Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (26 page)

I bit my lip as the outraged cries rose to deafening levels. How could they just block off the bridge?
Why
would they just block off the bridge?

A second later, the answer came to me: they were trying to keep the bedlam on the south side of the city from spreading to Hemlock’s wealthier neighborhoods.

A wave of acid rushed up the back of my throat. Men were being wasted here when they could have been helping rein things in on my side of town. They were protecting property values instead of people. It was just like what had happened when the werewolf attacks began last spring. The wealthier parts of town had hired—in some cases been given—extra protection. Not a single attack had taken place north of the river.

“It’s going to take us all night at this rate,” muttered Kyle. He glanced around and then gracefully vaulted over the shoulder-high railing that separated the pedestrian walkway from traffic. He reached back to help me up and then placed his hands on my hips and lifted me down.

We walked on the edge of the outside lane—it wasn’t
like the cars were moving.

The closer we got to the south side of the bridge, the more scraps of news we picked up. The fireball had been an explosion at the gas station on Maple. One old man claimed the RfW—Regs for Werewolves—had blown up the station on purpose, but someone else said a semitruck had swerved to avoid a mob of Trackers and taken out the pumps.

No one seemed to be talking about the murder at the fund-raising gala or the disturbance at the strip mall, but that news wouldn’t stay quiet long. A murder at a party hosted by the town’s most prominent family? That was front-page fodder. God only knew what would happen if the press found out Stephen had been responsible. I remembered the howl I had heard as we ran from the Trackers. Had Stephen been captured? Killed? He had been helping Sinclair and had stood by while Donovan had almost drowned Jason, but . . .

He had asked Sinclair to let us go. He had asked her to let us go and he had hesitated when she told him to stand against us.

That had to make some sort of difference, didn’t it?

I hugged the DVDs to my chest. “Do you really think Jason’s okay?”

Like the other ninety-nine times I had asked, Kyle’s answer didn’t change. “He’s probably safer with them than with us.”

By the time we finally reached the southern edge of the bridge, I agreed with him. No matter how much I hated the
Trackers, Jason had to be better off with them than here. Stepping into the downtown core was like stepping into a war zone. The mingled scents of smoke, tear gas, and burning rubber hung in the air and clogged my throat, while a cacophony of sirens and alarms made it almost impossible to think.

We knew the wolves were planning something for the night of the rally; it looked like they had gotten started early.

Or maybe not . . .

I glanced down as my foot caught on a cardboard sign.

Werewolves Are Human Most of the Time
was printed in bold, black letters underneath the RfW logo.

The RfW had been protesting?

Kyle touched my arm and nodded toward the next block. A group—Trackers or RfW, it was impossible to tell—was being driven this way by men in riot gear.

As quickly as we could, we turned off Main Street and headed for Elm.

The damage wasn’t as bad here, though cars had been torched and stores had been looted. The looting made things somehow worse. Mindless destruction was bad, but mindless destruction topped with personal gain was insult heaped onto injury.

Even though most of the actual rioting seemed to be contained to the area near Riverside Square, we had to take several small detours to avoid pockets of trouble. We couldn’t seem to go more than a block without having to hide from groups of Trackers. God only knew what they
were doing to any werewolves—real or just suspected—they found tonight.

Would they drag Jason out on one of their hunts or would his injuries keep him safe? I wished I knew the answer even though there was nothing I could do to change things.

I shivered and touched the compass necklace at my throat as we turned onto Elm Street.

Miraculously, the neighborhood looked like it had been completely spared. Even the cars parked along the sides of the street had made it through the evening unscathed.

For the first time in hours, I felt like I could draw a full breath: Hemlock was being ripped apart, but at least my small corner of it was intact. The thought—and the relief that accompanied it—felt selfish.

My entire body ached, but my steps were lighter as I turned up the walkway to my building. I reached for my keys as we neared the main door, only to realize they were probably still in the pocket of the jeans I had left on Jason’s bedroom floor.

I buzzed our apartment and waited for Tess’s voice to burst out of the intercom.

Nothing happened.

