The bald guard turned his gaze on us. My heart thudded in my chest as I waited for him to realize we were part of the group who had infiltrated the camp. Any second, he would give the order for us to be dragged to the detention block in shackles.
“Dorms?”
“Seven and four,” I said, struggling to keep my voice blank.
He glanced at the men behind us. “We’ve got reports of a few more kids hiding in that old greenhouse. A couple of guards are already on their way, but they could probably use some help.” He shifted his focus back to Jason and me. “You two, inside.”
He didn’t know who we were. Something inside my chest unclenched a fraction of an inch. Even if they knew a group had breached the fence, they didn’t know we were part of it.
Jason tugged on my hand, urging me forward.
There were two guards covering the entrance to the auditorium. One stepped aside as we approached while the other pulled open the door.
I slipped my hand out of Jason’s: If there was trouble, I wanted him to have both hands free for the gun.
“Out of the frying pan,” I muttered.
“And straight into hell,” he finished.
The smell of sweat and an almost claustrophobic sense of mass hit me as I crossed the threshold. The number of wolves crammed inside the auditorium far exceeded the benches. Some sat in the aisles, others crouched between rows.
I glanced to my left and right. There were five guards on either side of the door. Unlike the ones outside, their weapons were still holstered—at least for now. Maybe they were worried about tipping a room full of anxious wolves from fear to panic.
And the wolves were frightened. It showed in the eyes of the ones who watched the guards and in the small noises some of them made as they cried. It was in the way most of them held themselves too still—as though they expected someone to strike or shoot them at any moment.
They’re too scared to do anything; they’re the perfect hostages. The thought was ice water dripping down my spine. What if Sinclair had been told about the planned breakout? Maybe there was a mole in Hank’s pack who had tipped her off. Maybe she had gathered the wolves as collateral.
My eyes slid to the front of the room. The same black-and-white posters covered the wall—CONTROL OVER ANGER, CONSTRAINT IS FREEDOM, YOUR DISEASE IS NOT A WEAPON—but the podium and folding chairs had been replaced by a small platform that looked as though it had been hastily nailed together. On it stood two program coordinators and the warden, their backs to the assembly as they discussed something in low tones.
Jason clamped his hand around my arm. “Don’t do anything,” he hissed as he pulled me toward the nearest aisle.
“Why?” I asked as I sank to the floor next to him. “What would I do?” As much as I wanted to strangle Sinclair, it wasn’t like I was going to rush the stage. Not with ten guards in the room and more waiting outside.
Jason didn’t answer and he didn’t relax his hold on my arm; if anything, he tightened his grip.
Two women joined the group onstage. One was Langley, the other was the woman who had injected Serena with some unknown drug or poison in the videos. She adjusted her glasses and gave the crowd of wolves a nervous glance.
An echo of Serena’s voice—shaking as she begged them to stop—filled my head. I thought of the gun hidden at Jason’s back as a wave of anger swelled in my chest, so thick and black that I practically choked on it.
Jason swore under his breath as the group moved to the edge of the dais. Suddenly, I knew why he was gripping my arm, what he must have glimpsed when we first entered the auditorium. It wasn’t Sinclair or even the women who had tortured Serena.
I started to rise, and Jason shifted his hand to my shoulder, forcing me back down while whispering a frantic stream of comfort and caution in my ear.
“You can’t help him. If you draw attention to us, it’ll all be over. It’s okay. They’ll be okay.”
I shook my head and bit the inside of my cheek—bit it so hard I tasted copper—to stop the flood of sounds threatening to punch a hole through my chest.
Kneeling on the platform were Kyle and Dex. Thick manacles encircled their wrists and were connected by chains that were bolted to the stage. Kyle’s eyes were locked on Sinclair, but Dex stared at the floor in front of the dais as though he didn’t have the strength to raise his head. Someone had clubbed Dex’s temple at some point; blood had run down his face and etched each of his scars in red.
Kyle’s face was unmarked, but his shirt clung to him, the fabric darkened by stains. I tried to convince myself the stains were sweat—and some probably were—but most of the patches were too dark and had left the fabric too stiff to be anything other than blood.
How many hours? My stomach flipped and tears filled my eyes. Kyle and Dex were werewolves: as long as their captors paused to let them heal, their bodies would always be able to take more. Jason and I had been gone for nearly an entire day. Sinclair or Langley or the guards could have tortured them the entire time.
“Kyle . . .” The whisper was so low that it was barely more than my lips forming the shape of his name, but his body still tensed.
His dark eyes swept the crowd and then filled with shock and fear as they found mine. My pulse had been racing from the moment the guards had spotted Jason and me; now it climbed so high I felt like I was having a heart attack. For a moment, I worried surprise and confusion would make Kyle say or do something to give us away, but he buried his emotions as his gaze slid to Jason. The heavy chain tethering him to the dais had a slight amount of give and he wrapped the excess around his hand—almost like a makeshift knuckle ring.
Jason was still gripping my shoulder. He glanced from Kyle to me and then back. When he was certain that I wasn’t going to do anything crazy, he dropped his hand and pulled slightly away.
“What are we going to do?”
He didn’t answer.
Think. I had to think. But before I could come up with the slightest idea, Sinclair strode back across the stage.
Even at a distance, her blue eyes were too bright and the wrinkles in her suit seemed permanent. She looked like someone who had substituted Red Bull for sleep. But her voice, when she spoke, didn’t sound tired. It was sharp and focused and filled with threats.
“I’ll give you one more chance. Last night, three wolves were spotted outside after curfew. They led dozens of guards on an extensive chase and wasted hours of resources. Two of those wolves are behind me. I want to know where to find the third. Eve. Dorm Seven. ID one-three-four-eight. She wasn’t in her bed this morning. She didn’t report for class or her work detail. She is somewhere in this camp, and someone in this room had to have seen something.”
I glanced at Jason and saw the same confusion on his face that must have shown on mine. This was all about Eve? The wolves weren’t being held as some sort of bargaining chip against Hank and the pack?
That’s why the guards are facing the building, I realized. If Sinclair knew an attack was coming—if she knew the camp had been infiltrated—the guards would be facing out, not in.
But why Eve? Why would the warden drag every wolf here over one girl?
Sinclair waited.
No one moved. No one spoke.
“Do you honestly expect me to believe none of you saw a thing? No one so much as noticed her slip out after curfew?”
Again, silence.
Sinclair’s gaze swept over us—blue fire hot enough to scorch. I slouched down, praying to go unnoticed. After a moment, when no one came forward, she slipped an HFD from her pocket and pressed the trigger. Most of the wolves collapsed, including Kyle.