Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (35 page)

“I’m very, very far from okay. I’m not even in the same country as okay.” Serena’s voice shook as she stared at Sinclair. A low growl trickled out of her throat.

“Did you . . .” Before I could get the question out, the entire park seemed to flip upside down. It felt like my brains were leaking out my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and clung to the cage as I froze in place. When I opened my eyes, the world was once again right-side up.

“It wasn’t Serena,” said Jason. “Another wolf recognized Sinclair and attacked her.”

“Is she dead?” I forced down a wave of vomit and started moving again as I tried to divide my attention between watching Kyle and listening to Jason.

“I think so. I’m sure as hell not getting close enough to find out. A group of Trackers followed us from the arch,” he
continued, answering my other question. “One of them mistook my face for a piñata. Then they said if we liked wolves so much, we should spend more time with them and tossed us in here. They haven’t figured out Serena is infected.”

I opened my mouth to reply and ended up choking back a scream as a Taser took Kyle in the chest and sent him crashing to the ground.

He’s okay
, I told myself, letting go of the cage and clamping a hand over my mouth to hold back the sounds trying to break free.
He’s been tased before. He’ll be okay.

Forcing myself to move faster, I stepped over the body of the guard Kyle had thrown—he was unconscious but alive—and reached for the cage door.

I was in no shape to help Kyle on my own. The only way I could help him was by freeing Jason and Serena, by letting the rest of the wolves out to create a distraction and maybe gain reinforcements.

The door was padlocked shut.

“Shit.”

“The guard had a key,” said Jason. “Check his belt.”

The pressure in my head grew and the urge to throw up intensified as I crouched down. After an eternity of fumbling at the man’s waist, I finally found a single key on a metal ring.

I pushed myself back up in time to see one of the guards pull a gun as Kyle climbed to his feet.

This time, I did scream.

Three Trackers broke away from the crowd and started toward me.

Turning my back on them, I shoved the key into the lock and pulled the padlock free.

I glanced over my shoulder. One of the Trackers lifted a Taser, but he was too late.

The door of the cage flew open and I was knocked back as the entire world went dark.

P
ANIC CLAWED AT MY THROAT. I WAS BLIND. I REMEMBERED
the crack my head had made when it hit the ground. Something inside my brain had gotten loose or torn or broken.

“Mac?”

I twisted toward the familiar sound of Jason’s voice. I hadn’t completely lost my sight, I realized. I could still see shades of darkness and patches of shadow that seemed to move.

“Mac? Say something!” Serena’s face filled my field of vision, the whites of her eyes glinting in the dark.

I wasn’t blind: the lights in the square had just gone out. I felt like an idiot.

“Where’s Kyle?” I had to swallow twice before I could get the words out.

Neither Serena nor Jason answered as they helped me to my feet.

Shouts echoed in the crowd. In the distance, flashlight beams cut through the darkness.

People began to panic.

“It’s sabotage!” someone yelled.

“It’s not sabotage!” shouted someone else. “The generators just overheated.”

“It’s the RfW!”

“It’s the National Guard!”

Their reactions didn’t make sense. People were panicking because the lights had gone out, but why wasn’t anyone freaking over the fact that I had just let thirty wolves out of their cage? Where were the screams and the gunshots?

Unless . . . I tried to recall the exact moment the square had gone dark. The blackout had happened just as I had unlocked the door to the cage. No one was freaking out because no one had noticed the wolves were free. Yet.

My pulse thundered in my ears—a sensation that didn’t help the pain spreading across my skull. “We have to find Kyle.” We had to get to him before the lights came back on. God only knew what the Trackers would do to him. What they might already have done. My knees went weak.

“I’m here.” Kyle’s voice was raw and strained and the single most welcome sound I had ever heard as he materialized in front of me. “How badly are you hurt?” He ran his fingertips gently over my forehead; even the feather-light touch made me flinch. “I saw him throw you, but I couldn’t get to you.”

“She needs a hospital,” said Jason. “She has a concussion.”

I tried to say that I was fine—or that I would be fine—but a wave of dizziness rushed over me and my legs buckled.

