I blinked in the morning light. Remnants of dawn still streaked the sky and a faint breeze rustled the ivy on the sanatorium walls. It was going to be a beautiful day—not that I would live to see it.
Pain split me like a knife. I’ll never know, I thought. Kyle, Serena, Jason—I’ll never know what happened to them. Tears filled my eyes and I furiously blinked them back. For all I knew, the warden was watching from somewhere inside; I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of thinking she had broken me.
“Are you all right?”
The familiar voice filled me with dread as Tanner yanked me to a stop.
I turned to Jason. His face was pale and drawn. There were dark shadows under his eyes and a collar of bruises around his neck. Gone was the tan counselor’s uniform and in its place were designer jeans and a wrinkled polo shirt. His tattoo was completely visible, the black ink stark against his skin.
Pressure built inside my chest. Twenty seconds ago, I had been convinced I would never see Jason again, but that was preferable to seeing him here. My gaze slid to the two men in blue standing on either side of him.
Three guards to dispatch of two teenage regs.
Jason’s gaze swept my face. He frowned. “Unhurt. That was one of the conditions.”
Tanner shrugged. “It’s just a bruise. Feel free to stay and take it up with the warden.”
I raised a hand to my cheek. It was still tender where Sinclair had hit me. My eyes darted from Jason to Tanner and then back as I wondered what the hell was going on.
Before I could ask, a grinding noise—a thousand times worse than nails on a chalkboard—filled the air. The gates leading out of the camp rolled open and a black Lincoln Town Car drove through. It pulled a U-turn in the courtyard and then came to a smooth stop forty feet away.
Tanner shifted his grip to my forearm as he pulled a strange clamplike device from his pocket.
Instinctively, I flinched.
“Relax.” He slipped the device over my wrist cuff and rotated it ninety degrees. The cuff sprang open with a click and Tanner slid it off. Only then did I think of my contraband bracelet.
A curious expression crossed his face as his eyes roamed over the coins. His gaze seemed to linger a fraction longer on Hank’s charm, but he stepped away without comment.
Two men climbed out of the car. The driver was pudgy and balding while the man who stepped out of the passenger side had thick dark hair and a runner’s build. Both carried guns in shoulder holsters and each had a black dagger tattooed on his neck. I had spent enough of my childhood around violent men to read body language; these two were career bad guys.
My gaze darted to Jason. He didn’t look surprised to see the Trackers. If anything, he looked . . . relieved?
He met my stare with a dark expression I couldn’t fathom as he strode to my side and took my arm. The guards didn’t stop him.
What had he done?
His grip just shy of painful, Jason herded me to the car.
“What did you do?” I choked out the words as panic clawed at my throat. We couldn’t leave. Sinclair had Serena and Dex. She had Kyle. She was going to put him in a room with a digital clock. They would break every bone in his body while cameras rolled, and when it was over, he’d be like Serena—barely reachable.
One of the Trackers pulled open the back door of the car.
“Get in,” snapped Jason, momentarily letting go of my arm.
“What? No!” I shook my head and retreated a step.
“Get in, Mackenzie.” Jason’s voice was cold and dismissive. Almost unrecognizable. In three years, I couldn’t remember him ever using my full name.
I started to take another step back, but he was too fast. Before I knew it, I had been forced into the Town Car and the door was slamming shut.
It was a car for the wealthy and powerful—all-leather interior with a sheet of dark glass dividing the back from the front—but the details barely registered as I grabbed the door handle. Locked.
Jason slid into the other side of the car.
Desperate, I threw myself across his lap, scrambling for his door before he could haul it shut.
Too late.
He grabbed my wrists and pushed me back. “Sinclair knows you’re a reg,” he hissed. “What do you think you can do for them by staying?”
Tears—hot and angry—filled my eyes and distorted Jason’s face as I struggled against him. Even as some part of me knew he had a point, my fear for Kyle and Serena left me wild. Almost rabid.
He used his body to pin me to the seat. For a second, I had a flashback that it was Ben on top of me, forcing me to the floor in his bedroom.
My knee connected with Jason’s leg just below the groin. He let out a strangled groan but didn’t relax his hold.
I didn’t want him touching me. I didn’t want him touching me ever again. “Get off of me,” I snarled. I sounded crazed. Infected. “Don’t touch me.”
“Not until you calm down.”
“You had no right—”
Jason cut me off. “I promised Kyle.”
I froze. “Promised Kyle what?”
“That I’d get you out if I had a chance. So many strange things were happening at the camp that he worried Sinclair wouldn’t let you go—even if she found out you were a reg.”
“You’re lying. He would have told me.” But even as the words left my mouth, I knew they weren’t true. Kyle had kept things from me before—like his infection and leaving Hemlock. All of the fight drained out of me and I sagged against the seat.
Slowly, cautiously, Jason let go of my wrists and eased his body off mine.
Kyle must have heard Tanner tell Sinclair the Trackers were nearing the camp. He must have known they were coming for Jason and me. That was why he had told me not to resist.
The tears I had barely managed to keep in check finally spilled over. It felt as though something had punched through my breastbone and was prying my ribs apart.
Jason reached for me—comfort, not restraint—but I edged away. “I told you not to touch me.” The words were raw with the strain of not sobbing.
I wiped my eyes with the edge of my sleeve and turned to stare out the back window.
Thornhill was already gone. The only thing behind us was empty road.
Sinclair had broken Serena and she would break Kyle and Dex. For all I knew, Eve hadn’t made it out and was either dead or in her grasp as well.
The warden held all of the cards. Everything that mattered. I didn’t have so much as a shred of proof about what was really going on beneath the sanatorium. Beneath Willowgrove.
Fresh tears blurred my vision.
Whatever game we had fallen into, Sinclair had won.
21
AFTER AMY DIED, I HAD SPENT SLEEPLESS NIGHTS WONDERING what falling into a black hole would feel like. Everything that made you up—every atom, every thought—would be pulled apart in a moment where time had no meaning.
I don’t know how or why that specific thought had started. Maybe it was because Amy was our center; without her, everything seemed to collapse.
Sitting in the Town Car as we got farther and farther from Thornhill, I didn’t have to wonder what being torn apart would feel like: I knew.
Slowly, every muscle aching, I turned my back on the empty road.
I reached out and ran a finger over the tinted glass separating us from the Trackers. “Can they hear us?” I tried to look at Jason. It took me two attempts to manage it.
“No.” He nodded as he said the word.
Yes, then. I started with the question that seemed safest. “What are they doing here?”
“I called them.” Jason swallowed and my eyes were drawn to the ring of bruises around his neck.