“You can’t compare a camp and a prison.” I shivered and huddled in my sweatshirt. “Most of the people in Thornhill aren’t there because they committed some sort of crime—unless you count not reporting their infection. They were caught in raids. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Like Kyle and Serena,” he said grudgingly as he moved his hand away from my leg.
“Exactly.”
Silence stretched between us and this time it was uncomfortable. The fire was almost out, but neither of us got up to do anything about it.
“Jason?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you so worried about the regs at Thornhill? You were right—if the wolves don’t try to limit causalities, the LSRB and the Trackers will use it against them—but that wasn’t the only reason you said what you did, was it? You said something else back at the camp, once. Something about how working at Thornhill didn’t necessarily make people bad.”
He let out a deep breath. “Some of them are bad—I’d like to kill the ones who hurt Serena—but I think a lot of them have never stopped to wonder whether or not the system they’re part of is wrong.”
“They remind you of yourself,” I said slowly. The tattoo on his neck was just visible in the dying firelight.
Jason nodded.
Neither of us spoke for a long while. Eventually, my eyes started to flutter closed again.
“Jason?” His name came out a near-unintelligible mumble as I fumbled weakly for his hand.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
I tried to say “for choosing us,” but the tide carried me away.
A layer of decaying leaves covered the water in the fountain.
“Gross,” muttered Amy, wrinkling her nose as she stepped up onto the ledge encircling the basin. Her gray high-tops slapped the concrete as she walked around the water.
It was dark—the sky completely devoid of moon and stars—and the only light came from the windows of the sanatorium. “This isn’t right.” I knew this fountain: it was the one from Riverside Square. It should be back in Hemlock, not in the middle of Thornhill.
Amy completed the circle and hopped down. Her shirt—one of Jason’s Italian dress shirts—flapped in the breeze.
“You’re always so stuck on landmarks and geography. Places are more than just GPS coordinates. Sometimes, they overlap.”
She sat on the edge of the fountain. “Like you. You take pieces of Hemlock with you wherever you go, so parts of it exist even inside a place as bad as this.”
“Very deep,” I said.
“I have a lot of free time on my hands. It leads to moments of self-reflection and philosophy. And memory.” She leaned back and stared up at the empty sky. “I finally remembered the story. The one my grandpa told us.”
“Okay. . . .”
“Once upon a time—”
“That’s for fairy tales, not ghost stories,” I pointed out as I sat next to her.
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Once there was a woman who owned a doll shop. She was obsessed with making a doll so lifelike that people would forget it was just fabric and porcelain.”
“Seems like a lame obsession.”
“Shut it.”
“Sorry. It’s a brilliant obsession. Please continue.”
Amy mock-glared. “One day, a small girl was run over by a horse and carriage just outside the shop. The doll maker ran out to help, but the girl was dead by the time she reached her. As the woman watched, a puff of air the color of sunset passed through the girl’s lips—the child’s soul carried on her last breath.
“The doll maker began visiting hospitals and gutters, catching the last breaths of dying children in glass bottles and then sewing those bottles into dolls.”
“Let me guess,” I said, “the dolls looked more lifelike.” Now that Amy was telling it, I did sort of remember listening to the story while toasting marshmallows in her grandfather’s fireplace.
She nodded. “But no one would buy them because when they looked into the glass eyes, they swore they heard the echo of screams.” She stretched. “Trapped in a bottle and sewn inside a doll for all eternity? Who wouldn’t be screaming?”
I shivered.
“You do know why I’m really here, don’t you?”
I shook my head. I didn’t. Not anymore.
Amy looked at me sadly, then glanced over her shoulder at the fountain. Something churned the leaves and gave off a sharp, metallic scent. With horror, I realized the liquid in the basin was blood.
I scrambled to my feet, but Amy stayed sitting as though nothing were wrong.
She dipped her finger in the fountain and it came back coated in red. “Things are about to get so interesting.”
24
A THIRTY-FOOT-TALL ELECTRIC FENCE WAS INTIMIDATING no matter which side you were on. After all, a fence couldn’t distinguish between someone trying to break in and someone trying to break out, and it wouldn’t discriminate between reg and wolf. It was an equal-opportunity killer; everyone who had gathered in the narrow space between it and the concrete wall that would eventually encircle the camp was at risk.
It was a risk I was all too willing to take.
I stared at the handful of lights that were visible in the distance. It was impossible to know whether they came from the dorms or the sanatorium, but the sight was a hook in my chest. Anything could have happened to Kyle and Serena after Jason and I had left the camp. Anything could be happening to them right now.
I crossed my arms and shivered.
The gesture didn’t slip past Hank, though he mistook the cause. “It’s not too late to go back to the park. One of the wolves can take you.”
I was struck, again, by how little my father knew me. I was afraid—of course I was afraid—but that wasn’t going to stop me. “I already told you: I’m staying. Besides, you can’t afford to be a man down.”
The recon team consisted of ten werewolves—including him and Eve. There wasn’t a single one to spare.
For a second, I was certain Hank was going to argue, but he let it drop and walked away.
A hand skimmed my temple and I jumped.
“Your hair was coming loose,” said Jason as he tucked a lock underneath my cap.
He was wearing an outfit identical to mine in every way but size. Everyone was dressed in the same all-black ensemble: black cap, black long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, and black boots. We looked like a gang of cat burglars. Or mimes.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, trying to ignore the blush that rose to my face. I had promised Jason we wouldn’t talk about the kiss, but I could still feel it between us. I knew I didn’t have anything to feel guilty about—we had both been positive we were going to die—but this close to the sanatorium, this close to Kyle, it seemed like a betrayal.
“Outer patrol!” hissed a female voice. “Hit the dirt!”
Along with the wolves, Jason and I dropped to the ground and crouched behind the wall. A moment later, I heard the low roar of an engine. A spotlight swept the fence to the left and right of our hiding place. I held my breath, but the guards didn’t bother getting out to check behind the concrete barrier.
The sound of the engine faded, and people slowly got to their feet.
“All right,” snapped Hank. “They’re running extra patrols. We’ve got thirty minutes at the most. Let’s get this done.”
Construction crews working on the wall had erected scaffolding on the outward-facing side. Hank leaped onto the first platform and began climbing. He scaled the rigging easily, his movements infused with a wolflike grace he hadn’t possessed a few years ago. Two of his men followed in his wake.
Eve wandered over to Jason and me. Lines creased her brow as she stared up at the top of the wall. “This is insane.”