The Hollowing (COYWOLF Series Book 2)

by Abby Tyson

  How she got home was a blur, but she definitely remembered coming in. It must not have been very late, because her mom and Dave had been up. Savi had run to the bathroom and locked herself in, shouting that she had food poisoning. A dim memory surfaced of lying on the floor of the shower, along with drinking from the bathroom tap.

  Miraculously her mom and Dave bought her cover story and were nothing but sympathetic, making her lots of ginger tea and dry toast. When her mom asked how the date went, Savi simply said it hadn't gone well, and since Savi had then run into the bathroom and puked, her mom didn't press for more details. Although she was better by the end of the day, Savi stayed hidden in her room. She didn't see Dave at all until dinnertime.

  "Here's your gruel," he said, placing her oatmeal and a fresh glass of water on the nightstand. Savi grunted a thank you from beneath her pillow.

  "Savi, I need to apologize to you."

  "Why?" she asked, remaining hidden.

  "Yesterday you took me up on my offer of being a father in more than just name, and I'm afraid I failed terribly."

  The bed shifted as he sat beside her. "I always thought I'd be a good dad because I've spent my life working with kids. But when you told me yesterday that you were broken, I didn't respond like a dad should -- I responded like a shrink."

  His hand pressed gently on her shoulder. "What I should have said -- what a good dad would have said -- is that you are not, in any way, broken. You are an intelligent, loving, and resilient young woman who is doing the best with the cards you've been dealt, and your mom and I will always love you no matter what."

  Savi could hear the tightness in his throat, and could imagine the tears in his eyes, mirroring those in her own. She almost gave in to the desire to break down and let him hold her like the dad he wanted to be, but guilt held her back.

  So instead she said nothing, and did nothing, and the sound of the door closing behind him felt like the sealing of her tomb.

  The next day she was up before dawn to work at the cafeteria. When she turned her alarm off on her phone, she saw three calls from Marley that she'd missed the day before since her phone had been on silent. Ignoring his voicemails, she went into the kitchen to make breakfast.

  She and her mom were about to leave when Second knocked on their door.

  "Good morning," she said. Even at 5:30, she was ready for the day, wearing her usual tank top, shorts, and perky smile.

  "Is something wrong?" asked Chloe, coming up behind Savi.

  "No, no, I simply need to bring Savi to Mr. Almeida's office briefly before work."

  "Why?" asked Chloe, putting her arm around Savi's shoulders.

  "There's something he would like to show her."

  Chloe frowned. "Alright, I was about to get my shoes on anyway."

  "Only Savi needs to come," said Second. Giving a friendly laugh, she added, "You get to go back to bed." She couldn't have missed the venom boiling in Chloe's eyes, but Second's smile never faltered.

  Savi followed her into the dark -- and already humid -- morning. "So what does Berto want to show me?"

  "Well, technically Mr. Almeida won't be showing you; he's unavailable today."

  "Where is he?"

  "Mr. Almeida has a wide network of associates that puts great demands on his time."

  As they neared the cafeteria, Savi started towards the back door. "I'll go tell Veronica I'll be late."

  "She's already been informed," said Second.

  Savi scoffed. "Hardly." She lowered her voice, although no one else was around. "Why doesn't anyone here know about the altering? Or werewolves?"

  "Our primary goal here at the Den is to give those who are struggling a way out, a way up."

  "And your secondary goal?"

  Second stayed silent, leading her to a back door of the Administration Building. Without bothering to hide the numbers she pushed, Second entered a code on a keypad and the door popped open to reveal a narrow stairwell. Savi recited the numbers in her mind all the way up, a plan beginning to form.

  The door at the top of the stairs was already unlocked, and when Second opened it, they were in Berto's room. Savi hadn't noticed another door when she was there before, and when Second closed it behind them, she saw why. It was made to blend in with the other wood panels on the wall, with no visible doorknob. It even had display boxes with fragments of ancient jewelry mounted on it. The tall black curtain stopped at the wall right beside the door, and Savi could hear a faint, steady beeping sound coming from behind it.