Kyle caught me before I could hit the ground.

He scooped me up in his arms and began weaving through the crowd while Jason and Serena followed close behind.

“Put me down. I can walk.” But even to my own ears, my protest was feeble.

Kyle ignored the demand. “We might be able to get out through the western side of the square,” he said. “The National Guard probably pulled guards from the barricade and sent them to Main Street.”

I heard Serena make a strangled sound behind us. Jason tried to calm her as I struggled to speak. “Kyle, we can’t—the arch—”

Even if that side of the park had become our best chance of escape, it would mean walking past Trey and Eve. It would mean asking Serena to look at her brother’s body again and leave him behind. We couldn’t ask her to do that; I wasn’t even sure I could do that.

One of the giant video screens blazed to life, quickly followed by the other two. All three screens showed rallies in other cities while the rest of the lights in the park stayed off.

“What the hell . . . ?” muttered Jason.

I tensed in Kyle’s arms, equally confused. How could the screens be on if the rest of the square was without power?

Kyle turned to the nearest screen. We were close enough that the flickering light illuminated his face and the deep frown lines that formed at the corners of his mouth.

Slowly, he lowered me to the ground, keeping one arm
around me for support, not taking his eyes off the footage of the rally in Atlanta.

Atlanta.
My heart gave a sharp twist. That was where Hank was.

Something was happening to the crowd on the screen. Pockets of space were opening up as the Trackers broke into dozens—maybe even hundreds—of smaller groups.

The images were without sound, but it looked as though people were shouting.

A moment later, we saw why.

Each pocket of empty space had formed around a single individual. Almost as one, they folded to their knees and transformed. Dumbfounded, I twisted in Kyle’s arms to catch glimpses of the other screens where similar scenes in other cities were playing out.

Hundreds of wolves were transforming. Thousands. They didn’t attack—not when panic surged around them or when some of the Trackers lashed out—they just peacefully stood their ground.

I remembered the girl at the AV table—the one with the fake tattoo who hadn’t wanted me looking at her laptop. This was what the wolves had been planning. It wasn’t an attack: it was a mass outing.

Behind me, Jason swore.

A second later, I heard it: a sound like breaking branches—just one or two at first, and then hundreds.

The noise grew until it seemed to come from all sides, engulfing everyone and everything. It was as though an entire forest was being reduced to kindling.

The lights in Riverside Square blazed back to life as, all around us, wolves fell to the ground and transformed.

It was terrifying. And beautiful.

Kyle’s arm tensed around me. I could feel the muscles move under his skin and I knew he was fighting the urge to fall to his knees and join them.

“Don’t leave,” I whispered.

“Never.”

Eve and Trey should be here
, I thought, tears filling my eyes.
This shouldn’t be happening without them.

Just like the scenes at the other rallies, hundreds of wolves were scattered through Riverside Square. And just like at the other rallies, Trackers edged away, forming small groups as they tried to leave circles of space around each wolf.

The tension was so thick that I could taste it on the back of my tongue.

A gunshot rang out across the square.

“That was the National Guard,” said Serena, relying on her wolf-sharp senses. Despite everything that had happened to fray her control, she held on. As I glanced back, I noticed that her hand was twined tightly with Jason’s.

There was movement in the crowd as men in riot gear spread through the square. They were ready for an uprising, but when they saw the wolves standing peacefully in place, no one seemed sure what to do.

No one—not the Trackers, not even the National Guard—could take on this many wolves without being decimated.

The image on all three screens flashed back to Atlanta. This time with sound.

A man with shoulder-length brown hair and an impossible amount of grace strode through the crowd and hopped onto the stage.

Ten people followed in his wake. One of them was my father.

Gunfire sounded over the Atlanta crowd, but it didn’t seem to faze the man. He walked straight to a microphone in the center of the stage while his entourage fanned out behind him.

He stood there like he had nothing to fear. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe anything that happened now was better than a life spent hiding.

