Chapter Twenty-five
Hutton
Moving in the shadows in the middle of the night is easy enough to do.
After a day of being stuck in a hotel in Pennsylvania, I’m on the move. It takes two minutes to find Camp Carroll online. One call to my contact, and a car is on its way.
After finishing the letter, I tuck a copy of my thumb drive into the envelope, write Eden’s name on it, and leave it on the bed in case I don’t return.
A dark sedan pulls up to the side of the residential street; the driver’s window lowers two inches.
“Adam?”
I nod at him. It’s a code word we arranged.
Number One called me Adam occasionally—because of the project. To her I was just a number. It’s scarred into my flesh.
After a couple of hours, the landscape shifts to rolling hills and woods. I feel like we’re getting close.
Does she know I’m coming back? Will she be waiting? I turn to the contact. “What’s your name?” I was taught names didn’t matter. That they were meaningless.
I don’t want to live that way anymore.
“It’s… it’s Hoyt, sir.”
A year before the massacre, an undercover FBI agent slipped me a number and said they were investigating the laboratories and the Naturalists. I swore I’d never use it. I was wrong.
I don’t trust him. That keeps me careful with information I don’t want Number One to have.
“You can call me Hutton.”
He nods at me in the rearview mirror. We pass a rest area that reminds me of the one where I first saw Eden. I never understood the meeting Dr. Wells had with that other man over her. Nothing happened without Number One pulling the strings.
“When we get close, drop me off at the access road, I’ll walk from there.”
“Sir?” He looks back like he didn’t hear me right. “Is that safe?” He must not understand the amount of time I spent hiding in these same woods. It’ll be the safest I’ve been for a while.
“If you don’t hear from me before three days are up, you’re not going to. I have a safe deposit box at Unity Bank. The code is in a letter I gave Eden Davis. Here is her phone number.” I hand it to Hoyt. “The evidence you need to go after them is in the safe deposit box.”
He places the letter into the pocket of his jacket. “You shouldn’t do this. I can tell you think you’re invincible, but they want you dead. They outnumber and outpower you, sir. I’m going to ask you again to reconsider this move.”
I choose not to acknowledge his plea. “Oh, and I need to know. Who is responsible for the groundskeeper you sent me dying? I just knocked him out and left him near the shed.”
“You know the answer to that,” Hoyt says simply.
I wanted to be wrong. She’s been following me since I left Camp Carroll in an ambulance.
I hoist the hiking backpack onto my shoulder and set off down a worn path through the trees. One I’ve taken hundreds of times. Pines tower around me. The scrub trees brushing against me give me focus.
I’m on a mission now.
Hoyt warned me the Camp Carroll perimeter is marked and patrolled. I’m not concerned. I’ll get past anyone in my way.
An hour in, I take a break and sit on the trunk of a fallen tree to drink some water I packed. Getting onto the property before sunrise matters, and I’m making good time.
I shoulder my bag again when I hear it—shuffling footsteps. The bag drops as I crouch, knife already at my side.
“It’s just me!” Caleb calls out.
Standing back up, I pocket the knife.
“You have terrible instincts. Did anyone ever tell you that?”
How he’s managed to survive this long is a mystery to me. Following me out here only proves he’ll get himself killed if I’m not watching his back. Idiot.
“No.” He smiles at me. “Maybe you don’t. I followed you in a cab all the way here.”
I knew I had a tail, but Caleb is the last person I expected to see out here.
“How did you pay for it?” I pick my bag up as I start walking towards the Camp. He scrambles for a minute to keep up.
“Jed sends me money.”
The big brother. I warned Caleb away from him before I figured out that staff is more likely. I almost feel sorry. Almost.
“Don’t talk. Just march.” If I have to hear his happy chatter all the way to the camp, I may change my mind about stabbing him.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” he jests and starts whistling to himself.
I stop and turn his way. “There’s a reason I need you to be silent. I don’t want anyone to hear us approaching. Can you handle that?”
He makes the gesture of a zipped lip and nods. Zero survival skills, he believes anything someone tells him, and he thinks God will protect him if he just prays.
I knew I’d return, but it’s not like I imagined.
The once-maintained grounds are overgrown now, the vacant buildings all have a haunted stillness.
Like a dead man walking, I step onto the property with my shadow. We scramble down the steep embankment toward the parking garage below the lab offices.
“There wasn’t an easier way?” Caleb asks me after getting back up, wiping away dirt and grass.
Yeah, he could’ve minded his own damn business.
“Did you already forget the part about no talking?” I ask harshly.
Instead of checking my hiding spot, I lead us to the stairs from the underground parking. The door is chained. Not something I planned for. It takes me a minute to rethink the plan. I need to get into the labs.
Caleb taps my backpack, then points to an outer set of stairs leading to an employee door. I nod and head that way.
The way Caleb hesitates and rubs his shoulder makes me remember. I almost forgot he’s still injured. “Does it hurt?”
He smiles and shakes his head, but the pain is obvious.
We luck out with the employee door. The next set—pass card required—are locked tight.
That’s not going to stop me. The afternoon before the Naturalists made global news, I grabbed several different pass cards.
One of them should work.
I fan them out and start trying them while Caleb holds the bag, collecting the rejects. The fourth card beeps green, and the feeling that follows catches me off guard—happiness? Contentment? Vindication?
Making a beeline to the fifth-floor labs, Caleb is on my heels. Getting cameras placed here was the hardest part of working with the embedded agents.
Number One must have found them before her rampage. Just one more reason to do away with us all. Broken glass, expensive equipment, and stuffed animals litter the floor.
One slow breath in. One out. Then I shove the refrigerated cabinet to the side and yank the panel off. It’s empty… The drive is gone.
My head rests against the wall as a groan slips out. Caleb’s questions fade into distant noise.
A knife in my back at six, and now another betrayal… I should have known she would find this too.
She was always watching. Lingering in the shadows, offering bits of affection while encouraging me to hide myself.
My true self.
The day the world ended here, her monstrous acts shouldn’t have shocked me. I shouldn’t be doubting what I witnessed that day. She was never what she appeared to be.
Contacting the agents is my first priority. They need what I’ve found—proof.
Too many lives are at risk if the secrets of Camp Carroll stay buried and bringing them into the light is exactly what I need to do now.
For Eden. For anyone else who crosses the path of Number One—or whatever version of her comes next.