Hemlock (28 page)

She shook her head. “He’s not.”

Trey looked up and I reeled. His face was a mask of bruises and blood, and his left eye was swolen shut. He gently pushed Serena away and staggered to his feet, swaying like he couldn’t find his center of gravity. “I didn’t hurt Amy,” he said, the words coming out halting and choked. “I would never have hurt her.”

At a whispered word from Derby, the Tracker next to him went for Serena, dragging her away from her brother.

“Wait!” I tried to wrench my arm free from the woman holding me, but her grip was like a vise.

Derby regarded me coldly. “The Taser pressed to your friend’s back is calibrated specificaly to take down a werewolf. I’m not sure what kind of damage it would do to a human, but I wouldn’t advise forcing us to test it.”

I swalowed and stared at Jason, wiling him to look at me. How could he let Derby threaten Kyle?

could he let Derby threaten Kyle?

But he just stood there, shoulders hunched, watching Trey.

There was something wrong with him. I’d seen him drunk plenty of times, but I’d never seen him like this. It was like he was somehow . . . vacant.

At a nod from Derby, the Tracker holding Serena shoved her to the ground and leveled a kick at her stomach. She gagged and tried to curl into a bal.

“Ree!” Trey let out a strangled yel and tried to run forward, but another Tracker pushed him back.

Black spots hovered at the edge of my vision as my pulse thundered in my ears. I clenched my hands into fists.

Derby turned his attention back to Trey. “Are you infected?”

Trey shook his head, the movement strained and weak. “No.

Let her go. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

The Tracker kicked Serena a second time.

“Stop it! Please!” I struggled against the one holding me, forgetting, for a second, Kyle and the Taser. Al I could see was Serena. It didn’t matter that she had lied to me about Trey. Al that mattered was that they were hurting her. “Jason, you can’t let them do this!”

Derby passed Jason a silver flask and waited until he took a long swalow before turning back to Trey. “Why did Amy Walsh cal you the night she died?”

Trey hesitated but, seeing the Tracker take aim at Serena again, blurted, “She was upset.”

Jason tossed the flask back to Derby and strode over to Trey, cold superiority sliding over his face. “Why would she cal you if cold superiority sliding over his face. “Why would she cal you if she was upset? You’re nothing.”

Trey tensed but didn’t reply.

Something glinted on Jason’s hand—some sort of metal, almost like a knuckle ring. It caught the light as Jason drew back his arm and punched Trey in the stomach.

Trey stumbled but didn’t fal. Voice as rough as gravel, he asked, “Why do you care if she caled me that night? You didn’t care about her any of the nights that came before it.”

Jason hit Trey again, ful in the face this time. Trey staggered and spat a mouthful of blood onto the grass.

I was going to throw up. I’d seen Jason in fights before, but this wasn’t a fight—it was more like torture.

Kyle’s voice rang out across the yard. “Jason! Enough!” The Tracker at his back pushed the Taser against him, curtailing anything further he might say.

Derby took in the scene with a smal smile on his face. It was like he was watching a rerun or his favorite play—anticipation for everything that happened but no surprise.

A horrible realization flooded through me: this wasn’t an interrogation; it was an initiation. Derby was going to push Jason until he did something so horrible that the Trackers would own him.

Jason flexed his hand. “You don’t know anything about Amy.”

Trey tried to laugh, but it came out a broken wheeze. “I know what you did to her.”

It felt as though the ground underneath my feet was faling away.

The Tracker holding my arm let go, but I was barely aware of it.

Al I could see was Jason, and al I could hear were Trey’s words, Al I could see was Jason, and al I could hear were Trey’s words, echoing through my head over and over. “Jason? What did you do?” My voice was so smal that it went unnoticed.

Jason shook his head, dazed. “I didn’t do anything to Amy.” But he didn’t sound certain.

“Do you realy think she didn’t know?” Trey looked oddly strong underneath the blood and bruises as he glared at Jason. “Al those months when you were watching her best friend? Did you realy think Amy was that stupid?”

Trey’s eyes found mine, just for a second. “She knew you had feelings for Mac.”

Something hit my shoulder and I gasped. I had backed away from Jason and Trey without realizing it, backed up so far that I had colided with Kyle.

It had been me.

I was the reason Jason had broken up with Amy. The reason she’d run out of his car that night. The reason she was dead.

No wonder she was haunting me.

Kyle murmured something in my ear, but I couldn’t make sense of the words as he steadied me with his hands and carefuly pushed me so that I was standing to his right—away from the Tracker with the Taser.

Derby walked over to Jason and pressed a Taser into his hand as he whispered something into his ear.

For a moment, Jason went horribly stil, and then his face twisted with pain and rage as he took a step toward Trey.

