Boot Camp is more prison than sleepaway camp. High electrified walls bordered nearly two miles of perimeter, and deep fortified barriers ran beneath it. It was nestled in a valley almost twenty miles south of the city limits, off an unpaved mountain road that had no signs pointing it out. Fifteen yards onto the road, surrounded by dense underbrush and various booby traps, was the first checkpoint—a single gate accessible only with a PIN code. Only Handlers had them; once Hunters graduated, we were never expected to return unescorted.
As soon as Kismet stopped to enter her code, my pulse began to race. I’d not been back since completing my training four years ago. I had tried to forget about the people I’d hurt and seen hurt, forget the pain I’d suffered and inflicted.
Wyatt sat up straighter and covered my hand with his. “It might be safer if you lie low while we get the vials,” he said.
David had tensed considerably since passing through the gate. His visible left hand was curled around the armrest so tightly it trembled. Even Milo was uneasy, shifting in his seat as the SUV rumbled down the dirt road toward our personal hell.
“Maybe we all should stay,” I said, and Wyatt didn’t have to ask who I meant. He just nodded.
The dense foliage ceased abruptly. Beyond it lay a sunlit clearing.
Six buildings made up the main compound, and, to a stranger’s eyes, it looked like a small community college. The concrete structures varied in height from single-story to six stories. They were clean and painted ivory, their simple tin roofs gleaming in the sun. Windows covered with steel bars didn’t seem completely out of place, given the outlying security.
Past those six buildings—dormitories, a cafeteria, the infirmary, classrooms, an indoor gymnasium—was a line of loblolly pines. Beyond those, out of eyesight, was where we’d done most of our training. A ghost town for maneuvers and tactics, obstacle courses to test reflexes, a pool for water exercises and breath-holding games, a shooting range for guns and crossbows, and targets for knife throwing. Everything our trainers needed to churn out perfect little killing machines.
We stayed far away from the rear of the compound. Kismet parked in front of the farthest building from the entrance, a two-story job the size of half a football field—one of the only two buildings trainees were forbidden to enter. Its front doors had familiar keypad locks, bars on all windows that I could see, and it looked as quiet as a morgue. In fact, the entire compound was strangely silent.
“Truman, come with me,” Kismet said, palming the keys. “The rest of you, hang out for a bit.”
She didn’t have to ask me twice. Wyatt gave my knee a squeeze, then climbed out with Kismet. They disappeared inside, swallowed up by the building’s forbidding façade.
David twisted around to face the rear. “Anyone else not really comfortable being here?” he asked.
Milo and I raised our hands; I smiled at the comical display of solidarity.
“The day I walked out that gate,” Milo said, “I swore I’d never come back. Then what happens? I get to help move the ugliest, creepiest critters I’ve ever seen out of a forest lab and into Research and Development.”
I flinched at the sideways jab. “I never wanted to return, either. Guess I sort of kept that personal promise, since this isn’t the body I trained in.”
“Suffered in,” David said. “They don’t tell you about the suffering when they pitch the idea of coming here.”
“Most of us aren’t in a position to say no.”
“On the bright side,” Milo said with false bravado, “we’re the ones who passed, so we’re the lucky ones, right?”
Silence. I picked at a thread on the seam of my jeans, wishing for a swift return of our Handlers. Memory Lane was an uncomfortable place for me at the best of times, and given present company and location, this was definitely on the list of worst times.
“Your other teammate,” David said to Milo, “he lost his hand last week. How’s he doing?”
“Fast track to recovering,” Milo replied.
“It’s not an easy thing, man.” He could have meant a lot of things—cutting off a friend’s hand to save his life, relearning how to live with one hand—but it didn’t matter. Milo didn’t ask for clarification, and the comment hung there for a while in the uneasy silence.
Movement flickered in the corner of my eye. I turned toward the passenger side window. A line of six young folks, late teens at the oldest, were jogging near the edge of the tree line, led by an older man in blue sweats. Physical-conditioning time. At my peak, I’d been able to run a four-mile mountain trail in under twenty minutes. I doubted I could walk the same trail in two hours in this new body.
It wasn’t that I’d inherited an out-of-shape body, just an out-of-practice one. I was curvy but trim. My muscles didn’t thrum with the same taut power I’d once possessed, or the flexibility I’d acquired over six months of hard training. I didn’t look forward to taking up that regime again—I kind of liked the softness of my body now. Rounder hips, fuller breasts, definitely more feminine. For the first time in my life, I felt like a woman.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Milo said.
He was staring out his driver’s side window. I squinted out, curious. A dozen yards away, a man had exited the cafeteria. Dressed in familiar black slacks and a white, buttoned-up shirt that seemed to weep for its missing tie, he paused on the steps and consulted a leather binder.
Light glinted off the white-blond hair of the silver-tongued recruiter who tracked down and brought trainees to Boot Camp. The man who had negotiated my release from prison with the promise of a more fulfilling life.
Bastian.
The fucker.
Chapter Six
I can survive another twenty-eight days in Hell. After all, I’ve lived in it for seventeen years and eleven months. One more month is nothing, and then I’ll finally be free. Free of Juvie, free of adults who don’t understand me, free of rules and restrictions and walls. I can do anything.
In twenty-eight days.
As quietly as I can in my thin slippers, I pad down the chilly corridor, knowing full well I’m not supposed to be here. The plain globe lights are set to nighttime levels, giving the faded blue linoleum floor a sickly tint. Not my fault I drank too much juice at dinner and have to pee after lights-out. Okay, yes it is. Still, I’m not pissing in my bed. Haven’t done that since I was four.
No one stirs in the rooms I pass. Soft snores and occasional whimpers drift out through the doorless frames. Took me a long time to get used to sleeping with an open door and lots of light, not to mention three other girls in the same room. Doesn’t bother me so much now, not after three-plus years here.
The bathroom is at the far end of the corridor from my room, naturally, practically next to the watch room. Blinds are shut, though, so Joanie Willis, the overnight guard on weekdays, is either watching a movie she shouldn’t be or entertaining one of the night guards from the boys’ block. I don’t hear anything like heavy breathing or wailing as I slip past, so probably a movie.
I’m careful about the door—it likes to squeal sometimes. I know the layout by heart, so I don’t bother with the lights. I just cross six steps straight ahead, then make a sharp right. My palm slaps a stall partition. I creep inside in the near-pitch, tug down my pajama bottoms, and do my business. Feels great. I’ve been holding that too damned long.
I don’t flush. Someone will be pissed in the morning (no pun intended), but it makes too much noise. Can’t risk it when the battle’s half-won. I emerge from the stall at the same moment the door opens. My stomach knots. Fear roots my feet, even though common sense screams to hide. Several shadows move inward, and then a bright beam of light hits me in the eyes.
I gasp and look away, spots of color dancing behind my eyelids. The door creaks shut. Slippered feet whisper across the floor, moving toward me. Panic hits like ice, chilling me inside and setting my hands shaking. I backpedal until my ass hits the cement wall. I’ve been in my share of fights, sure, but never in the dark.
The light beam tilts toward my feet, and beyond it are four shapes. Girls from my hall, girls who hate me for
