Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (4 page)

Heart heavy, I grabbed the remote from the kitchen counter and turned off the television. As much as I wanted a quiet day with Tess, I owed it to Serena and Kyle and everyone else who had been at the camp to figure out if there was anything behind the symbol from my dream. The symbol I had seen in the detention block. It could be nothing, but it might be part of the puzzle that was Thornhill. And maybe, if I figured it out, some of the dreams would stop.

I scribbled an apology to Tess on the notepad by the phone and then grabbed my jacket and headed for Serena’s.

“Protect yourself and your fellow regs!” A woman tried to block my path as she forced an object into my palm. I jerked my hand away and stepped around her.

Once I was safely around the corner, I uncurled my fingers. A
Hunt or be Hunted
button. It was a phrase used by the Trackers—one they emblazoned on everything from T-shirts to posters. I tossed the button into the next garbage can I passed and then paused to wipe my palm on my jeans.

I glanced up. I had stopped in front of the music store—closed a week ago after people found out its owner was infected—and the street behind me was reflected in its dark windows. Though the sidewalks were crowded with people rushing to and from Riverside Square, a hauntingly familiar
figure stood perfectly still on the other side of the street. Watching me.

Ben.

His blond hair fell over his forehead, obscuring his gray eyes. His jeans were torn at the knee and his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of a battered leather jacket. As he watched me in the window, his mouth curved up in a small smile.

A shudder rocketed down my spine as my heart rate shot sky-high.

I whirled, struggling for breath as I desperately scanned the street.

No one was watching me. Ben wasn’t there.

It was just my mind playing tricks on me. Just a ghost.

I willed my heart to stop racing.

It wasn’t the first time I had imagined seeing Ben. It had happened in Denver and a few times since we’d been back in Hemlock. “Post-traumatic stress”—that’s what Kyle called it. I guess it didn’t get much more traumatic than being hog-tied in the woods by the man who had killed your best friend.

Still, each time it happened, I felt like I was going a little bit crazy.

Shivering, I tried to put it out of my mind as I resumed my trek to the park. A few flakes drifted through the air: it looked like winter was coming early this year.

The first winter without Amy
, I thought. It didn’t seem possible that it had been more than half a year since her death.

The closer I got to Riverside Square, the more people I
saw with black-dagger tattoos on their necks.

On Monday, the twelfth anniversary of the day lupine syndrome had officially been announced to the world, the Trackers would hold simultaneous “unity rallies” in major cities across the country—and Hemlock would be at the center of it all.

Thanks to the Thornhill breakout—and the resulting violence and paranoia sweeping the country—the Trackers were riding a massive surge in popularity, a surge they were milking for all the publicity, donations, and political clout they could get. There were other places the group could have chosen for the main rally—larger cities with bigger venues and the ability to better accommodate a huge influx of visitors—but the name “Hemlock” would forever conjure images of the worst werewolf murder spree in history. It was the location guaranteed to get them the most attention, and they were exploiting that by billing the Hemlock event as both a call to action against wolves and as a memorial to the victims of the attacks in the spring—victims the press had dubbed
The Hemlock Four
.

The mayor and most of the city council had pledged to deny permits for the rally—they were afraid it would turn into a riot—but they had caved when Senator Walsh loudly and publicly voiced his support for the event. The Walsh family were the biggest philanthropists in town; no one wanted to risk alienating them. Amy’s parents were even holding a private fund-raising gala the night before the rally to raise money for a memorial sculpture in Riverside Square—one that would be inscribed with the names of
each of the Hemlock victims.

I passed a lamppost bearing a flyer with a picture of Amy above the word
Remember
and resisted the urge to tear it down. If it hadn’t been for the former head of the Trackers, she would still be here.

Not a single day went by that I didn’t wish I could tell people the truth about who had killed Amy and why, but no one would believe me—not without proof—and I couldn’t risk anyone finding out I had been in the woods the night Branson Derby had died. Derby had been killed by a werewolf. By Kyle. If anyone learned I had been there that night, they might start looking at the people closest to me. At Kyle or Serena or Trey.

