Free The Keep: The Watchers by Verónica Wolff

realized the person to ask was sitting right next to me. Ronan would know Toby’s story—hell, Ronan might even have been the Tracer who’d brought him in. “Is that Toby?” I asked, hoping against hope he’d divulge that the kid was actually a closet serial killer.
    Ronan followed my line of sight, then looked back at me. I could see the cogs turning. Did he wonder why I was asking about some random new Trainee? Or maybe he already knew. Maybe Alcántara’s “secret project” was actually part of the general curriculum.
    Finally, he nodded. “Yes.” The sudden stoicism in that single word said he understood a little something about my assignment.
    I frowned, studying Toby, watching in awe as he polished off a dinner roll in two bites.
    Alcántara wanted me to kill that boy
poetically
.
    Poetic—what did that even mean? Like, was I supposed to go ironic with it? Maybe find some farm tool and get him good?
Farm Boy Trainee Slain! Rototiller-Wielding Initiate Reaped What He Sowed.
    I bit the inside of my cheek. Anything to keep myself from losing it. “He looks out of place.”
    “True.”
    I swung my gaze back to Ronan. “Then why is he even here?”
    The question had been rhetorical. I hadn’t expected him toanswer. But he surprised me, offering, “Perhaps the vampires believe he will be tractable.”
    Tractable.
They’d bend this poor, dim boy to their will. And then they’d use his outsized physical strength against the rest of us.
    Either I could do as I was assigned and kill Toby Engel now, while he was still an innocent, or I could kill him later, after he’d invariably gone bad, joining the other guys on this island who’d discovered just how fun it was to torment the girls.
    My vision wavered. I had to flee. That Ronan could see how upset I was made my urge to escape all the more intense. I needed to bus my dishes and get the hell out of there. “Gotta go,” I blurted, scooping up my tray and standing.
    But Ronan wasn’t going to let me go that easily. He snarfed down a last bite of his apple and hopped up to follow me to the dish cart, the majority of his dinner left untouched. “See you at
wilderness workshop
,” he said, mimicking my earlier words.
    Damned if it didn’t bring a smile to my face.
    In my time on the island, I’d known varying degrees of trust for him, but I guessed he really was a friend. I guessed I needed that.
    The prospect of making my way through the sea of bodies back to the main entrance was too nightmarish to consider, so I headed to the service exit near the kitchens instead. I shoved open the metal door, leaving the cocoon of warmth and noise that was the dining hall, and was plunged into the cold, quiet air of the back hallway.
    Alone again.
    Until I heard the clip of shoes behind me.
    I sped up a little, fighting the urge to turn around. If my followerwere friendly, they’d call ahead to me. But they didn’t speak. I told myself the person just happened to be using this same back exit at the same time as me, which meant I could speed up and their pace wouldn’t change at all. To test the theory, I walked just the teensiest bit faster.
    Their pace increased to match mine.
    Crap
. They
were
following. It was a menacing
clip-clip
, right behind me.
    I burst into a little race walk, around the storage area, the outside door in sight. But they walked faster, and faster still until that
clip-clipping
burst into a jog. It definitely wasn’t a benign, let-me-catch-up-so-we-can-chat sound.
    I felt the person at my back—sensed it was a guy—and I began to turn, but before I could get into position, he’d pinned me from behind, my throat trapped in the crook of his arm. My body instinctively exploded to action, wriggling and bucking. “Get…off.” My voice was a rasp as he choked the air from me.
    I recognized the arm now. Long and leanly muscled, I’d seen it thousands of times, slung over the shoulders of my best friend. It was Yasuo.
Yasuo
was the person