Thornhill

I’d been scared to say the words aloud, but he had to know they were there: they were in every second of the kiss.

My eyes flew open as rough hands locked around my arm and pulled us apart.

More guards had shown up. Two pulled Kyle across the room. He wrenched free but went stone still as one of the guards pulled out a Taser and pressed it to his side.

A dark, animalistic look crossed Kyle’s face. For a horrible second, I thought he would fight back, but then the guard holding me drew her own Taser.

Kyle’s eyes locked on mine. Any hint of resistance drained out of him, and I suddenly knew they didn’t need Tasers or physical force to make him do what they wanted: all they had to do was threaten me.

He shot me one last, desperate look before letting them shove him through the door on the right.

The guard holding my arm pulled me to the door on the left.

I knew it wasn’t too late: I could tell her that I wasn’t really infected. It was what Kyle—even Serena— wanted. I could walk out the gates and call Jason. He’d pick me up and enfold me in a hug and never once say I had done the wrong thing. I would spend the rest of my life blaming myself, but no one else would blame me at all.

I didn’t have to go through the door.

I didn’t have to be here.

Choice doesn’t factor into things. I remembered Jason’s words in the parking garage and imagined the look of horror that would cross his face if he knew I was using them to justify walking into a camp.

But just because he had never intended for the words to apply to a situation like this didn’t make them any less true.

With a deep breath, I walked through the door.

8

WHITE TILE WALLS. BENCHES. LICKS OF STEAM CURLING out of an archway. Of all the things that could have been lurking behind the door, a locker room hadn’t been high on my list.

A folding chair sat in the middle of the floor and just behind it was a row of blue plastic bins—the kind Tess had for recyclables but forgot to use unless I nagged.

If we don’t get out of here, it’ll kill her.

And Jason.

The twin thoughts sent a stab of pain through my chest. Before I could dwell on them, however, a female guard and two women—one short and round, the other an escapee from a bodybuilding magazine—strode into the room.

The muscle-bound woman walked to the first bin and turned. Her tan polo shirt strained over biceps the size of cantaloupes and her skin had an orange tinge, like a faded self-tan. Her hair hung down her back in a braided whip. “One volunteer in the seat. Everyone else: line up.”

No one moved.

The other woman yawned and glanced at her watch. “Langley, just pick one. I’m exhausted.”

The woman with the orange skin scowled and gestured to Eve. “You.”

Eve walked forward with her shoulders squared and her head high, but when she turned to sit, she wiped her palms on her faded black jeans.

Langley withdrew a pair of electric shears from the first bin. They clicked and hummed as strands of Eve’s scarlet hair piled up around the chair. When it was over, Eve pushed herself to her feet and ran a hand through her now chin-length locks. A frown was her only concession to emotion.

Hank would approve, I thought, and then pressed my nails into my palm. This whole thing was his fault.

The other woman led Eve past the row of bins and raised her voice so we would all hear her instructions. One container for cell phones and electronics. Another for jewelry. The last for clothes. Nothing from outside was allowed into the camp.

I looked away as Eve shucked her T-shirt, and my gaze fell on Amy’s bracelet. It was one of the only things I had of hers; I couldn’t lose it. Besides, Amy had always claimed it was lucky. Right now, I needed all the luck I could get.

Using the girl in front of me for cover, I fumbled with the leather tie holding the bracelet in place, then switched the coins to my other wrist—the one with the metal cuff. A bead of sweat ran down the back of my neck as the guard walked by. Once she was past, I pushed and pulled on the band. It dug painfully into my skin, but I was able to stretch it out just enough to slip Amy’s bracelet underneath.

A sliver of copper peeked out from under the cuff, but I didn’t think anyone would notice—not unless they were looking for something out of the ordinary.

The line advanced and then, suddenly, it was my turn in the chair.

I stepped forward and sat. The woman with the shears, Langley, seemed to delight in yanking sections of my hair, and I struggled not to grimace as chunks of blond fell to the floor.

“Done.”

I reached up as I stood. My stomach gave a strange flip-flop as my fingers grazed the ends of my hair. For the first time I could remember, it was above my shoulders.

The other woman led me down the row of bins. I walked right past the one for jewelry, but any triumph I felt at keeping Amy’s bracelet was crushed under a wave of humiliation as I was ordered to strip.

I angled my body and kept my arm pressed to my side as I slipped out of my clothes. I still bore souvenirs from my final encounter with Branson Derby: bright pink scar tissue and a row of stitches on my forearm. The fact that the gash was still healing would instantly mark me as either a reg or as someone who hadn’t gone through the thirty-day LS incubation period.

Either way, they’d probably retest my blood. Just to make sure I was infected.

Keeping the cut pressed to my side, I walked into the showers and headed for the spot farthest from the door and the other girls.

Needles of ice water hit my skin as the guard patrolled up and down the room. It felt like a prison scene in some horrible movie, and I was hit with an urge to cry so strong that the muscles in my chest ached. I reminded myself that there was another locker room on the other side of the wall; I couldn’t see him, but Kyle was going through the same thing a few feet away.

I sucked in a deep breath and grazed the wet tile with my knuckles. It wasn’t so bad. No one had actually hurt me. I just had to keep thinking about Kyle and Serena.

A voice bellowed, “Everyone out,” and we trudged, shivering, back into the locker room where we were each handed a stack of clothing and a pair of white canvas sneakers.

“You swapped, didn’t you?” hissed Eve as she took a place next to me. Another girl shot us a curious glance, but the words were vague enough that it wasn’t obvious just what Eve was talking about.

I quickly pulled on underwear and a pair of gray cargo pants. “Yeah.”

“Idiot. If Curtis knew, he’d be furious.”

A soft, bitter laugh escaped my lips. “He wouldn’t care. In case you haven’t noticed, he’s the reason all of this happened.”

Eve’s newly shorn hair swished around her face as she shook her head. “He didn’t know we’d be raided.”

Maybe not, but if Hank had just let us take Kyle and go—if he had listened when I told him Jason wasn’t really a Tracker—we’d have been on our way back to Hemlock hours before the raid.

Eve gave me a long, evaluating look. “Why Mel?”

I shrugged. “She seemed to need it.” I pulled on a heavy sweatshirt—gray like the pants—and tugged the sleeves over my wrists so that they hid my arm. A black logo on the front of the shirt drew my gaze. A circle of twisted vines surrounded a single word: Thornhill.