Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (10 page)

“She’s lucky,” said Hank, a dark edge to his voice. “I don’t know who these guys are, but they’re not LSRB. According to the other pack leaders, they killed a couple of people who got in their way, but they weren’t interested in anyone else. They were fast and efficient, and they knew exactly who they were going after and how to get in. They were good. Mercenary-level good.”

Packs didn’t take security lightly. If the men had known how to get in and where the wolves from the detention block were, that meant . . .

“They had moles inside the packs.” My blood ran cold as the words left my lips. “What about the Eumon?” Two of the wolves from the detention block were with Hank’s pack, and there were members of the Eumon who would have known that Serena, Kyle, and I had gone back to Hemlock.

“I know my pack. If there’s a leak, it didn’t come from us.”

“But they knew where Serena was . . . who she was.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. You saw what they did to your friend in the detention block. You saw how out of it and confused she was. There’s no way of knowing who she may have told what.”

It was a fair point, but it still didn’t make sense. “It’s been almost a month since the breakout. If people knew where Serena was this entire time, why wait for today to go after her? Why wait to go after the others?”

“Maybe they wanted to go after everyone in one fell
swoop. Maybe they were waiting until they could get to Sinclair before dropping the ax.”

“You heard about the transition house?”

“I’m waiting until there’s a body before breaking out the champagne, but yes.”

I swallowed. “So it wasn’t you?”

“No—though I can’t say I haven’t been second-guessing my decision not to kill her when I had the chance.”

“Do you think someone’s trying to cover up what happened in the detention block?”

“Don’t you?”

Of course I did. I just wanted to hear someone else say it. For a split second, I considered telling Hank about the CutterBrown logo and then dismissed the idea. There were reasons that logo could have been in the camp—reasons that didn’t point to some sort of evil partnership with Sinclair—and accusing CBP of working with the warden would be like accusing Amy’s dad. I couldn’t do that. Not without any proof. Instead, I said, “I can’t let them get their hands on Serena.”

“I’m working on finding out who’s behind the attacks. In the meantime, you need to get your friend to the pack. We can keep her safe. And you. Eve is on her way to Hemlock to escort you. She should be there by morning.”

Eve had been with us in Thornhill. She was Hank’s protégé, and a member of his pack. She was also one of the toughest wolves I had met.

“You sent her without even talking to me?” My immediate flash of annoyance was quickly overshadowed by
suspicion. Hank didn’t do favors—not unless he was getting something in return. “Serena isn’t anything to you. She’s not part of your pack. Why would you help her?”

“I’d say common decency, but I think we both know that’s not it.” There was a rustle and I heard muffled voices in the background. A second later, Hank was back. “Someone is going to a lot of trouble to find these kids. Until I know who, I’d prefer to keep them from getting the whole set. Be ready to leave as soon as Eve gets there.”

Jason’s phone beeped again. I ignored it. I didn’t like the fact that Hank was making decisions for us and giving orders, but this afternoon had been close. Way too close. Like it or not, we needed all the help we could get. Heading to Hank’s pack couldn’t guarantee Serena’s safety—especially not when two other packs had been hit—but it was better than getting picked off on our own. “I can’t leave until I know the others are all right. I’ll try to convince them we should go to Colorado, but I can’t promise everyone will be on board.”

“I don’t care about everyone. I care about you and that girl.” Hank’s voice began to break up. “. . . want . . . you out . . . Hemlock . . . don’t want you . . . rally.”

Silence.

Jason’s phone had finally died.

Slowly, steps heavy, I walked back to the pastor’s office.

Serena didn’t open her eyes as I stepped into the room. Her face glistened with sweat and her breathing was labored. Her cracked lips formed words that were too soft for me to catch.

I crossed the room and leaned over her.

“I promise I’ll be good. Clean my plate and wash away the dirt. You don’t have to leave me here. Please don’t leave me here.” Tears leaked out from under her closed lids. “I can be good.”