  Leading her across the room, Second picked up a remote from Berto's desk. The silver wolf was sleeping in its cage.

  "This is what Mr. Almeida wanted you to see," said Second, turning on an enormous flat-screen TV. The image of a red-haired girl sleeping on a bed in a bare gray room popped up. At first Savi thought it was Veronica, but her hair was more auburn, while the hair of the girl in the video was practically orange. As she stared at the video, the girl rolled over, giving the camera a clear shot of her face. Savi gasped.

  "You're watching Hettie?" she demanded, rage coursing through her veins.

  "Mr. Almeida has been concerned for Ms. Rosa's safety since your run-in with the Zuun." Second's voice was muffled under Savi's own drumming heartbeat. "His concern was well placed, because last night on her way home from the MIT lab, some Zuun operatives attempted to abduct her. Luckily, Mr. Almeida's personnel were able to thwart their plans, although unfortunately they did get away with her lab samples."

  Lab samples. My blood.

  "Why would the Zuun want Hettie?" asked Savi.

  "As a close friend of a veru malar, she would be valuable leverage."

  Savi looked back at her best friend, asleep on a small cot. "I don't understand. If the Zuun didn't kidnap her, where is she? That's not her dorm. How are you watching her?"

  "Ms. Rosa is being kept safe on the premises."

  "Premises? She's here?"

  "Correct."

  Hettie was in danger. Because of her. Again.

  Savi couldn't breathe. Clutching the desk for support, she steadied herself as the floor swayed beneath her.

  "The Zuun didn't kidnap her so you figured you would?" Savi growled, anger swelling inside her.

  "Her family, friends, and teachers have all been informed regarding her sudden opportunity to travel abroad for a microbiology conference," said Second. "Mr. Almeida has gone to great lengths to ensure Ms. Rosa's safety."

  When is this all going to end? When will my life go back to normal?

  "He doesn't care about Hettie's safety," snapped Savi. "All he cares about is how he can use her against me." Second's words about Hettie being leverage took on a new meaning, and Savi could no longer keep the lid on her boiling fury.

  "What is wrong with you people?" she shouted. "Omar, Marcia, Berto, Ebony -- you say you're different but you're all exactly the same. You can't just force people to do what you want. And what the hell is that beeping sound?"

  The soft chirping hadn't stopped since they'd entered. Savi went towards the curtain, but Second stepped in front of her.

  "No one's forcing you to do anything," she said.

  "Right, because holding my best friend hostage really gives me much of a choice. You're so full of it." Savi tried again to reach for the curtain, but before she knew it she was being twirled around by Second and thrown against Berto's desk with her arm pinned painfully behind her back.

  "Can I trust you not to touch the curtain?" asked Second, her voice somehow bubbly and admonishing at the same time.

  "Why does everyone in this world know how to fight except me?" grumbled Savi.

  Second let her go and turned off the TV.

  "Why the hell are we even here?" demanded Savi, rubbing her arm. "Why can't my mom come back at the full moon? Neither of us know anything about all this veru malar crap. We have real lives back home, in the real world."

  Cocking her head to the side, Second said, "From my perspective, Mr. Almeida is taking on an i
nordinate amount of risk to himself and our mission here at the Den by granting you refuge."

  "Refuge?" Savi laughed.

  "Did we or did we not rescue you from the Zuun?"

  "I would have gotten out myself if you hadn't stopped me."

  "And then what? Where would you go? The Zuun will find you anywhere."

  "So what are you saying? That I can never leave?"

  Gesturing toward the door, Second said, "Mr. Almeida has made it clear that you're welcome to come and go as you please."

  Following her out of the office, Savi restrained the urge to kick Second down the stairs.

  I'd give just about anything to see the smile wiped off this woman's face.

  Savi helped in the bakery during that morning's shift. Her supervisor of the day told her that they needed to make double of everything, as this was the time of the month that the alphas returned for their assignments and got special job-specific training.

