Day narrows her eyes at me. “How are you feeling, kiddo?”
“Like I’ve got the Wrath. Which reminds me . . .” I take the black syringe case out of my jacket pocket, careful not to wake Ash. Day helps me with the injections, which isn’t easy when the truck is rocking so much on the bumpy road, but I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to do this today. The truck hits a pothole just as I put the syringes away, and the boys jerk awake. Beetle bolts upright, the side of his face creased from lying on his jacket, while Ash runs a weary hand over his face.
“Guys, we’re here,” Acelot says from the front seat.
We approach another Boundary Wall, which surrounds Primus-Three. This one is painted green to blend in with the vegetation. Beetle looks out the back window. From our vantage point we can see for miles down the bending road.
“There are some trucks farther down the mountain,” he says. “We’ve probably got thirty minutes, tops, before they get here.”
Acelot slows the truck down as we approach a set of iron gates. They immediately swing open, and we drive along a winding mountain road for a few miles before reaching the heart of Primus-Three. There are eight Cinderstone buildings surrounding an enormous courtyard, which is easily twenty times larger than the plaza in Black City. The medical facilities all look the same: four stories high, flat roofed, with a wide entrance door with a number painted on the front. A road runs around the outside of the buildings.
“Lab seven is over there.” Elijah points to the building to our right.
“Bring the truck around the back, mate,” Beetle says to Acelot.
He steers the vehicle to the right and follows the tree-lined road around the back of the buildings. There’s very little traffic on the road, but it is early. However, I imagine the camp will wake up soon, as the scientists prepare to meet the new arrivals.
Acelot parks the truck close to the back doors of laboratory seven, so we can make a quick escape. It shouldn’t rouse too much suspicion, as I see a few other vehicles parked outside one of the other laboratories farther down the road. We hurry off the truck and head to the back door, which has a large numeral 7 painted on it in white. Elijah tests the handle. It’s locked. Day points to the keycard scanner mounted on the wall beside the door. I should’ve figured the laboratories would have tighter security on them than the registration office. Knowing the Sentry, they’re developing all sorts of biological weapons in here, similar to the C18 Wrath virus, so the last thing they want is that leaking out into the main population and killing everyone.
“Hold on,” Beetle says, jogging back to the truck. He returns a moment later, carrying a keycard. He must have taken it off the dead guard. “I figure he’ll have security clearance, since he was bringing the prisoners here.” We cross our fingers as he swipes the card through the scanner, and the light flickers green. The door swings open. Yes! Beetle draws his gun and enters the building, checking to see if the coast is clear, before the rest of us go inside. Ash stays close to me, his hand protectively on my back.
The building is stark and white, like the hospital back at the Sentry rebel base in Gallium. Thinking about it makes my insides squirm, wondering what my parents are doing right now. We’ve been gone twenty-four hours; they must be going crazy with worry. Have they sent a search party after us? I hope not. It’s bad enough that I talked Destiny into helping us; I don’t want to drag more of the Sentry rebels into this.
“Fragg,” Ash mutters under his breath. He points to a security camera at the far end of the hall. It’s slowly rotating toward us.
“Leave it to me,” Acelot says, walking over to an access panel built into the glossy white wall. It’s been screwed shut. “Elijah, give me a hand.”
The brothers grit their teeth as they pry the panel off the wall, exposing a network of fuses and wires. The camera keeps turning. It’s almost on us. Come on, come on! Acelot carefully studies the wires, mutters a prayer and yanks out the blue ones. The camera at the far end of the hall stops moving. He lets out a relieved sigh, then gives a crooked smile.
“I knew they were the right ones,” he says unconvincingly. “That should have knocked out all the cameras in this building.”
“Let’s get going,” I say. We probably only have five minutes, ten tops, before they discover why the cameras are out of action and come looking for us.
We quietly walk down the empty corridors. I peer through the glass doors as we pass by. All the rooms on this floor are high-tech laboratories, with gleaming white floors and stainless-steel furniture. In one lab a huge glass-fronted refrigerator runs down the length of one wall. It contains hundreds of vials filled with a shimmering milky fluid. It reminds me of Golden Haze, except it has a silvery hue to it, rather than gold. There are biohazard signs on each door, along with notices warning people to wear their masks “AT ALL TIMES!”
