Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (32 page)

“Why are you following me?”

She tucked a strand of honey-blond hair behind her ear, her fingers quick and impatient. I recognized her, I realized. Her name was Sandy Price. She usually covered war zones and protests in the Middle East—big, dangerous stories.

“Because you knew the wolves hanging from the arch,” she said. “At least two of them.”

“So?”

She crossed her arms and glanced around nervously. Most of the Trackers were sticking to the brightly lit parts of the square and we were off the beaten path. “I thought you deserved to know how they died.”

I didn’t bother trying to hide the suspicion on my face. “Why would you care?”

“Because someone needs to know. Because they did a brave thing and ended up dying for it.”

Something inside of me twisted.

A Tracker strode by within earshot. Sandy Price waited until he had passed before speaking again. “Some of the
wolves in the cage were in bad shape. Maybe dying. A few hours ago, your friends helped overpower the guards when they opened the cage door to transfer more prisoners. They had enough time to escape, but they were trying to get the injured wolves out.”

I put a hand on the fence, gripping the cold iron in an effort to steady myself. Of course Eve and Trey wouldn’t have left people behind. I remembered how angry Eve had been when my father ordered her to leave Thornhill, how she had refused to turn her back on the wolves inside.

The reporter wasn’t finished. “The guy your friend cut down yelled at the redhead to run. He tried to buy her time, but she wouldn’t leave him.”

Trey and Serena will be fine. I promise I’ll take care of them. . . .

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to swallow back a wave of emotion. I wanted to ask the reporter if she had seen the hanging, but I couldn’t. I wanted to think of Trey and Eve fighting and refusing to go down, not scared shitless as the ropes were placed around their necks.

When I opened my eyes, Sandy Price was watching me intently. “I’d like to talk to you when this is over,” she said. “I’d like to help you tell their story.”

I bit my lip. “Why?”

“Because any time something like this happens—and it happens more than people think—Trackers pass it off as the unsanctioned actions of a handful of members. That’s what they’re already saying happened here. They’re claiming a few men took matters into their own hands after your
friends attacked.” A gust of wind swept through the park, whipping her hair around her face. “People give the Trackers free rein because they’re so scared of everything they’ve been told about werewolves that they see the group as the lesser of two evils. What happened today isn’t the lesser of anything. Your friends were trying to help people and they got killed for it. It was an evil act by evil people.”

There was something oddly fierce in the way she said the last two words. “Who did you lose?”

Wariness crept into her expression. “Excuse me?”

I shot a nervous glance back at the arch, but we were too far away to see what was happening. I prayed Kyle had gotten Jason and Serena away, that they were all right.

I turned back to the reporter. “The way you talk about the Trackers—it’s personal.”

A shadow of pain slid behind her eyes. “My fiancé. When we were in college. Trackers found out he was infected and dragged him out of our apartment.”

It was possible she was lying, but I didn’t think so.

I slipped my backpack from my shoulders and reached inside for a DVD. It wasn’t an exact copy of the information Amy had left us—we had stripped out anything we thought might help people duplicate the projects at Van Horne and Thornhill—but it was enough to be utterly damning.

I found a scrap of paper and a pen. Hastily, I scribbled my email address and tucked it inside the DVD case. I didn’t know if I would make it through the night, but she was right: Trey and Eve deserved to have their stories told.

“You want a story?” I handed her the DVD. “Keep an eye on the screens and find a way to watch this.”

A crease appeared between her brows. “What is it?”

“The story of a lifetime.”

Before she could ask anything else, I walked away. Time was running out.

T
HE PRESS OF BODIES MADE ME CLAUSTROPHOBIC. CHEERS
and shouts rang in my ears and the too-bright lights made my eyes water. A pro-Tracker band had taken the stage and their music whipped the already chaotic crowd into a frenzy. I was jostled and spun so many times that only the giant video screens kept me from completely losing my bearings.

Never forget the beast that stalks the night.

Remember your duty. Stand with your brothers and fight.

I wondered how long it had taken them to come up with lyrics that rhymed.