A small tendril of alarm wound through my chest, but I told myself everything was fine as I hit the button a second time. Again, we were greeted by silence.

Everything is fine.

I avoided looking at Kyle as I retrieved the spare set of keys from inside a fake rock Tess had planted at the corner of the building. I wanted to believe the worry suddenly
gripping me from the inside out was unwarranted, and I couldn’t do that if I looked at him and saw wariness on his face.

Somewhere in the distance—far, but not nearly far enough—I could hear shouts and the blare of a fire truck. Maybe the relief I had felt at seeing Elm Street untouched had been premature.

My hands shook slightly as I returned to the door and slipped the key into the lock. Despite my throbbing muscles, I raced up the stairs to the third floor.

“Tess?” I strained my ears for signs of life on the other side of the door—the familiar creak of floorboards or the sound of the TV—but it was completely silent.

I unlocked the door, but couldn’t make myself push it open. Finally, Kyle reached around me and turned the knob.

Inside, the apartment was dark.

I flicked on the light and crossed the living room. “Tess? Serena?” I checked both bedrooms and the bathroom.

No one was here.

I returned to the living room as Kyle stepped over the threshold and closed the door.

No. No, no, no.

Trey had been at the end of Elm Street the last time I talked to him. They should have been able to get to the apartment. And Tess—I swallowed roughly as I rushed to the phone in the kitchen.

I was halfway through dialing Tess’s cell before I realized the phone was beeping: someone had left a message. I entered the code and my cousin’s voice began to play.

“Mac—in case you call the apartment and don’t get an answer, I’m over at Adam’s. I’m fine—he’s fine, too—but there are riots down by the river and we figured safety in numbers.”

Adam tended bar at the Shady Cat. He and Tess had dated for all of five minutes two years ago before realizing they’d make better friends. He lived on Charlotte Street, several blocks up from Elm. Charlotte was good. It was farther from downtown. Safer.

I bit my lip as I dialed Trey’s number. Nothing. I called Eve but all I got was her voice mail.

Not good. So not good.

“Tess is okay. She’s staying with a friend.” A ball of lead settled in my stomach as I replaced the receiver and turned to Kyle. “But neither Trey nor Eve is picking up their phone.”

Kyle crossed the room. He crouched down and retrieved the DVDs: I had dropped them in my haste to get to the phone. “Where did Trey say they were when you talked to him?”

“By the ballpark at the end of the street.” I gripped the edge of the counter. “That’s only a five-minute walk from here. Ten at the most.”

“If Tess had already left, they wouldn’t have been able to get in,” said Kyle, setting the DVDs on the counter. “They would have had to find somewhere else to hole up.”

“Maybe . . .” I was pretty sure Serena had seen me use the spare key before, but it might not have been something
she would remember. I glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was almost 2:00 a.m. How long ago had I spoken to Trey? Three and a half hours? Four? “But that doesn’t explain why they’re not answering their phones. With all those Trackers out there . . . or if Sinclair and Donovan got away from the strip mall . . .”

“Their phones might just have died,” said Kyle. “It’s not like we’ve had many chances to charge them. The only reason mine was still working was because I had a chance to charge it at Jason’s.”

“But what about the Trackers or Sinclair?” I tightened my grip on the counter as a horrible thought occurred to me. “Could Stephen have heard Trey say they were coming here? Could he have told the warden?”

Kyle shook his head. “Not a chance. Werewolf hearing is good, but not
that
good. I can hear the other end of a phone call if the person is in the same room, but you were on the other side of the grove. Besides, even if he had heard, he wouldn’t have known it was important: Stephen didn’t know anything about Sinclair wanting Serena until the strip mall, and I doubt he had time to tell her anything once the Trackers showed up. Even if he did, there is no way they could have beaten us across the bridge.”

Everything he said made sense, but none of it did anything to ease the worry coursing through me.

I pulled in a deep breath. “So what do we do now?”

In answer, Kyle headed for my bedroom. He came back a moment later, my laptop tucked under his arm. “Now we
try to figure out what the hell is on those DVDs—after we get cleaned up.”

