The Hollowing (COYWOLF Series Book 2)

by Abby Tyson

  "Unfortunate," said Berto.

  "Why don't you come around the front," said Second. "We'll see if we can get him to bite you."

  "Bite her?" asked Chloe. "I don't think so."

  "It's okay, Mom," said Savi, going to the front of the cage.

  "It is most certainly not okay. If being bitten is all it takes, I will be the one. My daughter has been through enough." Chloe started towards her, but the guard held her back. Second nodded to him to let go, and she stormed across the small room, taking Savi's hands. "I will not let you spill another tear or drop of blood for these people -- not one more. Do you understand?"

  Savi wanted to give in, to accept her mom's love and authority. But all she could think was how her mom had ruined her life. Everything was her fault -- not just Savi's own broken soul, but even all of this. If her mom had never sent Monty away, they never would have waited outside of the convenience store, and Baxter never would have kidnapped her. Even Ara would still be alive, because Ren and Marley probably would have figured out a way to escape the barn and get her and Nissa out by themselves, without Savi there to muck it all up. Everything traced back to her mom's mistake, a mistake she could never forgive her for.

  Jerking her hands out of her mom's grip, she said, "You can't tell me what to do. Not anymore." Steeling herself against the heartbreak in her mom's face, she turned back to the cage.

  "He'll bite both of you to be sure," said Berto. "Mrs. Claudie will go first."

  Her mom, already pale, turned ashen gray as she knelt beside the cage and stuck her arm inside.

  "Aren't you going to use the strap on him?" asked Savi.

  "This wolf isn't trained," said Second, "but it's also extremely weak. Making it bite will likely prove to be more difficult than making it stop."

  Sure enough, the wolf's ears flicked toward Chloe's arm, but its head remained on the floor. "When I open the mouth, you put your arm in," said Second, picking up the wolf's muzzle.

  Chloe got into a better position, and they all watched as Second pried open the wolf's mouth. The wolf yelped and whined, apparently wanting no more part of this than Chloe did. Second held its mouth firmly open, and it had no energy to fight her.

  "I'll count to three," said Second.

  Leaning forward to put her arm in the wolf's mouth, Chloe grimaced, bracing herself for the pain.

  "One... two..."

  The lights went out. Everything was black for a few seconds, then orange emergency lights switched on.

  "What's going on?" asked Chloe.

  "Must be the hurricane," said Baxter.

  "Hurricane?" Savi had completely forgotten about that. If there was a hurricane waging above, there was no sign of it here below. Until now, anyway.

  "It doesn't matter," snapped Berto, "continue."

  "Perhaps I should go check in with the control room?" asked Second.

  "No," said Berto, stepping around the cage to the door. "I'll go. You finish this." With one last look at the wolf in the cage, he nodded at Second as he repeated, "Finish this."

  Watching the closed door for several seconds after Berto left, Second looked strange. Not only because of the pale orange light, but for once she wasn't wearing her perfect smile. She was deep in thought, her eyes hard, her mouth set in a small frown.

  "Are we going to do this?" asked Chloe, still kneeling in front of the wolf.

  Unceremoniously dropping the wolf's head, Second said, "Stay here." Without another word, she followed after Berto.

  The second the door closed, Baxter grabbed his tranquilizer gun and shot the other guard in the neck.

  "What the...?" The guard plucked the dart from his skin, reaching for his real gun. Savi and Chloe ducked behind the wolf's cage, while Baxter tackled the guard, landing directly in front of the door. Soon the toxins ran their course, and the guard lay unconscious on the floor.

  As Baxter got up and took the guard's guns, Savi crept behind him. "We gotta get out of here," he said. "The Zuun are gonna -- hey!"

  Savi shoved him off balance and reached for the door, but Baxter managed to get ahold her arm and pull her down with him. Chloe ran over and started punching any part of him she could see, crying, "Let her go!"

  "Hey! Hey!" he cried, blocking Chloe's fists as best he could. "I'm undercover! I'm tryin' to help you!"

  "You are a LIAR!" screamed Savi. "I believed you. You turned them in. I saw you! You're helping them -- you're still helping Marcia!"

