Jason and I quickly slumped to the ground as two of the guards broke away from the back of the room and began walking the edge of the crowd.
Aside from Dex, only one girl was unaffected. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her. Mystified and frightened, she didn’t have the sense to play dead.
There were confused murmurs from most of the guards as they realized neither the girl nor Dex had gone down, but the two men sweeping the room didn’t seem surprised at all. I listened, helpless to intervene, as they tased the girl, then dumped her with the guards outside.
The woman with the glasses crossed the stage to speak to Sinclair. “This is completely unnecessary. A total overreaction.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve started to feel sorry for them.” I watched from under my lashes as a look of disgust crossed Sinclair’s face. “I’ve seen how much you enjoy your work.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The woman pulled off her glasses and wiped them on the corner of her sweater. “They’re just too valuable to play with—especially in this manner. If my superiors knew . . .”
Sinclair shook her head and slammed a door on the discussion. “I don’t answer to your superiors, and I am not playing games.” She stared levelly at the woman until she retreated to the side of the stage.
A few feet away, a boy turned his head slightly, trying to track the woman’s movement. Jason and I weren’t the only ones faking.
The warden slid her thumb off the trigger of the HFD.
Gradually, the other wolves came to. I sat up and watched Kyle shake his head and raise himself back to his knees. He wrapped the slack of the chain around his hand again. This time, there seemed to be more of it. I squinted at the dais as he leaned to the side in what looked like an innocent stretch. The bolt holding the chain to the stage seemed to lift slightly. He was breaking free in small increments that would go unnoticed until it was too late.
Frightened whispers filled the air, growing in intensity and pitch as the wolves realized one of their own—the girl—had just gone missing.
Sinclair held up the remote. “Until someone comes forward with information, this HFD will go off every five minutes.”
It was complete overkill. I could understand why she had sent men after Jason and me, but she had no reason to think Eve had made it out of the camp; she had no reason to think Eve was in any kind of position to hurt her.
“Thornhill is a choice.” A tired, frustrated note crept into the warden’s voice. “If any of you would prefer to be elsewhere, I will happily put you on a truck to Van Horne and you can find out firsthand just how horrible a camp can be.”
Find out.
It suddenly clicked. Eve hadn’t been caught with us, but that didn’t guarantee that she hadn’t seen or heard something about Serena or the detention block.
Thornhill worked because the things that didn’t make sense or were too frightening to think about stayed under the surface. People whispered about the disappearances, but no one talked about them openly. If the inmates started questioning too much, cracks would form.
Sinclair would do anything to stop that from happening. She would do anything to protect her work. And right now, anything meant finding Eve before she could spill any of the camp’s secrets—even if that entailed punishing an entire auditorium full of teens.
The brightness in the warden’s eyes wasn’t exhaustion: it was fanaticism. She was absolutely convinced that what she was doing at Thornhill was noble and right and worthy of protection.
Hank believed they were just looking for a way to make wolves easier to manage and control, that none of what was happening here was about finding a true cure. Looking at the way Sinclair’s blue eyes gleamed, I wasn’t so sure he was right. My gaze fell on the garnet ring she wore and I thought of the sister she had told me about. Everything Sinclair had done was horrible and twisted, but what if it hadn’t started out that way?
I swallowed and leaned into Jason. “How long until Hank hits the gates?”
Surreptitiously, he pulled back the cuff of his sleeve and checked his watch. “Twenty minutes. At most.”
Twenty minutes.
Even if Sinclair hadn’t taken the wolves as hostages, she’d be a fool not to use them once she realized the camp was under attack. We had to come up with a plan before that happened.
My eyes locked on Kyle. “We’ll find a way to get you out,” I whispered. “I promise.”
Just as the last syllable left my lips, an explosion ripped through the camp.
26
THE WINDOWS RATTLED AND THE WALLS SHOOK. PEOPLE surged to their feet and bodies churned around us like water. Jason and I were ripped apart and pulled to opposite sides of the room. I fought against the sea of wolves and craned my neck, desperate to get a glimpse of the platform.
Sinclair was shouting at the guards, but her voice was lost under the roar of the crowd. Behind her, Kyle strained against his restraints. The muscles in his shoulders and arms writhed under the skin. I shouted his name, terrified he would lose control and give the guards a reason to shoot him.
He gave a final tug and the chain snapped. The end of it whipped through the air and forced Sinclair to jump back. In her haste not to get hit, she lost her grip on her HFD. The small device went flying and landed harmlessly among the wolves.
Kyle scanned the mob—checking to make sure Jason and I were all right—before crouching next to Dex and working to free him.
Langley turned toward them, HFD in hand. A chunk of the wall next to her exploded and she dropped the device.
My eyes found Jason.
He stood in the middle of the crowd, gun drawn, eyes darting between the two program coordinators and the woman with the glasses in case any of them went for their HFDs. A few people around him dove down and covered their heads, but most of the wolves were so panicked that they didn’t realize where the shots had come from.
“Trackers.” The word tore through the auditorium and grew in strength until it drowned out everything else. It made no sense—why would Trackers attack a camp?—but the wolves had lived under the threat of raids and attacks so long that it was the first conclusion they rushed to when things started exploding.
Faint gunshots could be heard outside, lending credence to the cries.
“It’s the Eumon pack! It’s not the Trackers! It’s a rescue!” I couldn’t make myself heard over the chaos.
The guards at the back of the hall didn’t know what to do. One chained the doors shut while a few tried to make their way to the dais where Kyle and Dex had cornered Sinclair and the other four staff members.
One guard panicked and fired into the throng as wolves began losing control and shifting.
On the platform, Dex lunged for Sinclair. He pulled her arms behind her back with one hand as he thrust her in front of him. He put his other hand near her neck. “Stop!” he roared as the guards pressed forward. “Anyone else shoots at the wolves and you get the warden back in pieces.” The bones in his hands snapped and lengthened, adding weight to the threat.
Looking at the barely controlled rage on Dex’s face—an expression so far removed from the boy I’d gotten to know over the past week—I had a feeling he wasn’t bluffing.
Kyle was on the same wavelength. He shot Dex a nervous glance as he confiscated HFDs from the woman with the glasses and the two program coordinators.
Dex’s threat worked—at least temporarily. No more shots were fired on the crowd.
Unfortunately, the crowd was too far gone to notice.
Around me, more wolves lost control. We had to do something to stop the mass panic. Quickly. Otherwise—threat to Sinclair or not—the guards would open fire en masse.