ve recently found a virus—similar to the canine parvovirus, which affects dogs—in some cities where large numbers of werewolves tend to congregate. We believe Serena may have contracted it.”
She’s lying, I tried to tell myself, there’s no new disease. It’s a trick. But I remembered the way the girl had looked in the hallway. It was like something had been eating her from the inside out. I gripped the arm of my chair so hard that my thumbnail bent and snapped. When I spoke, I didn’t recognize my voice. “Are you . . . are you sure she’s sick?”
Sinclair stood and walked around the desk. She placed a hand on my shoulder and the scent of lavender wafted up from her skin. Her touch was heavy and stiff. When I glanced up, I spotted an HFD in her other hand. Trusting, but not that trusting.