Someone hit me from the side. I crashed into the people directly in front of me and was pushed roughly back. I couldn’t keep my balance. The crowd shifted and I slammed into the ground.

A foot collided with my stomach as someone tripped over me. The air rushed from my lungs. Retching, I tried to push myself to my feet.

“Whoa there—” Huge hands grabbed my arms and pulled me up. A Tracker with whiskey on his breath and a
battered leather jacket tried to steady me. He would have been handsome—if it hadn’t been for the bloodshot eyes and the tattoo on his neck. “You okay, sweetheart?”

I twisted out of his grasp.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, brows knitting as he raised his voice to be heard over the music. There was a small cluster of scars above his right eye.
From a broken bottle
, I thought. I had seen scars like that before.

“I just want to make sure you’re all right,” he said. “This is no place for a girl to be wandering around by herself.”

“I’m not by myself,” I lied. The music faded as a speaker took the stage. “I’m helping with the audiovisual stuff. I’m on my way there now.”

The man scratched what looked like a three-day goatee. “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully. “Knew I recognized you. You’re the one that chick was looking for.”

I swallowed. “Someone was looking for me?”

“Yeah. Some woman with a death grip on a computer tablet. It was like she thought I was going to steal it.”

“There you are.” The familiar voice slid through me like a blade, coming out of nowhere and gutting me on the spot. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

Sinclair placed a hand on my arm, digging her fingers in so hard that I winced. Her hair was pulled back in an immaculate twist and she was wearing the same trench coat she’d had on last night—though she had added a scarf to hide any trace of her scars. The harsh lights in the square made her look older. Closer to fifty than thirty. The sickly sweet scent of lavender drifted off her skin and clogged the
back of my throat. How I had ever managed to smell that scent in Stephen’s car and not be suspicious was a complete mystery. I tried to pull free, but couldn’t break her grip. She might be a few days away from being a werewolf, but anger gave her plenty of strength.

“Now, Mackenzie,” she said as she pulled me deeper into the crowd, “you and I are going to have a nice, productive chat.” Her tone was polite—friendly, even—but her mouth twisted around each word, and her blue eyes were as cold and heartless as a winter’s sky.

Flashbacks slammed into me, throwing me right back to Thornhill and the night of the escape. The night I had very nearly lost everything. The night I had almost died.

I struggled against the warden’s grip as the Tracker who had come to my rescue just moments before trailed behind us. “Is everything all right here?” he asked, a group of friends at his back.

I opened my mouth to say no, but Sinclair cut me off. “This isn’t any of your concern. Just go back to enjoying the rally.”

The man hesitated, his gaze sliding first to me and then to the hand on my arm. “Looks like the girl doesn’t especially want to go with you.”

A flicker of movement in the crowd caught my eye. Donovan was making his way toward us, two men at his heels. They were still several yards away; if they reached us, it would all be over. They would use me to get to Serena and Kyle and Jason. They would search me and find the USB key and the DVDs and nothing I could say would make them
believe I didn’t have the hard drive—or at least know where it was.

Hatred—more hatred than I ever would have thought myself capable of—welled up inside me as I stared at Sinclair. Maybe she had started out with good intentions, but everything she had done was twisted and evil. How many wolves had died for her crazed mission? How many infected people had burned in that transition house just so she could continue her search? Infection hadn’t changed her—if anything, it had made her worse.

There won’t ever be an end to it
, I realized.
There won’t ever be an end to it and we won’t ever be safe.
Even if I managed to get away—even if we spilled every last secret on Amy’s DVDs—we would never be sure that Sinclair wasn’t out there. Waiting for us.

It would never be over.

She would never stop and we would never be free.

Unless I put a stop to it. Here and now.

The Tracker with the goatee was still watching us. For a second, I hesitated. I thought of the wolves hanging from the western arch and of what the crowd might do to someone who was infected, but then I reminded myself of everything Sinclair had done to Serena, everything she would still do if given the chance. There was only one way we would ever be safe.

“She’s infected!” My voice carried over the crowd.