“Serena?” Tentatively, I touched her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re not there anymore. You’re safe.”

She flinched at my touch but then grew calm. Her breathing evened out and she seemed to slip deeper into sleep. I watched her for a few moments and then lowered myself to the floor next to the couch.

I tugged the extra blanket around my shoulders as my eyes roamed over the prints and posters on the walls. Like the furniture, they apparently hadn’t been worth taking when the building was cleared out.

My gaze lingered over a framed Bible verse. “‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’” I read the line in a whisper. Mark 8:36.

The words were set in white on a black background and reminded me of the banners at Thornhill—the ones extolling the virtue of control.

“Amy . . .” I whispered her name as I pulled my legs to my chest and rested my forehead against my knees.

After we had found out who killed Amy and why, I had expected the dreams to stop. When they hadn’t—when the dreams followed me to Thornhill—I had assumed they were the by-product of guilt at letting her killer escape and fear of losing Kyle and Serena in the camp.

All along, I had assumed the dreams were a trick of my
subconscious. A fun-house mirror version of Amy dredged up by my mind to hurt me.

What if I had been wrong?

What if some part of Amy was still here? What if something she had known was keeping her here? What if something connected to CutterBrown was keeping her here?

Her voice drifted back to me from my dream.
Just look, Mac. Please.

“Amy . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut and waited, but she stayed just out of reach.

“M
AC
. . .”

The weight of a hand on my shoulder. A familiar voice calling my name. I curled into the touch, still half locked in sleep.

“Trey!” The voice rose to a shout. “They’re in here!”

Serena. The church.

I jolted back to reality with a gasp.

I had a second to register Kyle’s deep-brown eyes and the relief that flooded them before he pressed his lips to mine in a kiss that tasted faintly of smoke and salt.

My vision blurred, tears fragmenting his face as he pulled back. He was here. He was all right.

I wiped my eyes roughly with the heel of my palm.

Kyle looked dirty and exhausted, but otherwise okay.

His gaze swept over me, cataloguing each scrape and bruise. “Are you all right?”

I nodded as Trey burst through the door.

Trey’s gaze locked on his sister. “What the hell
happened?” he asked, going straight to her side.

Kyle stood and helped me to my feet. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, holding me close.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “She tried to shift in the junkyard. She was only able to change her hand—just like every other time—but afterward, it was like she didn’t have any strength. She couldn’t even walk on her own. After a few minutes, she seemed okay, but once we got here, she just collapsed.”

I leaned into Kyle and shivered. “She keeps drifting in and out. She was burning up. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Ree?” Trey called his sister’s name softly as he crouched next to her. Gently, he took her hand and checked her pulse. “Her heart is beating too slowly. Like a reg’s.”

Pain and worry filled his face. His expression was so unguarded and raw that watching it felt like intruding on something private.

I looked away; as I did, the realization that there were four of us in the room, not five, hit me like a slap. “Where’s Jason?” I eased away from Kyle as a wave of dread swelled in my chest.

“He’s okay,” said Kyle, putting his hand on my shoulder. “We ran into a group of Trackers and they dragged him out on a hunt.”

I stared at him, wondering how his definition of okay could be so radically different from mine.

“There was a riot downtown,” Kyle continued; “that’s part of why it took us so long to get to you. By the time we dodged the cops and were sure we hadn’t been followed
from the junkyard, we got caught up by the mobs. There was fighting all the way up to Elm Street.”

My heart lurched. “Tess?”

“She’s all right.” He slid his hand down my arm and then threaded his fingers through mine. “We went by the apartment building.”

“Thank you.” I let out a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “What about your parents?”

“They’re okay. The violence hasn’t spread across the bridge.” His gaze hardened and the light from the candles wreathed his eyes in flame. “Trackers grabbed a suspected wolf at a bar. They practically beat him to death. A few locals tried to step in and it turned into a free-for-all. The bars downtown closed early to try and avoid more trouble, but all that did was drive a bunch of half-drunk, overexcited people into the streets.”

