Because she knows Christian, and Christian wouldn’t give up his knife. Not to a Pack member and especially not to Warden. She knows if Warden took the knife from Christian, it wasn’t with Christian’s permission. That means they must have fought for it. Warden walked away with the knife.

Dawn knows that means Christian didn’t walk away, period.

Warden must see the moment of realization in Dawn’s eyes.

“Fuck Christian,” he says, and Dawn steps back, surprised by the ferocity in his voice. “He was a prison guard, just like Amber. Just like the rest of them. He wasn’t a good person, and he deserved what he got.”

Dawn doesn’t say anything. She might be on board with this line of thinking. The counselor was a creep, after all. He’d been torturing Kyla for months. He wasn’t a good person, and if someone had to die, then maybe it’s best it was Christian.

But Christian’s not the only one who’s dead.

“What about Alex?” Dawn asks. “What did he do wrong?”

It’s impossible to see Warden’s face to tell how he reacts. But what Dawn can tell, he doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak for a long period of time.

And then he laughs. “I guess you saw more of Alex than I thought,” he says. “You weren’t supposed to figure it out.”

Dawn says nothing. Her heart is pounding.

“It would have looked like an accident,” Warden says. “By the time anyone found him the animals would have had their way with his body. No one would ever know how he died.”

Dawn tries to speak but her mouth is too dry. She wets her lips. “Why?”

Warden shrugs. “He was a liability. He would have raised the alarm at headquarters, and that would have cost us time.”

Warden says, “He knew where we were going.”

He says, “He chose to abandon the rest of the Pack.”

And then he shrugs again.

“Also,” he says, “I just didn’t like how he tried to play hero.”

Chapter 74

“SO YOU SEE WHY we can’t let you leave,” Warden says.

Dawn stares at him.

“You’re a part of the team, Dawn,” he tells her. “We have to all stick together. I can’t let you go back to headquarters, not now that you know.”

Warden takes a step forward, and Dawn sees how the firelight glints off the knife. “You’re either with us, or against us,” Warden tells her. “Whose side are you on, Dawn? The prisoners, or the guards?”

“Think carefully,” Warden says. “There’s only one Correct Answer.”

It goes without saying this is not exactly the situation Dawn’s dad had in mind when he preached to her about Doing the Right Thing.

Or maybe it is.