  "That was the plan! Ow!" He scrambled out from under them, holding up his hands. Savi darted for the door, but he jumped in front of it. "That was how we figured to get all of 'em in here." Savi lunged for him again, but he shoved her back. "Kid, listen!"

  He wiped his face, bloody from either the fight with the guard or Chloe's pummeling, and gave them a pleading look. "Savi, Mrs. Claudie, I swear on my life, my ma's life, my sister's life, and whatever holy book you wanna give to me -- I swear I'm only doin' what I promised. I'm helpin' take down Berto's racket, I'm helpin' get you all outta here." Turning an angry glare on Savi, he added, "And I'm NOT workin' with Marcia!"

  "Then how did Jameson know I'm here?" asked Savi.

  "I dunno. Berto musta mentioned it to Marcia, and she musta mentioned it to him. But we gotta get goin'. The Zuun cut the lights, not the hurricane. It's gonna get real ugly down here real soon. You weren't supposed to be here, but now my job is to get you outside and outta harm's way -- NOW."

  Chloe moved in front of Savi. "Even if he's not telling the truth," she whispered, "getting out of this prison is our best option right now."

  "He could have switched teams," snapped Savi. "He could be leading us straight into the Zuun's arms. They're as bad as Berto." Savi looked around her mom at Baxter, who was peering into the large training room. "Does Ren know about this?" she asked.

  "Of course." He turned back to them. "The room's empty. Now's our chance." Neither Savi nor Chloe moved. "You wanna stay down here? Locked up? Part of Berto's collection?"

  "Take us to Ren," said Savi. "If he says you were working with us when you turned them in, then we'll go with you."

  "Kid, we don't have that kinda time!"

  "Then we better get moving!"

  "Are you sure, sweetheart?" asked Chloe. "You know these people better than I do. I'll trust your judgment."

  "Better mine than yours," Savi said, experiencing only a twinge of guilt as she glanced at her mom's pained eyes.

  Chloe turned to Baxter. "Let's go see Ren."

  "I knew you'd make this difficult," Baxter grumbled. "Alright, come on."

  He ran across the training room and peered out the door they'd come through. He took out his gun, and both Savi and Chloe jumped back. "I gotta look like I'm still guardin' ya," he explained.

  They went into the hallway, with Baxter snapping directions at them from behind. The other guards were chatting about the power outage and hurricane, paying them little mind. But soon Savi realized that it was taking longer returning than it had to come.

  "You're stalling," whispered Savi.

  "In case you hadn't noticed, this place is a maze," he whispered back. "The other guards were always with me."

  "I knew you were --"

  Savi's words were cut short by a blaring alarm. The nearest guards were startled out of their conversation, then started running.

  "This is it!" shouted Baxter. "They're in. We gotta get out now!"

  She didn't believe him, but Savi's instinct was telling her to run anyway. Baxter started back the way they'd come. He looked over his shoulder at Savi and Chloe, who remained where they were.

  "If I'm lyin'," he cried, "I'll donate my life savings to the Yankees!"

  Rolling her eyes, Savi nodded to her mom, and they both ran after Baxter.

  The hallways were full of Alter guards running past. Some gave the three of them a questioning look, but either Baxter gave the impression of having them under control, or they weren't as important as wherever the guards were going. Where Savi,
Chloe, and Baxter were going, however, remained unclear.

  "Have we been running in circles?" asked Chloe. "I swear I've seen that wolf before." She pointed at a snarling black and brown wolf in the cell across from them.

  "I think --" Baxter shouted, but the wailing alarm abruptly ceased, and he lowered his voice. "I think it's this way."

  Shouts and gunfire sounded in the direction Baxter was pointing.

  "I don't think we want to go that way," said Chloe.

  "I think it's back this way," said Savi.

  "This wouldn't've happened if you'd trusted me in the first place," he snapped, eyeing the corridors around them.

  "I still don't trust you," she said.

  A deafening -- but mercifully brief -- buzzing rang through the whole prison.