I couldn’t risk that. I wouldn’t risk them. Not even for Amy.

All I could do was watch as the rally’s organizers used Amy’s death like a prop.

It was just one of the reasons I had been avoiding downtown—and the square where the rally would be held—all week.

Unfortunately, there was only one bus that went out to Serena’s neighborhood on Saturdays, and the stop that ran along the far side of the park was the easiest place to catch it.

I stepped through the wrought iron arch—one of three—on the square’s eastern edge, and tried to suppress the feeling that I had been dropped into enemy territory.

Normally, the only people in the park before noon on weekends were skateboarders, guys sleeping on benches,
and the handful of die-hard chess players who met until snow covered their strip of checkered tables. But today, hundreds of people wandered the tree-lined paths and congregated on the grass. Some of them handed out flyers while others paused to watch as mammoth video screens—the kind you saw at outdoor concerts—were erected on three sides of the square.

I gave up trying to count the number of tattoos I saw as I made my way across the park.

Every once in a while, I spotted someone in an RfW—Regs for Werewolves—shirt, but they were few and far between. Advertising the fact that you supported equal rights for the infected in a town on the verge of an anti-werewolf rally was noble to the point of suicidal.

“There is no virus!”

The voice came from a patch of grass to my left, where a man on an upturned crate held a small group in thrall.

“God has sent the werewolves as divine punishment! America has backslid into sin. He strikes the wicked—the sinners and the morally decayed—and unleashes them among us!” The man’s wide eyes and his tangled black hair made him look like someone who spent his time wrestling imaginary demons. He was young—maybe only a few years older than I was—but his ragged voice and disheveled appearance made him seem ancient. His baggy trench coat flapped around him like wings, and when he swept his arms back, his collar gaped wide, revealing a pale expanse of unmarked skin.

He wasn’t a Tracker, just crazy.

I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to tune out his words as I passed.

Kyle wasn’t a punishment.

He wasn’t a sinner or morally decayed.

He was the strongest person I knew. The best person I knew.

Besides, God wasn’t singling out America. Other countries had lupine syndrome. Maybe they didn’t have as many cases, but the virus wasn’t an exclusively American problem.

“And God gave the demons human faces so that they might pass among you, but at night the beasts crawl on all fours! That is how you shall know them! Know them and root them out!”

Hello, Salem 1692.

I should have walked around the square. It would have taken longer, but it would have been better than listening to this. I glanced back and tripped to a stop as I spotted a familiar face in the preacher’s audience: Amy’s father.

Ryan Walsh stood a little apart from the crowd, a faraway gaze in his eyes. He was dressed casually—jeans and a wool coat instead of the suits he so often wore—but there was a briefcase in his right hand. There were more lines on his face than I remembered. He was still handsome for someone his age, but it was a worn kind of handsome. Though Amy had inherited his pale skin, she had missed out on his blond hair and ice-blue eyes. Those had gone to Stephen. Nordic: That was how Amy’s mother had always described
them. Her Nordic boys. They were so alike that looking at Mr. Walsh was like getting a glimpse of what Stephen would look like in a few decades.

Mr. Walsh’s brows pulled together in a frown as he listened to the manic preacher. For a second, something dark crossed his face, but the look was there and gone so fast that I wondered if I had imagined it.

It was odd to see him so soon after Stephen’s voice mail, but I guess it was kind of inevitable that he’d be drawn to the square with the rally just around the corner. I debated going back and speaking to him, but what could I say?

When Amy had died, she had taken my tie to her family with her. Anything I said now would come off as awkward and empty.

I turned and headed for the arch at the western edge of the park and the line of waiting buses.

T
HE MEADOWS WAS A FOUR-BLOCK BY TWO-BLOCK
stretch on the southernmost edge of town. The area had gotten its nickname from the fact that it had almost as many vacant lots as ramshackle buildings. It was the kind of neighborhood people found themselves in after the last of their luck had run out, where crack dens sprouted like weeds and herds of abandoned shopping carts dotted the landscape.