Five yards away, Donovan and his men froze.

Sinclair twisted my arm. “No more games, Mackenzie. The more you fight now, the more things will hurt later.”

Things are going to hurt, all right
, I thought, reaching up with my other hand and pulling the scarf from around Sinclair’s neck, revealing the tail end of her scars. “See? She’s infected! She’s one of them!”

Startled, Sinclair loosened her grip just enough for me to break free. She pulled back her hand to strike me, but the Tracker with the goatee was suddenly between us.

He deflected the blow easily as two of his friends grabbed Sinclair. He studied the scars on the warden’s neck and then glanced back at me. “You sure, sweetheart?”

I nodded. “I saw her get attacked last month. Check under her collar. There are more scars.”

“She’s lying.” Wisps of Sinclair’s hair came free as she struggled against the men holding her. “She has werewolf sympathies.”

She tried to shy away as the Tracker reached forward. He pulled aside the collar of her coat, revealing scars that were much worse than the ones that had been hidden beneath the scarf. Sinclair’s pale skin looked like candle wax that had melted and cooled. The scars were thick and messy and obviously the work of a werewolf.

More Trackers drew near. Someone in the crowd recognized her. “Holy shit. That’s the warden from that camp in Colorado!”

One of the men restraining the warden lost his hold, just for a second, and she raked his face with her fingernails. The man stumbled back, a hand clamped to his bleeding cheek, his eyes wide and terrified.

“She’s not contagious yet!” I raised my voice to be heard
over the confusion, but the man turned and ran.

Donovan and his men watched the scene unfold and then melded back into the crowd. I guess their loyalty didn’t extend to taking on a mob of Trackers. Either that or they knew there was no chance of recovering Sinclair.

The Tracker with the goatee pulled a gun from the small of his back as more men got the warden under control.

I swallowed as Sinclair cursed me. “What are you going to do with her?”

“Take her to the cage. Don’t worry,” he added, holding the gun with practiced ease as Sinclair ranted and shouted empty threats, “this is just in case she gets out of hand again.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him—not after seeing the arch and not after the warden had just clawed a Tracker—but I wasn’t sure if I cared. Sinclair had done truly horrible things and part of me—maybe a larger part than I wanted to acknowledge—felt like she deserved whatever she had coming to her.

I shivered. Maybe I was more my father’s daughter than I liked to admit.

I watched until the warden and the Trackers were swallowed by the crowd before turning and heading for the AV booth. Donovan and his men may have allowed Sinclair to be taken, but that didn’t mean they were through with us. They worked for Zenith, not the warden.

The trek to the AV table took only minutes.

Given all the money being spent on the rally, I would have expected something a little more high-tech than a
handful of computers on a folding table manned by three guys and a girl who looked barely older than I did. I would have at least expected a few Trackers positioned around for security, but there was no one to stop me as I lifted the yellow caution tape surrounding the area and ducked inside.

“No civilians,” said the girl without looking up from her screen. The shadows under the trees were dark, but her computer lit her face with a ghostly glow.

“I work for the Walsh family.”

“Senator Walsh isn’t speaking tonight,” said one of the others—a man with a blond ponytail, ratlike face, and lightning-bolt earring.

“I know.” I walked around the table so I could get a look at the monitors. The girl snapped her laptop shut so fast you’d think she was reading state secrets. She shot me a nervous, twitchy glance and ran a hand over her neck. I frowned and blinked: the edges of her tattoo were smudged.

“If you know,” said the guy with the ponytail, pulling my attention away, “why are you here?” Before I could answer, he raised his voice. “Chrissie, we lost the Chicago cameras. Call them and find out what happened. Tom—swap the Chicago feed with the one from Kansas City until we get the cameras back online. So,” he said, and it took me a second to realize he was speaking to me again, “what do you want?”

“Since the senator couldn’t be here, the family put together a video memorial for their daughter.” I slipped the USB key from around my neck and then hesitated.

What I was about to do would more than destroy
CutterBrown and Zenith: it would destroy Amy’s father. Was I really prepared for that?