Thornhill

I struggled to string words together, but my throat wouldn’t cooperate.

He reached toward his holster.

He’s going to tase me. The thought ripped through my brain as he hauled his weapon free.

I threw all my weight forward, aiming myself at his shoulder like a cannonball. I didn’t have the strength of a werewolf, but I knew how to hit someone and leave them off balance.

The Taser went skidding across the floor and the guard stumbled.

I didn’t make a grab for the weapon or wait to see if he went down; I just ran.

Within moments, I was lost. Every corridor looked the same. I pressed a hand to my side as my muscles pulled in a stitch. Somewhere behind me, I heard a stream of obscenities and thunderous footsteps. How was it possible for one person’s footsteps to be so loud?

Because it wasn’t just one person. The realization slammed through me, urging my legs to move faster.

I threw myself around another corner and collided with a door. The impact sent me ricocheting and I ended up on my butt on the floor.

I tried to push myself up, but it was too late: a figure was already stepping around the corner, Taser drawn.

I cringed against the wall as the redheaded guard—Tanner—came into sight.

When he saw me on the floor, he let out a deep breath. He lowered his Taser but didn’t reholster it. “Are you going to make me use this?”

I shook my head. My heart hammered so hard that black spots filled the hallway and hovered in front of my eyes like swarms of flies.

The other guard hurtled around the corner, Taser drawn, finger poised over the trigger.

“She’s fine,” said Tanner, eyes locked on the Taser. “She’s not putting up a fight.”

Was he helping me?

“She ran,” spat the guard. “Threw herself at me and ran. And she’s covered in blood.”

I raised a trembling hand to my forehead. The skin was tacky. Kyle’s blood, I realized. I had gotten it on my face in the infirmary. The guard’s fear suddenly made a little more sense.

“I didn’t . . .” I swallowed and glanced at Tanner. He had taken Serena, but he was definitely the more reasonable of the two men in front of me. “My friend was hurt. I brought him to the infirmary. It’s his blood. I stepped outside and got turned around.” The words came out in a rush and I had to pause and catch my breath. “I only ran because I thought he was going to tase me.”

“You’ll be lucky if that’s all I do.” Turning beet red, the guard reached down and grabbed my arm. He pulled me up so hard and so fast that my shoulder popped and I had to bite back a gasp.

Keeping the Taser an inch from my face, he hauled me around corners and down hallways.

“You really think this is something to bother her with?” asked Tanner from somewhere behind me as I was yanked across a small waiting room and up to a gray door.

A receptionist froze in the act of hanging her coat on a hook. A purse and brown paper bag sat on the desk behind her. “She said she’s not to be disturbed.”

“She’ll be disturbed for this.” Still holding my arm, the guard holstered his Taser, then pounded on the door. The door, like the others, had a keypad next to the lock, but it also had something the others didn’t: a small nameplate bearing fourteen letters.

WARDEN SINCLAIR

14

THE WARDEN WASN’T WEARING SHOES WHEN SHE OPENED the door. It was a ridiculous thing to notice, but it was the first thing I focused on. Her office had cream carpet—thicker, more expensive carpet than I’d ever seen in an office—and her nylon-clad feet sank into the pile.

I dragged my gaze upward. Sinclair was wearing a black suit with the blazer unbuttoned over a bloodred silk camisole. Her hair was pulled back in a twist, but strands had fallen free, especially around the white streak at her temple. She looked younger up close—maybe even as young as thirty—but fine lines had begun to appear at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth.

Her expression said she was a million miles away, but that lasted only until she took in the scene in front of her. The lines on her face stretched and deepened as her gaze slid over me and then locked on the guard holding my arm. Something dark shifted behind her eyes: a storm cloud passing over a blue sky.

“I told them you weren’t to be interrupted.” The receptionist’s voice, high and anxious, drifted across the waiting room. “I tried to stop them.”

“It’s all right, Sophie,” said Sinclair. She arched an eyebrow and waited for the guard to explain.

He seemed to deflate slightly under her sharp gaze. “Found this girl wandering the corridors. Practically threw me through a wall before running.”

I twisted and stared. Through a wall? I had barely touched him.

Sinclair turned her attention to me. “How did you get into the building?”

Like the guard, I could almost feel myself grow smaller. I had the sudden, irrational urge to tell her I was sorry, to apologize for everything and anything. I forced the feeling down. “My friend was hurt. The guard at the main door told me to take him to the infirmary. I stepped out into the hall to get some air and got turned around.”

“Claims she was lost.” The guard finally let go of my arm. “Biggest pile of—”

“Did you check?” There was a layer of frost in Sinclair’s smooth voice that made things inside my stomach clench. “Did you call the infirmary?”

The guard’s face flushed. “No . . . I . . . like I said, she attacked and—”

A barely perceptible sigh escaped the warden’s lips. “Never mind. I’ll handle it. Sophie, call the front entrance and find out who was on duty.” The guard opened his mouth, but before he could say anything else, Sinclair ushered me through the door and into a windowless office that looked like it belonged to a principal and smelled like church.

The door clicked shut.

“Sit,” she ordered as she crossed to her desk and picked up the phone. “Doctor LeBelle?” There was a pause. “Was a wolf taken to the infirmary a short time ago?” Another pause. “I see.” Sinclair’s eyes locked on mine. “There’s a girl here. Mackenzie.”

How did she know my name? The guards hadn’t bothered asking. Shivering, I lowered myself onto one of two heavy wooden chairs as Sinclair listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

I scanned the walls. Framed diplomas and newspaper articles dotted seas of white to my left and right, but the space behind the desk was dominated by an enormous painting depicting a woman in a tattered Grecian dress. She knelt in the dirt, struggling to close the lid of a flaming box as shadows closed in around her.

It was beautiful. And creepy.

I frowned and squinted. Maybe it was my imagination, but the painting’s heavy black frame didn’t look like it was flush to the wall.

My attention was pulled back to Sinclair as she thanked the doctor and hung up the phone. She walked around her desk and sat in a massive leather chair. “Your friend was given permission to shift. His wound healed and he was sent to his morning class.”

I started to breathe a sigh of relief but then thought about Serena and the graveyard in the woods. If Dex was right, Thornhill was a gallows and the woman in front of me was probably signing the execution orders. I couldn’t let myself believe anything she said. “There was so much blood, though. . . .”

Sinclair’s smile slipped, and my throat filled with dust. “Surely you know how much damage your body can heal?”

According to my father, the best lie was always the one mixed with the most truth. “I don’t know many other