  "What kind of assignments do they get?" asked Savi.

  "All kinds of work, all over the world," he said.

  "Like what?"

  "Peace Corps kind of stuff."

  Because he was a paid employee rather than a resident, and had been working there for a few years, Savi hoped he would have some answers -- or at least some gossip -- about what exactly was going on behind the scenes. Unfortunately, while he had vast knowledge regarding the best uses for obscure ingredients such as wheat germ, chickpea flour, and xanthan gum, it became clear that he knew nothing that Savi considered useful.

  "I'm not sure exactly what they do," he finally admitted, "but it must be good work and good pay for them to keep coming back every month."

  Savi didn't leave the kitchen all morning, but she heard a couple of the people working the buffet say that it was already busier, with a bunch of the alphas having returned that morning.

  When Savi's shift was over, she went out the back and jogged over to Dave, who was again standing beside the Admin Building.

  "Hey there," he said.

  "Have you seen Second?"

  Taken aback by her lack of greeting, Dave nodded toward the brick road. "I ran into her on my way down here. She was heading to the main street."

  "Did she say how long she'd be gone?"

  "No," he said slowly, his brow furrowing.

  Glancing around the busy square, she brought Dave to the back door that led to Berto's room.

  "Are you okay?" he asked. "You look upset."

  "Second brought me up to Berto's office today to tell me that they're holding Hettie here, in some sort of secret prison."

  Dave winced, letting out a pained sigh.

  "Apparently the Zuun tried to kidnap her," Savi continued, "and they've got her here for her own protection, but she basically said the same thing about me, and I feel anything but safe here."

  Savi pointed to the door behind Dave. "That door leads to Berto's room. He's not here today, and Second is out."

  Understanding dawned on his face, but Savi kept talking before he could object.

  "I saw the code she entered this morning. All I need you to do is stay nearby. If you see anyone heading in the door, stall them."

  "This has all gone far enough," he said, blocking her way. "We need to call the authorities and have them search this place."

  Savi peered back around the building, painfully aware of the valuable seconds she was wasting arguing. "Everyone I've talked to about Berto says that he has connections at every level. You don't think that extends to the local police force? Or the Florida Attorney General?"

  "There must be someone --"

  "Yeah, and trying to find that person means talking to ten people who are on his payroll and will alert him to what we're up to. There's no way Berto's planning on letting any of us go after the full moon -- Second all but said as much this morning. He could lock all of us up in a cell and tell the world that we're on vacation just as easily as he did with Hettie. Now is our only chance."

  Taking advantage of his indecision, Savi slipped past.

  "What is it you hope to gain by doing this?" he asked as she entered the code.

  "Maybe I can find where Hettie's being held. Maybe I can figure out what the hell is really going on around here and give him a taste of his own medicine by threatening to expose the underbelly of this operation. I don't know. But I can't keep sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop."

  The door popped open. Dave put his hand on Savi's arm and said, "I'll go."

  "If people see you standing around, you can say you're waiting for me. If I'm standing here, they'll get suspicious. Please."

  Dave glanced around once more, then let her go. Savi darted into the hallway, gently closing the door behind her. Standing at the top of the dimly lit stairwell, she listened for voices on the other side of the door to Berto's office. Hearing only the same beeping noise from earlier, she slowly lifted the handle and cracked the door open.

  Savi dashed across the office to Berto's desk. The silver wolf sat up and growled as she wiggled the computer mouse. There was a bowl of untouched food on the floor of its cage. The computer screen opened right up to the desktop without any password required.

  He must be really confident in his security.

  The folders on his desktop all had innocuous labels: Travel, Budget, Education, etc. Savi opened the "Travel" folder and found a bunch of screenshots and PDFs of receipts. A subfolder labeled "Itineraries" held hundreds of files, each labeled with someone's last name and first initial, a country, and a date. Several files started with Ford_V, and Savi discovered that Vaughan had visited Nigeria in June, Colombia in July, and Turkey in August. Each visit was six days, starting two days before Anwi's Eye until the day after it ended. He was scheduled to go to Pakistan at the end of this month.