  "What's that?" asked Chloe. "Oh!"

  They all jumped forward as the door to the empty cell she'd been leaning against started swinging inwards. A growing chorus of growls and barks was joining the din of gunfire and yelling that was now moving closer. All of them turned towards the angry black and brown wolf, now backing away from the opening door.

  "That ain't good," said Baxter. He pulled the other guard's tranquilizer gun from his belt. "Those doors are slow, but not slow enough if we don't get outta here soon."

  "Is this part of the plan?" asked Savi snidely.

  "Lettin' wolves loose? No, that was not the plan." He chose a hall and started running. "Come on!"

  Savi and Chloe followed without hesitation. All around them the doors were steadily opening, some with paws and muzzles already poking out of the growing cracks. A few Alter guards were running down the halls, tranquilizing wolves before they could get out of the cells, but soon Baxter was holding out one of his tranquilizer guns to Savi.

  "You think you can hit anything?" he asked.

  A growl nearby caught their attention, and a wolf leapt from his cell at them. Baxter darted it, and it yelped in pain, running in the other direction.

  "I doubt it," said Savi.

  Baxter forced the gun on Chloe, saying, "Better than nothin'." They studied the dim corridors surrounding them, and Baxter let out a growl of his own. "This place ain't that big!" he cried.

  They were down three more tranquilizer darts and had nearly run into two fire fights by the time they found the door to the training room, hanging wide open.

  "Finally!" cried Baxter.

  Gunfire rang out behind them, ricocheting off the steel walls. They dove behind the nearest cell block, and Baxter pulled out his real gun and started firing back.

  "I'm on your team!" he yelled between shots.

  Another bullet came at them.

  "No one believes me!" he said. He fired down the diagonal hall and said, "I'll run and draw their fire. You two get to the training room and go to the door in the back wall. There's a set of stairs. Get Dave and get outta here!"

  "What about everyone else?" asked Savi.

  "Don't worry about them!" Baxter shouted over the bouncing bullets. "They got their own places to be. Now scram!"

  He dove across the hall and fired, running in the opposite direction of the iron door. Footsteps sounded as their attacker pursued Baxter, and Savi and her mom made a break for the training room. As she ran towards the door on the back wall, Savi looked over her shoulder to see her mom toss the tranquilizer gun away and slam the door behind them.

  But something else was moving in the long room.

  A wolf, with red and tan streaked fur, was racing toward Chloe. Savi recognized that wolf.

  "No!" she screamed.

  It was Hettie.

  Chapter Forty-One

  When the lights went out, Marley rose from the cot and peered out his window into the hall bathed in a harsh orange glow. The nearest guards were looking around confused, but they didn't seem worried at all.

  Marley pushed his intercom button. "What's up with the lights?"

  One of the guards came over, taunting, "You afraid of the dark?"

  Scowling, Marley sat back down. The guard's voice followed him through the speaker. "Generator's running. There is a hurricane going on."

  How am I supposed to know that? I haven't seen the sky in almost a week.

  He thought back to the night he'd been taken, and how stupid he'd been to surrender without a fight. How was he supposed to reconcile with Savi if he never saw her again?

  If she wants to reconcile, that is.

  Did she really know he was being held prisoner? Second hadn't been close enough for him to know if she was lying when she'd told him that.

  Marley pushed the doubt from his mind. He'd been driving himself crazy for days, clinging to his certainty that Savi was true, while every day Second brought new proof that she wasn't. Ever since that picture of Savi and Ren together, Second had brought more time-stamped photos showing that Savi visited Ren for at least an hour every day in his motel room.

  Why would she need to go there? If she wanted to talk to Ren -- to ask if he'd found me, for example -- she didn't need to go to his room, and she certainly didn't need to be there for so long... Again, Marley shut down that train of thought. He'd broken the fingers in his hand more than once against these steel walls over the past few days.

  A blaring alarm sounded. A steady stream of guards started running past his cell, all headed in the same direction.

  "What's going on?" called Marley through his intercom. "What's happening?" He banged on the window, but no one stopped.