Serena’s family had been driven here after a handful of Trackers burned them out of their home.

As I stepped off the bus, I tried not to think of the part Jason had played in that event. So much had changed since then—
he
had changed. Though nothing would ever make up for what had happened that night, Jason had risked his life to get Serena out of Thornhill. Hundreds of werewolves had been saved from Sinclair because of a breakout Jason had helped plan and execute.

A dark car with tinted windows turned onto the street as I made my way along the cracked sidewalk. It slowed and I felt my heart skip a beat.
Probably just a drug deal
, I told
myself, staring straight ahead and trying not to look nervous or suspicious.
Nothing to do with me. Nothing to do with Thornhill.

I reached the Carsons’ rental house—a gray two-story building that seemed to lean precariously to one side—and glanced back. The car had stopped two doors down. It idled at the curb as a man in a bathrobe crossed an overgrown lawn and approached the passenger-side window.

A knot in my stomach unclenched as money changed hands.

You knew you were getting paranoid when you were relieved to see the local crackheads conducting business.

Ever since the escape, I had been jumping at shadows. None of us were from Colorado, and we had all used fake names when we entered the camp, but I still kept expecting the LSRB to somehow find us, to swoop in and grab us the second we let down our guard.

With a small sigh, I headed up the walkway to Serena’s house. The blinds on the first floor were all drawn, giving the place a deserted air, but her car was parked in the weed-choked driveway. Even without the car, I knew she would be home. Serena had always been outgoing—a people person—but now crowds and strangers made her flinch. When we’d first gotten back, she had barricaded herself in the house, pacing the rooms and hallways, too afraid to set foot outside or even look out the windows.

She had started going to school again last week—at least some days—but she wouldn’t go anywhere else.

Kyle said to give her time, that she was doing remarkably
well given everything she had been through, but there were days when I wondered if she would ever fully recover from Thornhill. There were days when I wondered if recovery was even possible.

Behind Serena’s car sat a motorcycle that looked fresh from the assembly line. One of Tess’s old boyfriends had been a biker. He had tried teaching me how to ride—until Tess found out and freaked. She thought I would end up being one of those cautionary tales told by driver’s ed instructors.

I wondered where Trey had gotten the money for a new bike. Serena’s older brother had a reputation as a badass—a reputation that wasn’t entirely undeserved—but I didn’t think he’d steal a ride. For one thing, we were all trying to keep a low profile. For another, his father would kill him.

I climbed the steps to the sagging front porch and pressed my thumb to the doorbell.

After a small eternity, Trey opened the door.

His mouth twisted down at the corners as his gaze raked over me; I tried to ignore the answering pang in my chest. Trey and I hadn’t exactly been friends, but I had always liked him. As far as I knew, that feeling had been mutual—until Colorado.

Trey crossed his arms, showing off a set of well-defined muscles under a slightly too-small T-shirt as he leaned against the doorframe. “What do you want, Dobs?”

“I came over to see Serena.”

“And I should let you in because . . . ?”

I didn’t have an answer.

Trey blamed me for what had happened to his sister, and it was blame I knew I deserved. I was the one who had asked Serena for help. I had asked her to come to Denver, kicking off a chain of events that had led to Thornhill’s detention block and to the project Warden Sinclair had dubbed “Willowgrove.”

I was the reason Serena had come back vacant and wild and broken.

Silence stretched out between us. “When did you get the bike?” I asked, after a long moment, hoping talk of his new toy would soften him.

It didn’t. If possible, his expression hardened into something even more severe. “It’s not mine.”

I almost asked him who the bike belonged to, but the look in his eyes stopped me.

Just when I was thinking I would have to text Serena to come let me in, Trey muttered something under his breath and stepped aside.

I hesitated, half convinced he would bite my head off—literally—if I crossed the threshold, but after a moment, I stepped into the house and pulled the door shut behind me.