Thornhill

pushed one into my hands. I tried to object, but he just said, “You won’t be any help to Serena if you pass out from hunger.”

I tried to remember the last time I had eaten. The only thing that came to mind was the coffee I’d had yesterday afternoon.

Yesterday.

I followed Kyle down the line, mindlessly accepting helpings of food without realizing—or caring—what any of it was. How was it possible that so much had changed in less than twenty-four hours?

“I asked her to come to Denver.” The words carved a hollow in my chest. “I’m responsible. If anything happens to her, it’s my fault.”

“I know the feeling.”

We reached the end of the line. I lifted my tray and glanced up at him. “You didn’t ask me to come after you.”

Kyle held my gaze for a handful of heartbeats and then shrugged. “But you’re still here.”

Before I could respond, he headed for an empty table at the far end of the room.

My sneakers squeaked against the linoleum floor and I could feel curious eyes on me as I crossed the cafeteria. Eve sat at a table with a bunch of kids I dimly recognized from last night. At orientation, we’d been told that packs were banned in the camp—like Thornhill was a big, happy family or one of those colleges that outlawed sororities—but it looked like the Eumon wolves were intending to stick together.

I slid into a seat across from Kyle and halfheartedly pushed my food around with my fork. “The program coordinator didn’t seem big on answering questions,” I said, stating the obvious.

“None of the staff are.” A boy with a blond crew cut was suddenly towering over my right shoulder. “Cool if I sit?” Without waiting for a reply, he set his tray—and himself—next to me.

Kyle made introductions. “Mac, this is Dex. He’s in my dorm.”

The boy turned his head and I bit back a gasp.

He had the kind of rugged jaw you saw in shaving commercials and wide-set brown eyes that a girl could lose herself in, but his right cheek was covered in a network of intricate white scars. It looked like someone had carved symbols into his flesh with a scalpel.

“Freakish, isn’t it?”

“Umm . . .” I had seen some horrible scars before—Kyle’s back, Ben’s chest—but never anything like this. They had the pull of a car wreck on the side of the highway: I didn’t want to stare, but I couldn’t look away. “Are those . . . letters?”

“I think so.” Dex rubbed his cheek with a hand big enough to palm a basketball. “But don’t ask me what language it is or what it says. A werewolf decided to use my face as a Post-it after I broke into his car.”

“What . . .” I swallowed. “What happened to the wolf who did it?” There were other questions I wanted to ask—things like Were you conscious?—but I figured I was better off not knowing the answers.

“Curtis dealt with it.” Eve slid into the seat next to Kyle and snagged a piece of toast from his plate. I had been so focused on Dex’s scars that I hadn’t noticed her arrival until she sat. “The wolf wasn’t one of ours, but the Denver packs have an agreement not to draw attention to ourselves.”

“And my face is pretty high profile.” Eve started to object, but Dex swept her words aside. “It’s not like I haven’t seen a mirror, Evelyn.”

She shook her head and a smile flashed across her face. “Damn, it’s good to see you. I think I even missed you calling me that.”

Dex pressed a hand to his chest. “Don’t tell me you were actually worried about me.”

“Kinda. But tell anyone and I’ll deny it.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” He sobered. “I heard the club got raided.”

“Raided and torched.” Eve dropped the toast back onto Kyle’s plate, her appetite apparently lost. “Where’s your girlfriend?” she asked as though trying to distract herself from the memory of last night.

A pained look crossed Dex’s face, twisting the shape of his scars. “Don’t know.”

Eve stared. “What do you mean you don’t know? Everyone said you got picked up during the same raid.”

“We did. Six weeks ago, Corry and I arrived together. After we were here a few days, two guards showed up and took her out of class. They said they had some questions for her.”

A prickly feeling crept down my neck. It was what the woman had said last night before they had taken Serena—that they had questions for her. Kyle reached under the table and skimmed my knee with his fingertips, a quick, comforting touch.

A guard walked by. Dex waited for him to move out of earshot before continuing. “Corry didn’t come back. When she didn’t show up at dinner, I went to her dorm. Her bunk was completely stripped. I kept asking where she was—asked so much I got tased. Finally, they told me she had gotten violent and was transferred.”

Eve frowned. “Corry’s never struck me as someone who has a lot of self-control issues.”

“She doesn’t. She has more control than any wolf I’ve met.” Dex’s words were fierce and sharp. They cut through the air, and I realized the noise around us had died down. I glanced at the next table. All conversation had ceased. The wolves were staring at their trays, but they were obviously hanging on every word.

“There are things you don’t ask about here,” continued Dex as he ran a hand over the numbers on his wrist cuff. “Classes. Work details. Disappearances. Especially disappearances.”

“Next, he’ll be telling them about Willowgrove,” muttered a voice at the other table, just loud enough to carry.

The words were accompanied by a scattered chorus of nervous laughter.

A faint blush darkened Dex’s cheeks, but when he spoke, his voice was low and angry rather than embarrassed. “They think I’m crazy. They’d rather pretend this place actually cares about rehabilitating us than admit something strange is going on.”

“Why?” I asked. “What’s Willowgrove?”

“A Thornhill urban legend. The bogeyman for werewolf boys and girls.” Dex shrugged. “People say it’s a secret camp—one so bad they don’t tell anyone about it. If you disappear from Thornhill, that’s where you get sent.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.” Werewolves didn’t have rights and the camps already had horrible reputations. It was hard to imagine one so bad the LSRB would keep it secret.

“No,” agreed Dex, staring at me levelly, “it doesn’t.”

Kyle leaned forward. “So what do you think it is?”

“A fictional camp to balance the books or a lie to tell the wolves they nab so they’ll go more quietly.” Dex’s eyes darkened. “Do you know why prisons let inmates out early for good behavior?”

“As an incentive,” said Kyle with a shrug.

“To save money and free up beds,” I corrected softly. I shot a quick glance at him, wondering what it would have been like to grow up in a house where conversations didn’t regularly start with some variation of “If-slash- when I go to prison.”

“Every wolf they pick up is a lifer,” said Dex. “You and I? We represent sixty years of taxpayer dollars going down the drain, and I’m guessing budgets at the camps are already stretched thin. Sooner or later, they’re going to need a way to keep the population in check. Sinclair is just doing it sooner.”

Eve cleared her throat. When she spoke, her tone had a razor edge. “What, exactly, are you saying?”

“I’m saying Willowgrove is the ultimate solution. Kill a few wolves here and there and no one gets suspicious. Do it often enough, and eventually the whole overcrowding thing sorts itself out.”

The silence at the other table had spread. Every wolf in the dining hall seemed to be listening, and guards were starting to notice the change in atmosphere—notice and pinpoint our table as the epicenter.

Dex pushed himself to his feet. His gaze locked on me. “Kyle said they took your friend during admissions?”

Throat dry, I nodded.

“If she’s still alive, she’s probably in the sanatorium.”

The words still alive hit me like a slap. I struggled to find my voice. “Sanatorium?”