“We need to get a look inside that church,” Patrick said. “See if there’s any way we can help those kids.”

It was what I’d most dreaded he’d say.

We kept to the hillside, moving among the trees, Cassius a few feet ahead of us, a canine early-warning system. The backpack tugged at my shoulders, filled with our supplies, including extra shells for Patrick’s shotgun and my notebook. It took forever, but we finally worked our way down toward the back of the church and peered out from the edge of the parking lot. To one side the pews lay in a jumble like a giant stack of firewood. The Hosts had removed them all from the church. To make room for what?

A flatbed truck parked by the rear door blocked most of our view of the building, but we could still make out the stained-glass windows on either side of the altar, glowing with light from within. Over the breeze we heard moans and sobs, footfalls and dragging sounds.

My mouth went dry.

We waited for a while, watching and listening, but nothing changed. Then Patrick said, “Now or never, I guess,” and crept out from cover.

I looked across at Alex. I could read the fear in her eyes, but she tightened her grip on the hockey stick and stepped from the tree line. Cassius and I stayed at her heels.

We hurried across the parking lot, passing the flatbed and jumping over the boxwood hedges beneath the window. I put my hand on Cassius’s neck and pushed him down into the dirt with us. The whine of machinery vibrated the wall at my shoulders.

Cautiously, we rose and peered through the window. Due to the stained glass, everything looked murky, drenched in blues and reds, but then I found a white piece in the mosaic and the view inside became clear.

I wish it hadn’t.

In place of the pews were rows of cages, crates, and pens, stretching from wall to wall, filling the whole interior. Every last one filled with a kid.

Hundreds of them.

Inside a repurposed chicken coop, Lyssa Unger, one of the cheerleaders, lay curled in the fetal position. Now loaded into one of our dog crates, Andre Swisher sobbed hoarsely, his muscular arms trembling. Blake Dubois had been crammed into a flat battery cage used to house hens, his discarded wheelchair flipped over beside it, one tire spinning lazily in a draft.