“I’m actually on staff,” retorted Jason. “They make you buy the outfit, but the benefits include dental.”
I shot him a reproachful look and he shrugged. “I didn’t start it.” To Kyle, he said, “Look, I couldn’t go home knowing Mac was in here. Don’t pretend you wouldn’t have tried to get inside if you were in my shoes.” He stared at Kyle, waiting for his anger to crack. When it didn’t, he muttered, “Fine,” and glanced at his watch. “I’m supposed to meet my mentor. If I keep her waiting, she’ll rip me in two without breaking a sweat.”
“Please tell me you’re not talking about Langley,” I groaned.
“Don’t worry. She likes me. She’s cute. Like a pit bull.” He shot an unhappy, frustrated look at Kyle, then glanced back at me. “I’ll try to find you after supper. We can see if Hank’s instructions work.”
Before I could say anything, he was gone.
Kyle shot me a confused look. “He’s been with your father?”
“Apparently, Hank told him how to disable the HFDs and wants me to meet him at the fence tonight with Eve.” I hesitated. “You know it’s good that Jason’s here, right? We have a better chance of finding Serena with him.”
“I know,” Kyle conceded. “I just wasn’t expecting it. I just—why does your shirt smell like lavender?”
I frowned and pressed my nose to the fabric. Great. I smelled like Sinclair. “It’s the warden’s hand cream.” I tried not to shiver. The whole werewolf-sense-of-smell thing still kind of freaked me out. Kyle would probably notice if I changed deodorant brands. “What were you going to say?” I asked in an effort to refocus.
“Nothing.”
“You said, ‘I just . . . ?’”
“It’s nothing, Mac.” A sharp note entered his voice, and I had the sudden feeling that I might not want to know what he had almost said. My gaze dropped to the Thornhill logo on his shirt.
The four of us—me, Jason, Kyle, and Amy—were as knotted and twisted as the vines circling the name of the camp. We were so entwined that it was sometimes hard to know where one of us left off and the others began. Even in death, we couldn’t break free—Amy was proof of that.
I looked up. I used to take comfort in the fact that we were so tangled—it was like a promise the four of us would stay together—but staring into Kyle’s dark eyes and remembering the things Jason had confessed to me in Hemlock, I wondered how much those ties and tangles had changed. What if, instead of merely holding us together, they were choking us? Choking them.
Would I be strong enough to let them go? If I had let Kyle go when he had wanted me to, would any of this be happening now?
For a moment, I could see another Kyle just under the surface: a fourteen-year-old boy who was all elbows and awkward angles with a voice that hadn’t broken yet. Always quiet and often worried. The boy I could tell anything to—memories I’d rather forget and fears I could barely acknowledge.
I would do anything to hold on to that boy. I didn’t think I was strong enough to let him go. “Kyle . . .”
“Of course—because ‘meet behind the auditorium’ is too complicated an instruction.” Eve’s voice fell between us like a blade.
I stepped back and tried to rein in my thoughts so they wouldn’t show on my face as I turned and watched her stride toward us.
On the surface, she looked confident, like every worry would bounce off her skin. But her eyes were pinched and she kept rubbing her scarred wrist, circling it with her thumb and forefinger.
“So,” she said, gaze darting between Kyle and me. “What happened?”
16
I SHOVED THE WIRE CUTTERS INTO MY POCKET AND SLID the plastic casing of the HFD back into place.
A sweep of light pierced the darkness in the distance: the flashlight from a guard on patrol. It looked like it was headed away from us, but the sight still sent a trill of fear through me. We had already dodged two patrols on our way here.
I started to climb back down. When I was halfway to the ground, I remembered the reader. I slipped it out and managed to hit the power switch while keeping a grip on the pole with my other hand. Silence. The HFD was down.
“Eve?” My voice was barely a whisper, but I knew she’d hear. “It’s clear.”
I reached for the next rung. My hand, slick with sweat, slid against the metal, and I lost my grip.
The ground and pole blurred together as I fell. I hit the hard-packed earth and all of the breath was forced from my lungs in a whoosh. Dazed, I stared up at the sky. The clouds and stars swirled together like the Van Gogh poster Tess had in her bedroom—what was that painting called?
Eve was speaking to me, but she seemed far away.
Starry Night, I remembered. That’s the painting.
I forced myself to a sitting position.
“I’m not sure you should be moving. You hit the ground like a sack of cement.”
I ran a hand over my skull. Nothing seemed to be dented or leaking. Unsteadily, I climbed to my feet. A sharp burst of pain radiated through each vertebra, but it faded after a moment. I was pretty sure nothing was broken. “I’m okay,” I lied.
I turned to the fence. There was no sign of life on the other side. Hank’s only instruction had been to pick a spot somewhere along the western edge of the camp. We’d headed to the shifting zone and then walked along the fence until we found a spot that seemed like it would be outside the areas the guards patrolled. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”
Eve shrugged. “As long as it takes.” I shot her an exasperated look and she sighed. “He’ll be here. Curtis doesn’t say things without following through.”
My laugh was so sharp and sudden that it was out of my mouth and bouncing off the fence before I could even think about holding it back.
“And here I thought ‘Don’t draw attention to yourselves’ was obvious enough that I didn’t need to include it in the instructions.” Hank materialized out of the darkness on the other side of the fence looking for all the world as though he had recently thrown himself down a ravine. He was wearing a black denim jacket over a ripped black shirt and his black jeans were caked in mud and shredded at the knee.
I almost asked if he was all right, but the words stuck in my throat.
“Curtis!” All of Eve’s swagger and bravado fell away, leaving her looking oddly awkward and young. Words tumbled from her mouth as she approached the fence. “Is the rest of the pack safe? Did you find the Trackers who did it? Please tell me you tore them to pieces.”
Hank ran a hand over what had to be at least two days of stubble. “The club burned to the foundation. Most of us who got out headed for Briar Creek.”
I frowned. “Briar Creek?”
“Ghost town about an hour and a half from of Denver,” explained Eve. “Just a few foundations.”
“Only way there is an old unpaved road,” added Hank. “Harder for anyone to get the drop on us.” The lines on his face deepened as he stared at me. “You shouldn’t be on that side of the fence, kid.”
I shrugged and the gesture elicited a small twinge of pain in my back. “They have my friends. It’s not something I would expect you to understand.”
I could practically feel Eve shoot me a dirty look, but all Hank said was, “Fair enough.”
The words took me aback. The old Hank wouldn’t have let the implied criticism slide.
He slipped something from his pocket and drew his arm back. A small black shape went sailing over the fence. It bounced off the razor wire and landed at Eve’s feet.
A plastic film canister—like the ones that were always lying around the art room at school.