“You can’t be serious.” I stared at him as though he had lost his mind as he set the laptop up on the coffee table. “You want to just stay here? While Serena and Eve and Trey are out there somewhere? While Jason is with an entire herd of Trackers?”

Kyle’s shoulders tensed. I knew the words and the accusation in my voice were unfair, but lashing out at someone else was easier than admitting how useless I felt.

“I don’t
want
to stay here,” he said, straightening. The words were slow and careful and a little bit angry. “If I thought there was anything useful I could be doing out there, I’d be doing it. But we have no idea where Trey, Eve, and Serena might have gone. Best-case scenario? They’re holed up somewhere—in which case finding them would be next to impossible and would mean leaving the one place we know they might come back to. The only thing we can do is try to figure out what the hell is on those discs. Whatever it is, Sinclair wants it. Maybe even more than she wants Serena. If the Trackers didn’t wipe out her and Donovan—if they come after Serena again—those DVDs are the only leverage we have.”

I knew he was right, but still, I hesitated. Staying here—safe and sound—while the others were out there felt like giving up. Like abandoning them. “It doesn’t feel right.” My voice was little more than a whisper.

Kyle let out a deep, frustrated breath and crossed the room. I could see the effort it took for him to push his anger
aside as he pressed a kiss to my temple. “Sometimes,” he said, “the right thing doesn’t feel right at all. Sometimes it feels spectacularly fucking lousy.”

Somehow, that didn’t make me feel any better.

“A
NY LUCK
?”

I glanced up at the sound of Kyle’s voice. His hair was damp and he was wearing an old shirt that I had rescued from the donation pile the last time his mom made him weed out his closet.

Like a gentleman, he had let me have the bathroom first. I had scrubbed my skin and traded my ruined dress for a pair of faded jeans and an oversized T-shirt that hung halfway to my knees. Comfort clothes.

Comfort was one thing I desperately needed. Maybe almost as much as answers.

“Nothing even remotely resembling luck,” I confessed, answering his question.

The light from the television cast flickering shadows over his face as he crossed the room and took a seat next to me on the couch. CNN was broadcasting live coverage from downtown. They hadn’t shown much that I hadn’t already seen or guessed, but I kept the TV on just in case.
I had muted the sound, though. Sound somehow made the images worse.

I glanced back down at the password prompt on my laptop. I had checked both DVDs. Each contained one password-protected folder. Amy had said I’d be able to figure it out, but I had tried at least twenty things so far—everything from the password to her old school email account to the name of the goldfish Jason had given her when we were fifteen. Nothing worked.

Kyle slid his hand over mine. Only then did I realize I had curled my fingers into a fist. “How can I help?” he asked.

I nodded to Tess’s laptop, which I had plugged in and set up next to mine on the coffee table. The list of names Ben had given me was beside it. The paper was creased and stained with flecks of blood, but most of the names were legible. “Ben said something about people disappearing in the middle of the night, that those were the names he could remember. I don’t know what difference it makes, but I thought that if we could figure out if any of them were inmates at Van Horne . . .”

“That we would know whether or not he was telling the truth about anything?” Kyle opened Tess’s browser and then reached for the stale package of donuts I had found in the back of a cupboard. I had already scarfed down three. No matter what horrible things happened, everyone had to eat sooner or later.

“I’m sorry,” I said, the words halting and awkward.
“About what I said earlier. I know it wasn’t fair. I know you’d rather be out there, too.”

Kyle shrugged. “You were upset. It’s okay.”

I could tell from his voice that it wasn’t, not really, but at least he wasn’t mad at me.

“Did you try six-eight-four-one?” he asked a short while later, not looking up from his screen. “It’s the last four digits of Jason’s old phone number. Amy used to use it for passwords until Jason found out and messed with all her profiles.”

I gave it a try. Nothing. “I wouldn’t know that, though. It has to be something I could guess.” I was still wearing the compass necklace. I ran the pad of my thumb over the design on the front as I stared at the blinking cursor. Maybe Amy had just given me too much credit. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. I certainly hadn’t figured out any of the things that had been going on in her life.