“Let’s go up one floor,” Elijah says. “They’re not down here.”
We find the stairwell and go up to the second floor. The rooms up here have solid doors, with just a small viewing window in them. I glance through one of them. The entire back wall is filled with cages crammed with white mice. I shudder. We keep going down the hallway, me leading the way, checking each room as we pass. It’s more of the same—mice, rats, rabbits. Bizarrely, one room is filled with caged trees. I round the corner and immediately freeze.
A startled woman dressed in a white lab coat blinks back at me. A faint crease forms between her groomed brows as the others enter the corridor. Her brown eyes flick from me to Ash, and recognition registers on her face. There’s no time to think. I draw my gun and squeeze the trigger. The bullet hits the woman in the chest. She gazes down at the red stain blossoming on her white coat, then back up at me. Her mouth is still in a surprised O shape as she hits the floor.
“Oh God . . . ,” I gasp, the gun slipping through my fingers. It clatters to the ground. “Oh God . . . oh God . . . oh—” The word gets stuck in my throat as it constricts with panic. I can’t breathe. I killed her. I shot an unarmed woman. My eyes snag on the gold band on her left hand. I killed an unarmed, married woman. She had a husband, maybe even children, and I—oh God, oh God, oh God. Ash pulls me into his arms, holding me against him.
“You had to do it,” Ash says into my hair. “She would’ve alerted the others.”
I nod faintly, unable to tear my eyes away from the woman. Her brown hair is fanned around her pretty, slim face. She has deep laughter lines by her pale lips, even though she’s probably only in her thirties. She must have smiled a lot. I had to do it.
Beetle and Elijah hurry over to the woman and grab her body while Ash picks up my gun, thrusting it back into my hand. My skin feels scorched, like it’s holding fire rather than cold steel, and it takes all my strength not to toss it away. Instead, I tuck the gun into my belt.
The boys drag the woman’s body to the nearest room—the one with the caged trees in it—and use her security pass to open the door. We follow them inside and quickly close the door behind us. The room is dimly lit and filled with row upon row of cages, each ten feet square, their walls made from a fine wire mesh. Inside each cage is a fully grown Carrow tree, although there’s something odd about them. Their bark is a silvery-blue color.“Put her over there,” Acelot says, gesturing to the dark corner behind one of the cages.
Beetle and Elijah haul her body through the forest of caged trees and dump it against the far wall. Her head flops forward, her hair cascading in front of her face. Her lab coat is soaked in blood. I must’ve hit her directly in the heart to cause that much bleeding. Ash takes my hand, and I look up at him. He’s staring at the bloodstain on the woman’s jacket, his black eyes filled with longing.
“This place is creepy,” Acelot says, glancing around the room.
I release Ash’s hand and approach one of the cages. I peer through the wire mesh. There doesn’t appear to be anything inside the enclosure other than the Carrow tree. That’s weird. Why are the Sentry growing trees inside these cages?
The bark on the tree trunk suddenly ripples. I blink. What? I tap the wire meshing, and then step back in fright as hundreds of butterflies swarm into the air, surrounding the tree in a cloud of silvery blue. I know some butterfly species eat tree sap, so that must be why there are so many Carrow trees here. The insects remind me of the butterfly medals I saw the Tin Men wearing in Gallium. One word suddenly pops into my head. Wings.
15.
EDMUND
DAWN BREAKS ON THE HORIZON just beyond the mountain, casting a golden hue over the forest so that the leaves look like flames flickering out of the earth. It’s the beginning of a beautiful day, but it’s wasted on the people of Amber Hills.
The village is silent with grief from last night’s violence. All the doors are shut, and the curtains drawn although no one is asleep. I doubt anyone will sleep for days after what happened. The only people up and about are the Guild, plus Patrick, Harriet, Drew and me. We’re congregated in the town square by the wooden cross.
