I followed Eve out of the dorm, half wishing for a jacket as I crossed my arms against the chill morning air. The guard told us to turn right at the end of the path and then walked behind us, giving directions as we made our way through the camp.
She could tase either of us in the back and we wouldn’t realize it until the electricity hit. The thought made me shudder.
Daylight didn’t diminish Thornhill’s military school vibe. The buildings and lawns were neat and precise—even the ones that were still under construction—and the sky above the camp was an endless gunmetal gray. As we walked, I occasionally caught glimpses of a silver ribbon in the distance: the fence.
We reached a fork in the path at the same time as a group of boys. Each sported a crew cut and an olive version of the gray uniforms Eve and I wore. Kyle wasn’t with them, but the guard herding the group was the redhead from last night.
“Tanner,” said our guard, “I thought you were supposed to be off with the nightshift at six thirty.”
“Donaldson quit.” The redhead shrugged. “I got stuck with his shift.”
They herded us toward a redbrick building with Auditorium painted on an arch above a set of heavy wooden doors. Though the structure was a simple rectangle with a flat roof, it seemed to match the large building near the courtyard: it looked decades older than the dorms and had the same ivy-covered walls.
We filtered into a space that had clearly once been a gymnasium. The lines of the basketball court were still visible and an ancient scoreboard—the kind where someone actually had to flip the numbers—hung at one end of the former court.
No way could anyone play a game in here now, though. The room was filled with three sections of benches, all facing what would have been the sideline.
Only the first two rows of each section were occupied. I quickly scanned the handful of wolves who were already seated; a small spark of fear raced down my spine as I realized Kyle and Serena weren’t among them.
“You two,” said our guard, “section on the right. First row.”
My eyes were drawn to three huge banners on the wall as Eve and I claimed seats on the mostly empty bench.
CONTROL OVER ANGER.
CONSTRAINT IS FREEDOM.
YOUR DISEASE IS NOT A WEAPON.
My skin crawled.
The banners were white text on black fabric and they reminded me of that book we’d read in English last year: 1984. Amy had hated it.
Below the banners, a black podium had been placed in the middle of a row of ten folding chairs. The podium had the Thornhill crest stenciled in white on the front and had been carefully positioned so that the center of the crest appeared directly underneath the word freedom.
“Subtle,” I muttered.
I tore my gaze away and glanced over my shoulder. One section over and one row back, four boys were finding their seats. My heart gave a small lurch as I realized one of the boys was Kyle.
The guards at the back of the room were talking among themselves. They dealt with wolves as they came in, but only occasionally glanced our way. I darted across the aisle to Kyle’s section.
Relief flashed across his face when he spotted me, and he swept me in a hug as soon as I reached him.
“Longest three hours of my life,” he said, voice rough as he held me tightly.
I buried my face against his neck and breathed in the scent of his skin. “No kidding.”
After a moment, I eased back and studied him. It was hard to believe it had only been a few hours since we had been pulled apart. Kyle looked years older. The olive uniform deepened the color of his skin, making him look almost tanned, and his newly shorn hair highlighted the strong planes and angles of his face. The stripped-down appearance made his eyes impossible to ignore; they held shadows of everything he’d seen and done over the past few weeks, things no seventeen-year-old should have to carry.
Things he carried because of me.
Turning away before he could catch the flash of guilt on my face, I scanned the auditorium. It only took a second. As far as I could tell, only the wolves caught in last night’s raid were here.
Kyle didn’t have to ask who I was looking for. “I don’t think Serena’s here.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “The two guys who were tased during the blood test are, though.”
I couldn’t remember what the boys looked like—especially with everyone dressed the same—but I took Kyle’s word for it. I bit my lip and allowed him to pull me down to the bench. Why would they be here when Serena wasn’t?
A wolf in the next section turned his head to talk to someone behind him. For a split second, I thought he had a tattoo on the side of his neck, but then I realized it was just a thick mound of scar tissue. I swallowed. “Do you think Jason’s all right?”
“Probably,” said Kyle slowly. “Getting caught in a building full of werewolves doesn’t look great, but Jason could teach a class in bullshitting. He’ll have talked his way out of it.”
Before either of us could say anything else, the auditorium doors closed with a bang that made several wolves jump.
The gunshot slap of heels rang out as a woman strode toward the front of the gathering. She looked oddly familiar, but it took me a moment to place her: Winifred Sinclair. The woman whose photo I had seen in the paper.
The picture hadn’t done her justice. Her hair—a rich, chestnut brown except for the single streak of white—was set in curls so precise they looked sculpted, while her pinstripe suit emphasized her height and slender frame.
Two women and three men—all dressed in white—followed in her wake and claimed the folding chairs on the right as she took her place behind the podium.
Every whisper fell silent as Sinclair’s gaze swept the room. When her eyes passed over me, it felt like someone had slipped an ice cube down my back.
“My name is Warden Sinclair and I’d like to welcome you all to Thornhill. Though the camp isn’t fully operational yet, we’ve been able to open our doors to a select number of wolves to ease overcrowding at other facilities.” She swept a hand over the top of the podium as though clearing away dust. “I want to stress how lucky you are to be here.”
Lucky? There was a collective intake of breath. How could anyone—even someone who ran a camp—call being rounded up at gunpoint “lucky”?
Something about the raid—some snatch of memory that didn’t quite make sense—hovered at the edge of my mind, but Sinclair pulled my attention back to the here and now.