When he spoke, his voice soothed and stirred in equal measure. “Twelve years ago, the president of the United States stood here, in Atlanta, and announced the existence of lupine syndrome. Tonight, the Trackers have chosen to hold what they call unity rallies across the country. They want to unite you—regular humans—against what they consider a werewolf threat. They want to unite you in fear and darkness.”

Angry shouts greeted his words. Threats of blood and violence were echoed by the crowd here, but even the most skull-thick Tracker knew that attacking the wolves would result in a bloodbath.

Trackers fired the occasional warning shot, but didn’t make a serious move against the wolves. For now.

And no matter how loudly the crowd shouted or how
often a gunshot rang out, the man on the stage didn’t flinch or back down.

“The Trackers want to unite you against werewolves. We’ve come here, tonight, to show you that they’re too late.” He paused for a moment, giving his words a chance to sink in. “You’ve been told that the camps are the one thing keeping you safe, but there are just as many—if not more—wolves outside their walls. Right now, from one side of the country to the other, werewolves are teaching your children in the classrooms of your public schools. We’re protecting your communities as firefighters and police officers. Stocking shelves at your grocery store or mowing your lawn. We are part of your communities and your daily lives, hiding in plain sight. We are your friends and your family. Your neighbors and the people you interact with every day. We’ve spent too many years hiding what we are, too many years being afraid. Over the coming weeks, we will gather peacefully in cities and towns across the country—just as we have gathered tonight—to show you how big a part of your lives we already are.”

A swell of hope lifted me up as he spoke.

I glanced at Kyle. His attention was locked on the screen as though he were committing each word to memory. Even Jason, still holding Serena’s hand, looked impressed.

“For years, the Trackers and the LSRB have been telling you that your communities need to be protected, that lupine syndrome is a threat to your way of life. We are part of those communities, we are part of your lives, and we are not going away.”

The man strode to the front of the stage and dropped gracefully to the ground. The men and women behind him, including Hank, followed as he made his way from the stage. So did all of the wolves in the crowd.

Around us, the wolves in Riverside Square were doing the same. They slipped away like ghosts, and the Trackers and the National Guard were too stunned to do anything but stand by.

“Everything is going to change,” I said, throat tight, “isn’t it?”

Kyle held me a little tighter and nodded.

Just for a second, I caught a glimpse of a familiar girl in the crowd. A girl with ink-black hair and a mischievous grin.
You’re going to have a fantastic life, Mackenzie Dobson. You’re going to have a fantastic, amazing life.

Standing in the square with Kyle and Serena and Jason, that suddenly seemed possible.

The crowd shifted and the girl was gone.

“It’s going to be a new world.” My voice was soft with wonder, so soft that only Kyle could hear.

He looked at me and in his eyes I saw an echo of the wordless promises we had made last night. He pressed a gentle kiss to my temple. “It’s going to be our world.”

Portland, Oregon, Two Years Later

F
AT RAINDROPS BEGAN HITTING THE GROUND WHILE I
was still a block from my destination. I broke into a jog, clutching my messenger bag tightly to my chest as a bolt of lightning split the sky. The weather report hadn’t mentioned thunderstorms, but fall in Portland was nothing if not unpredictable.

A bell jangled as I dashed into the diner. My feet shot out from under me as they hit the wet tile floor, and I ended up clinging to the nearest booth to keep from landing on my butt.

A few people looked up from their coffees and hamburgers, but most stayed focused on their food.

Not my father. “Smooth entrance, kid,” he said as I approached the back booth he had claimed.

Rolling my eyes, I shrugged off my jacket and slid into the seat across from him.

Two cups of coffee were already on the table, one full, the other almost empty.

“Did you order food?” I asked.

Hank twisted the heavy silver ring on his right hand. I didn’t look too long or too hard at the design etched into the metal. It was the same symbol that had been on Eve’s necklace. “I can’t stay.”

You drove all the way to Portland and can’t take twenty minutes for lunch?
The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back. Hank was never going to be big on quality time. Besides, ever since Eve’s death, he had found it hard to be around me. I was the age she would have been, living the kind of life she might have led if she had lived long enough to see an end to the LSRB. More importantly, though, I was a reminder of the guilt he still felt over sending her to Hemlock.