  Savi went back to the desktop and opened Berto's email, but all she found was correspondence related to the public side of the Den's mission, including several exchanges about the psychiatric assistance program that Dave had been brought in to work on.

  Still the beeping sound continued, but Savi ignored it and kept searching. The "Budget" folder yielded nothing helpful, and in "Education" all she found was literature related to all the great things they were doing at the Den. She was about to go back to the desktop when she saw a video file labeled "Promo Demo" and clicked on it.

  It opened with a young, muscular man in a gym, standing beside two piles of disc weights. The video was completely silent as the camera zoomed in to show that each pile comprised ten 100-pound discs. The man then picked up one of the piles -- one thousand pounds -- with little effort, and put it on top of the other pile. Then he squatted and, although clearly straining, stood up, lifting the entire pile. The words, "LIFT UP TO 10x THEIR OWN WEIGHT!!" flashed in yellow at the bottom of the screen.

  The video cut away from the weight lifter to a group of young men and women all lined up at a distant starting line. There was still no sound, but someone must have told them to go, because they all burst forward at once. A hand near the camera raised a radar gun into view and aimed it at the mass of people racing toward it, showing the general speed of the group to be 35 mph. "RUN UP TO 35 MPH!!" read the caption.

  Next was a girl standing several feet from a cement wall that was marked along the edge with large measurements, showing that the wall was twenty feet high. The girl ran straight towards the wall and jumped clear to the top. She caught her balance enough to sit on it and wave down at the camera, grinning. "JUMP UP TO 4x THEIR OWN HEIGHT!!"

  The last scene was several people, still all appearing to be no older than their twenties, each paired off and sparring in several different styles of fighting, ranging from karate to boxing. Then it cut to one person punching the head off of a dummy in slow motion. "DEADLY!!" The screen went black.

  Staring at the computer, Savi tried to understand what she'd seen. The day Second had brought her in to meet Berto, he'd been on the phone talking about a business transaction.

  The
finest stock, he'd said. They ship two days beforehand.

  Savi didn't have time to sit and theorize. She picked up the remote and turned the large screen on. There was Hettie, sitting on her cot with her knees up to her chin. A sharp pain pierced Savi's heart at the sight of her, but she pushed the channel button, hoping she could find some other part of the prison that would tell her where Hettie was being kept. She flipped through and saw several other empty cells, then came across a young girl, who appeared to be Nissa's age, having some sort of fit. She was in a similar cell as Hettie, and was banging a metal bowl against the wall. Savi turned the volume up just enough to hear the girl sobbing and shouting, "Eat! Please! Eat, you stupid dog! Eat!" She turned towards the camera, her sky blue eyes exactly like Nissa's.

  The silver wolf started barking and howling at the sound of the girl's voice. Savi hastily lowered the volume back down, and the wolf silenced.

  That has to be Karis, thought Savi, looking back at the frantic child. There were no windows in her cell, just like in Hettie's.

  The next channel showed a handful of guards watching screens, but there were still no clues as to the whereabouts of the prison. Savi knew she had to get moving, but she flipped through a few more channels, seeing some views of the cafeteria, the bottom floor of the admin building, and some classrooms. Then, as she was about to turn it off, she flipped to one last channel, and an icy chill ran down her spine.

  It was her room in the cottage. There was her purse on the bureau, her phone on the nightstand.

  They were watching her.

  She switched to the next channel and saw her mom and Dave's room. The next channel showed their living room and kitchen.

  They were watching all of them.

  Savi nearly dropped the remote as she fumbled to turn off the screen. Racing to the door, she stopped cold at the sound of Dave's anxious voice.

  "What do you know about Mary Cotwell?" he asked the person who was holding the door open a crack. "She has yet to tell me anything about her parents. Has she told you anything about them? Did they have substance abuse problems too? Or is she the first in her family? Children of substance abusers do better in therapy if their parents are trying to get clean as well. Are they local?"