  At last the alarm silenced, but the halls were empty. He banged on the window a few more times and called out into the darkness, but no one appeared. He was heading back to his cot when the short buzzing sound of his door being unlocked chimed. Looking suspiciously back at the door, he realized it was indeed slowly opening. With a cursory glance into the deserted hallway, he stuck his fingers in the small crack and propped his legs up on the wall, heaving the enormous door open.

  The sound of gunfire rang through the hall, along with barking and howling. Apparently his wasn't the only door opening, making him wonder whether he should be trying to close his door instead of open it. If werewolves were about to be released into the prison, he would be safer inside. He dismissed the thought and hauled it back enough to squeeze into the hallway. Only a handful of the cells he passed held wolves, but those doors were also open, and swinging wider by the moment.

  Cracks of gunfire continued to sound from deeper in the prison. A figure appeared ahead, slipping out of a cell and hurrying across the hall to push against another door.

  "Lila?" Marley called.

  "Marley!" she cried.

  He ran up beside her and she paused her efforts opening the door to hug him. "They said you were here, but I didn't believe it!"

  Her warm response was welcome but surprising, as Marley figured she must know about what he had done to Savi. When she pulled away, he fought the urge to keep his arms around her, distracting himself by looking into the cell she was shoving open. He was stunned to discover Glenn -- not as a wolf, but human -- pulling on the door from the inside.

  "Good to see you, Marley," he said through the widening space.

  "How did you --"

  "Savi, with her hands," Glenn answered, slipping through the door. "We can go into details later. Have you seen your brother?"

  "Ren's here too?"

  "Let's go," shouted Lila, and started running toward the gunfire.

  "Shouldn't we run the other way?" asked Marley, although he ran after them. "There's got to be another exit."

  "This is the quickest way," said Glenn.

  "Do you know what's going on? Why the doors opened?" asked Marley.

  "The Zuun are raiding the prison," Glenn answered. "As to the doors -- no, that's a mystery. Only ours were supposed to open."

  A burst of yelling sounded from ahead, and two guards came running around the corner, shooting tranquilizer darts into the cells that held wolves. Lila ducked into a small hallway between cells and the rest did the same, but
the cell closest to them was about to be open enough for a wolf to get out.

  "Grab their guns!" Lila whispered to Marley.

  Marley nodded, and when the guards appeared, Lila dove for the closest one while he lunged for the other. Although he had planned on taking the guard by surprise and knocking him out with a few well placed punches, it was the first night of Anwi's Eye, and his reduced strength always took some getting used to. He punched too lightly, and the guard caught his footing and swung around with the gun. Marley shoved him into the wall, pressing against the arm that held the gun and trying to pry it from his hand.

  A shot fired close by took both he and the guard by surprise. Marley spun around to see that the wolf had at last escaped its metal cell, only to meet its death at the hands of Lila and her stolen gun. The guard he had been fighting ran off, and Marley let him.

  "Come on," said Lila, running in the opposite direction. Marley followed, but he couldn't stop staring at the wolf on the ground, thinking of the human it had been.

  They ducked behind another set of cells -- these mercifully empty -- at the sound of more footsteps. Peering around the corner, Marley was in for yet another surprise when he saw Pearl fighting with a guard.

  "What's she doing here?" Marley whispered to Glenn.

  "She and Amber found Savi at the Den. We thought they'd evaded Berto's security."

  Pearl knocked out the guard and pocketed his gun, then hoisted a wolf that lay nearby onto her shoulders. As she started to run away, Marley said, "We should take her out. They've been nothing but trouble."

  "How about we focus on getting out of here alive," said Lila, as fresh gunfire broke out close by.

  "Point taken," he said, following her down the hall.

  Fighting their way past two more wolves, they reached another intersection only to run headfirst into a team of six armed guards wearing all black. Lila seized Marley's arm and pulled him back behind the nearest cell.

  "The Zuun!" she whispered, hatred flashing across her eyes.

  "Coywolves!" one of them called out. "We're here to get you out -- drop your weapons and come with us!"

  "I don't think so," Lila muttered, sending swears and bullets raining down on them.