Grandfather quietly consoles Eric Cranfield’s dad—a thin, handsome man, with long red sideburns and neat mustache. His eggshell-blue eyes are puffy and rimmed red from crying all night. His son’s dead body is resting beside Catherine’s in the nave of the church, both swaddled in white cloth.
Next to him are Mr. O’Malley and his children, Harriet and Drew. Like their father, they’re both bright eyed and alert, their blond hair washed, their faces scrubbed. Harriet has a few scratches on her face from the fight last night, but Drew came out unscathed. Patrick is beside them. His face is ashen and drawn, highlighting the dark purple bruise down the right side of his face where I thumped him last night. He’s wearing his hunting outfit: brown leather pants, white shirt and green frock coat. His left hand is thrust into his jacket pocket, and he appears to be clutching something, but I can’t tell what it is. He slides a cold look at me, his eyes glistening. I glance away.
Standing apart from the group is his father, Mr. Langdon. His shoulders are slumped as they carry the burden of his sorrow, and I know how he feels. Just thinking about Catherine makes the air heavy, pressing down on me until I’m certain I’ll crumple under the weight of it. Every time I shut my eyes, all I can see is the look on her face as Grandfather snapped her neck. I dig my fingers into my thighs, focusing on the pain as I try to hold myself together. But no matter how hard I try, the truth keeps pulling at the threads. I killed my best friend. It may not have been me who broke her neck, but it may as well have been. My desire, my hunger, my impurity led to her death. Not only that, but I made my grandfather a murderer so he could protect me. I destroyed two souls in one night.
Mr. Langdon strolls over to me. “Thank you for joining us on the hunt, Edmund. Catherine—” His voice breaks on her name. “My daughter was very fond of you.”
Guilt twists in my gut. I glance at Grandfather.
“We should go, Father,” Patrick says, sliding another cold look in my direction.
Mr. Langdon turns to Mr. Cranfield. “I promise we’ll bring back Alaric Bane’s head for what his pack did to Eric and my little girl.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Cranfield says hoarsely.
The Guild members say their farewells and return to their homes. Only Mr. Langdon, Patrick, the O’Malley siblings and I will be going into the forest to hunt the Lupines, leaving the others to protect the town.
“Good hunting,” Grandfather says, squeezing my shoulder. It appears to be a reassuring gesture, but I know what it really is: a warning. He wants me to find the Howler girl, Ulrika, and kill her before anyone discovers the truth about what happened to Catherine. Her murder would have been for nothing if we’re caught.
Patrick walks around the group as we check our supplies. We each have enough food and water to last us three days, a rifle, a crossbow and a silver dagger. My fingers fumble as I count out my bullets. Harriet lets out an impatient huff.
“Why does Edmund have to come with us?” she complains to Patrick in a loud whisper. “Can’t we just ditch him at the gate?”
“If the freak wants to get eaten by a Howler, I’m not going to stop him,” Patrick replies.
I don’t say anything, but Mr. Langdon gives me an apologetic look. We pick up our supplies and head to the boundary gates. A thrill of anticipation shivers through me. I’ve never left the town, and now I’m going into the forest to hunt bloodthirsty Howlers, with a group of people who would happily see me dead. I’m starting to wonder if I’m their bait.
Patrick unlocks the heavy iron gates and we step into the forest. Dawn turns to night as darkness descends over us. Only a few rays of dappled sunlight manage to penetrate the treetops, casting long black shadows across the mossy earth, which dance every time the cool wind stirs the Carrow leaves. The place is unquestionably creepy. I let out a short, nervous breath when something dark flashes between the trees. Harriet laughs.
“Relax, it’s just a deer. The Howlers live up on the Claw,” she says, gesturing toward the volcano, Mount Alba. “The most dangerous thing down here is Drew.”
He chuckles, throwing his dagger at a nearby tree, pinning a squirrel to it. I grimace as he yanks the blade out of the dead rodent and tosses it to me.
“They taste good. Like chicken,” he says.
I shove the bleeding animal carcass into my bag, trying to ignore my aching thirst at the scent of the blood. I don’t like to drink animal blood, as it’s very sour, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and I’m going to get hungry after three days hiking in the woods.