A large inebriated group with nothing to do and plenty of pent-up anger and fear? No wonder things had gotten out of control.

“We need to get out of Hemlock,” said Trey. Serena stirred in her sleep and he adjusted the blanket over her before pushing himself to his feet. The look on his face as he turned to Kyle and me was filled with threats and barely contained anger. “Before things in town get worse. Before whoever sent those men to the house track us down. I won’t let them get near her a second time.”

I swallowed. “I spoke to my father. Someone went after three other wolves from the detention block last night. He wants us to go to Colorado. To the Eumon. Eve is on her way
here. She should reach town by morning.”

“What makes him—or you—think my sister will be safe with his pack?” The look Trey shot me was scathing. “In case you’ve forgotten: she was with his pack when she was caught and shipped off to Thornhill.”

“I didn’t forget.” I struggled to keep my voice even. As if I could ever forget that.

Kyle tried to smooth out the rising tension. “There might be someone in the pack who can help her,” he said. “They have people who were doctors and nurses before they became infected. They might at least be able to figure out what’s wrong with her or what they did at Thornhill to cause this. Maybe they can figure out what drugs they gave her or if any of them are still in her system.”

The corner of the newspaper was just visible under the sofa. I opened my mouth to tell them about the logo, but Trey’s voice cut me off and knocked me silent.

“I already know what’s wrong with her.” He walked to the room’s one small, dirty window and stared at the darkness outside. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. Back when we were kids . . .” His voice trailed off as he flexed his right hand and rotated his shoulder. So suddenly that I jumped, he punched the window frame, cracking the glass and splintering the wood.

Trey’s shoulders slowly slumped as the tension drained out of him. He turned and met my gaze. Everything about him seemed . . .
defeated
.

“We were just kids when we were attacked. Serena . . . hell, she was so small for her age, most people thought she
was eight instead of eleven.” The Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. “The first time we shifted, I was fine. But Ree could only hold the change for a minute. Afterward it was like her body tried to burn itself up. Dad couldn’t take her to a hospital without them finding out what she was. It took three days for the fever to break and Ree ended up in bed for a month. She almost died.”

Serena had told me the story once before. No one knew why, but children under fifteen only had a 40 percent chance of surviving their first shift. The fact that both she and Trey had made it through bordered on miraculous.

A small detail, barely noticed at the time, drifted back to me. “I got a look at Serena’s admission form while we were in the camp. They circled the age she was when she became infected. Maybe that’s why they singled her out.”

A crease formed between Kyle’s brows. “Because they figured if she could survive being infected so young, maybe she’d be strong enough to survive what they were doing in the detention block.”

I thought of the cemetery in the woods behind the camp as I stared at Serena’s small, feverish form. What if they had been wrong? What if she wasn’t strong enough, after all?

The narrow staircase creaked under my weight as I climbed up to the choir loft. The flame from the pillar candle I carried jumped and flickered, making the shadows in the small space dance.

Kyle looked up as I stepped through the door. He had pushed two benches together and had retrieved Tess’s
sleeping bag from his car to form a makeshift bed. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it was good enough.

Jason had managed to get his hands on a phone and had called Kyle to say he wouldn’t make it to the church before morning, and Trey had wanted to be alone while he kept watch over Serena—I think because he hated the idea of anyone watching him wait and worry while his sister fought for her life. The only thing for Kyle and me to do was try to catch some sleep.

“Did you reach your dad?”

Warmth flooded my cheeks. I prayed the darkness would hide my blush as I handed Kyle his phone. “No answer,” I lied. “I guess we just wait for Eve to show up in the morning.”

His fingertips brushed mine as he took the cell. Part of me almost caved right then and there. I wanted to tell him the truth—I knew how dangerous secrets could be—but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about the logo or why I had really wanted to borrow his phone.

Not yet.

It was like CutterBrown was a secret—one shared between Amy and me.

I would tell Kyle—I would tell him everything—once I figured out whether or not there was anything worth telling.