“Mac!” someone hissed.
I opened my eyes, and Eve’s red hair and slight frame came into focus.
“Look,” she whispered, nodding across the room.
I rolled over as quietly as I could. It was sometime before dawn, but Eve and I weren’t the only ones who were awake. Halfway across the room, two guards quietly stripped one of the beds and emptied out a dresser. Moments later, a counselor led a new girl to the bunk.
“Orientation will be in an hour,” said the counselor, voice pitched low. “Try to get some rest until then.”
The mattress groaned as the girl sat on the edge. She didn’t lie down. I flashed back on what it had been like—the blood test, the haircut, the shower—and couldn’t blame her for not wanting to sleep.
“Whose bed was that?” I whispered, once the counselor and guards were gone. Eve and I had claimed the last two bunks when we arrived. Someone had gone missing in order for this girl to have a place.
“Shayla House. The one who tried to start something with me the other morning.”
The girl with the foxlike face. The one whose mother ruled one of the other Denver packs. My throat suddenly went dry. In Thornhill, who you were really didn’t matter.
The noonday sun filtered through the dirt-caked roof of the greenhouse. Dust motes hung in the air and left a dry taste on my tongue. The smell was just as bad as it had been yesterday—though continued exposure did seem to make it slightly more bearable. Emphasis on slightly.
I stared at Jason. “What do you mean Serena doesn’t exist?”
The four of us sat around a rickety table—Eve across from Jason, Kyle across from me—with stacks of guard rosters and delivery schedules spread out between us. While we had been stuck in class, Jason had spent the morning gathering information on anything and everything that might help us get Serena out of the sanatorium.
We had to assume she was there. Any alternative was unbearable.
Jason reached up to scratch his neck, but caught himself before he could chip away the makeup covering his tattoo. “The LSRB keeps tabs on every wolf in every camp. There are four Serenas in their database. None are at Thornhill and none are the right age. And that’s not all.” He glanced at Eve. “The Trackers told me they delivered fifty-seven wolves in September. The LSRB only has forty-three Thornhill registrations on record for that month.”
“They don’t want anyone—not even the LSRB—knowing how many heads are really coming in.” Kyle’s brown eyes darkened until they were almost black. “It makes Dex’s theory sound a lot less crazy.”
A chill swept through my body. “That means . . .” I had to swallow and start again. “That means anything could happen to Serena and there would be no record of it. Sinclair could do anything to her”—could kill her—“and no one but us would ever even know she had been here.”
“We’ll get her out,” promised Kyle. “We’ll get her out of the sanatorium before anything can happen to her.”
A flurry of “what-ifs” flew to my lips, but I held them back. What if something’s already happened to her? What if we’re too late? What if Sinclair was telling the truth and Serena really is sick? They were questions we didn’t have the answers to and asking them would only make us go in circles.
“We have to get her out tonight,” I said as I picked up the delivery schedule for the week. Thanks to Hank, I already knew what I would find, but I studied the sheet of paper for a moment before saying, “There’s a delivery coming in tonight at one thirty a.m. If we time it right, maybe we can get Serena on the truck and out of the camp before anyone realizes she’s missing.”
“Getting her on board and through the gates without anyone noticing . . .” Jason shook his head. “It’s a long shot.”
“You have a better idea?” asked Eve.
Jason scowled, but didn’t reply.
After a moment, Kyle reached for the schedule and broke the stalemate. “A long shot is better than nothing. The rest of us can try and come up with a plan for ourselves after Serena’s safe.”
He shot me a small, tight smile. Hank’s charm—tied to Amy’s bracelet and tucked under my wrist cuff—suddenly felt hot against my skin. I hated lying to Kyle and Jason, but I was too worried they’d insist I use the charm to get myself out—especially since a girl had gone missing from my dorm just hours ago.
I needed their help too badly to risk an argument. If I had to, I’d tell them the truth after we got Serena to the truck.
Jason flipped through papers until he found a blueprint. “The sanatorium had a psychiatric ward in the basement. When they renovated, they turned it into the detention block. Odds are, that’s where Serena will be. It’s the only part of the building—other than the offices—counselors don’t have access to.”
“Mental patients and werewolves in the cellar,” muttered Eve. “It’s almost a cliché.” She tucked her feet up underneath her and raised herself to a sort of crouch, perching on her stool like a crow on a wire.
“A very secure cliché,” said Jason. “The elevator goes down to the lower level, but you need a key to access that floor and Sinclair has the only copy. There is a stairwell, but it’s behind a door requiring a six-digit code that only the warden and the program coordinators have. Even guards need an escort to go in.”
My heart sank. The warden and program coordinators rarely ventured into the main part of the camp. And even if we could get to one of them, it wasn’t like they’d just give us the code.
There are always ways to make people talk. My father’s voice seeped through my mind like a drop of ink spreading through a glass of water. I would do anything to get Serena and Kyle out of Thornhill; suddenly, though, anything was a frightening thought.
With a deep breath, I pushed Hank’s voice aside. My stomach rolled as the smell of decay tried to slither down my throat. I wondered how Kyle and Eve, with their werewolf-sharp noses, could stand to be in here. I was just a reg and it—smell.
“Sinclair’s hand cream!” The idea hit me so hard that I almost fell off my stool. “You said I smelled like lavender,” I said to Kyle. “That’s how we get the code!”
Eve and Jason stared at me blankly, but understanding flashed across Kyle’s face. “You want a werewolf to sniff out her hand lotion on the keys she’s pressing.”
“Would it work?”
He thought it over. “Maybe. That stuff does reek.”
Eve shook her head. “Even if you could pick out the numbers—and that’s a big if—six digits equal a lot of combinations. We’ll need time.” She glanced at Jason and her eyes narrowed. “Are you even listening?”
He obviously wasn’t. All of his attention was focused on the wall behind Kyle even though you could only make out the vague suggestions of shapes and colors through the grime on the glass.
I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong just as one of the shapes moved.
Kyle and Eve were through the door in an instant, Jason fast on their heels.
“Stop!” Jason’s voice boomed out as I crossed the threshold.
I rounded the corner of the greenhouse in time to see Kyle and Eve hit the ground. I caught a glimpse of a small black object in Jason’s hand: his HFD.
Twenty feet away, a boy in an olive uniform froze. He turned, eyes darting from Kyle to Eve.
Dex.
On his feet. Completely alert. Standing there as though the HFD didn’t have the slightest effect on him.