Serena let out a horrible sound—like a cornered and wounded animal—and pulled the chain tighter.
Jason made a gurgling, choking noise as his oxygen was cut off completely.
A string of swear words emanated from the doorway, and I glanced over my shoulder as Kyle shoved the program coordinator into the room.
Kyle’s eyes widened as he took in the scene. His nostrils flared and his gaze darted to the bloodstained blanket before locking on Serena. “Watch him,” he ordered me as he circled to approach Serena from behind.
I placed myself between the program coordinator and the door. The man took a step to the left. “Don’t even think about it.” I wasn’t infected, but you’d never know it from the growl in my voice.
Kyle grabbed Serena from behind.
She let out a wordless howl as he forced her hands up and away from Jason’s neck. He moved back, hauling her with him, folding his arms over her chest like a straight jacket.
He was too late: Jason had already passed out. Without the chain and Serena’s body to hold him up, Jason crumpled. I dove forward and barely managed to keep his head from splitting open against the tile floor.
Too late, I realized my mistake as the program coordinator darted past me and out into the hall. An alarm sounded before I could so much as think about going after him.
Hands shaking, I checked Jason’s pulse: weak but steady. We had to get him out of here. We had to get them both out of here.
Serena stopped struggling and sagged in Kyle’s arms. Bloodlust. The thought ricocheted through my head like a bullet. Whatever they had done to her, it had left her rabid and out of control.
We had to get them out of the room and up the stairs without Serena losing it again. If we could manage that, then maybe we’d have a chance. If we could get her out of the building, we could sort out whatever was wrong with her afterward.
There was a loud thud—audible even over the alarm—and then shouting filled the corridor outside the cell.
Kyle let go of Serena and pushed her behind him, putting his body between her and the door. His gaze darted to mine.
Looking into Kyle’s eyes, I saw fear and desperation—not for himself, but for the rest of us. He knew there was nothing we could do. We were out of time and luck.
I glanced down at Jason. His chest rose and fell steadily, but there was a ring of red around his neck where the chain had pressed against the skin. I pulled his head onto my lap.
It was over. All over.
Guards flooded the cell.
Two pulled Jason away from me and dragged him into the hallway. I surged to my feet only to be forced to the nearest corner. My shoulder blades collided with the tiles as I heard Kyle shout my name.
He and Serena were rushed by another group in blue.
Kyle tried to protect her and collapsed as a Taser took him full in the chest.
A scream shredded my throat. I tried to move forward, but the guards blocked my way and penned me in.
The electricity coursing through Kyle’s body stopped. He tore the darts from his chest and staggered to his feet.
The voice of a female guard rang through the cell. “Keep resisting, and we’ll tase the girl.”
Half the Tasers in the room swung in Serena’s direction.
Kyle didn’t have a choice: wordlessly, he held up his hands in surrender.
We were both herded into the hallway. There was no sign of Jason, and instead of turning toward the stairs, guards forced us in the opposite direction.
Serena started screaming and her cries chased us down the detention block. I covered my ears, desperate to block out the sound.
It wasn’t until we were shoved through a door and into an old, untouched part of the psych ward that the cries fell away.
I shivered and tried not to stumble over the debris covering the floor.
Here, there were no white tile walls or rooms that smelled of bleach. Instead, the corridors reeked of mold and looked like the setting for one of those shows where B-list celebrities went ghost hunting. Half the doors were off their hinges, offering glimpses into abandoned rooms filled with broken furniture, shredded paper, and graffitied walls.
Kyle and I were flung into the last room on the left: a cell with peeling green paint and a single lamp that hung down from the ceiling like a flying saucer. There was one window above the door; all of the other walls were solid.
The door slammed shut. For the second time since leaving Hemlock, we had been locked in a room without hope of escape.
20
SOMETHING SCURRIED IN THE CORNER AND DARTED behind a mildew-stained mattress. With a small shudder, I moved a little farther down the wall. I wasn’t sure how long we had been in the cell—long enough for my legs to ache from standing—but there was no sign that anyone was coming for us anytime soon.
“Why a camp?” Kyle paced the room. “If the government was working on a cure, they’d do it at the CDC or some secret lab. There are better ways. Easier ways.” He shook his head. “And they wouldn’t need to pay the Trackers to bring wolves in—not when the camps are full of them. Sinclair has to be doing it on her own.”
I bit my lip and chipped flakes of paint off the wall with the edge of my thumbnail. “Finding a cure for LS would take way more resources than a warden and a handful of program coordinators. You’d need labs. Doctors. Money.”
Kyle paused. “So maybe she’s working with someone?”
“Or found out what someone else was doing and stole it.” Industrial espionage. That was a thing, wasn’t it? I scrubbed a hand over my face. In a way, it didn’t matter. We were trapped; even if we knew exactly what was going on at Thornhill, there wasn’t anything we could do to stop it. Our only hope was that Eve had made it to the truck, that she had gotten out of the camp and would somehow be able to stage a rescue.
I considered telling Kyle about the charm and the deal my father had made, but instead I asked the same question I had asked seventeen times before. “What do you think’s happening to them?”
Kyle didn’t say anything; I knew he didn’t have an answer any more than I did, but I couldn’t stop asking. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Serena attack Jason. I saw her face as Kyle pulled her away. Feral. Wild. Not a trace of my friend inside.
And it was my fault.
Shivering, I pushed myself up onto an old wooden dresser and scooted back until my shoulder blades rested against the wall. “Kyle?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry.” I dropped my gaze to my knees because that was easier than looking at him. “This is my fault. All of it.”
“Don’t be stupid.” He started pacing again. He was like one of those animals you saw at the zoo—the ones that walked the length of their cage until they collapsed.
“I’m not being stupid.” All of this had happened because I had tried so hard to hold on, because I hadn’t let go when Kyle had wanted me to. “If I hadn’t followed you to Denver . . .”
“The raid would still have happened. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”
“But you might have gotten away. And Jason and Serena wouldn’t have been there. They . . .” A lump rose in my throat and I couldn’t finish the sentence.
Kyle crossed the room. He placed his hands flat on the dresser, one on either side of me, close enough that his thumbs grazed my legs. “Mac. Look at me.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t.
“Mac.”
I forced myself to meet his gaze. His eyes were dark and earnest without a hint of the blame I knew I deserved.
“All of us made choices. Including Jason and Serena.”
“But they made them because of me. Jason came to Denver to help me find you, and Serena came because I called her.”