Derby had claimed the Tasers were strong enough to take down a wolf. If Jason used one on Trey and Trey wasn’t infected, it might kil him. “We have to stop him.”

Kyle tightened his grip on my arm but didn’t say anything. Then, without warning, he shoved me.

I stumbled forward, trying to keep my balance. I glanced back just in time to see Kyle’s elbow connect with the Tracker’s windpipe. The man went down, dropping the Taser and clutching his throat.

I spun and ran for Jason.

There were shouts behind me and I heard Serena yel something, but I concentrated al my strength and energy on lunging at Jason’s arm, on getting him to drop the Taser.

For a second, it seemed like I would succeed. I was half Jason’s size, but I was desperate and fighting for his future and Trey’s life. But then he shoved me and I went sprawling.

I landed hard on my back. For a stunned moment, I stared up at the stars while I caught my breath and tried to remember how to move.

I turned my head, searching for Kyle.

He was on his knees, a Taser pressed to his neck. Sweat shone on his face and his breathing was ragged. I had no idea how he was managing to push back the wolf.

If he did shift, we were dead. There were too many Trackers.

Even with Kyle in wolf form, we’d never get away.

I roled onto my hands and knees a second before someone grabbed my arm and hauled me roughly to my feet. It was the same Tracker who had dragged me from the car. I was starting to same Tracker who had dragged me from the car. I was starting to wonder if she took steroids.

Jason advanced on Trey, the Taser shaking in his hand. “Why would Amy have told you anything?”

Trey backed up a step, watching Jason warily.

At some point during the chaos of the past few minutes, Serena had gotten to her feet. “Trey, just tel them!”

One of the Trackers reached for her, but she was faster. She ran for Jason and Trey and threw herself between them.

Breathlessly, she gasped, “Amy was sleeping with Trey. To get back at you for Mac. That’s why she kept caling him.”

Serena’s words hit me like a bucket of ice water.
Amy and
Trey?
To get back at Jason?
My knees threatened to buckle.

Jason shook his head. He turned and stared at Derby. Not me.

Not Kyle. It was Derby he turned to. “Amy wouldn’t have. Not with a fleabag.”

“They’re deceptive, Jason. They’re not above seducing and preying on human girls. It’s a game to them. He used Amy for his own satisfaction and then kiled her.” There wasn’t the slightest trace of hesitation in Derby’s voice, no surprise at the news that Amy had been sleeping with Trey.

With a sinking feeling, I realized that he had prepared for this moment, that—as crazy as it seemed—Derby had somehow known about Amy and Trey and had pushed Jason here, to this point, on purpose. And he had known that he would be the one Jason would turn to.

“I didn’t kil her,” Trey growled. He pushed Serena behind him as Jason’s fingers tightened on the Taser.

as Jason’s fingers tightened on the Taser.

“Jason, stop!” The Tracker holding me tried to clamp her hand over my mouth, but I ducked my head to the side. “If Trey was infected, he would have shifted by now. Besides, even if he is a werewolf, the police aren’t sure Amy’s death is connected to the others. They’re not sure a werewolf kiled her.”

Bishop wasn’t exactly the entire police department, and he thought Jason was the real murderer—oh, and he was a crazy alcoholic who held secret meetings in tool sheds—but Jason didn’t need to know that.

He turned to Derby. “What’s Mac talking about?”

“There’s a detective who thinks Amy was kiled by a human,”

said Kyle, quickly, before Derby could lie. “We talked to him.”

The blood drained from Jason’s face at Kyle’s words. He stalked toward me. Grabbing my arm with one hand, he yanked me away from the Tracker like I was nothing more than a dol. My heart pounded in my chest as his fingers dug into my skin. His other hand stil held the Taser. I was scared of Jason. I had never been scared of Jason before. Not even after the things Bishop had said.

“I saw her body.” His eyes glinted and I realized they were filed with tears. “It was in pieces.
Pieces, Mac
. I couldn’t even hold her. When I tried . . .” He made a strangled noise deep in the back of his throat and shook his head.

In that moment, any doubts Bishop had planted about Jason vanished. No one was that good an actor.

He let go of my arm and stepped away from me. “A werewolf did it and Trey is a werewolf.”

“Then why hasn’t he shifted?”

“Then why hasn’t he shifted?”

“Self-preservation, Miss Dobson.” Derby’s patience for our melodrama was apparently at an end. “Self-preservation and leverage. If he shifts in front of us, his life is over. It’s just a matter of tipping the scales enough that he has no choice.”

I almost pointed out that beating Serena hadn’t done much good, but I realy didn’t want to encourage them.

Derby glanced at Jason. “There are two canvas bags in the back of my car.”

Without being told, Jason turned to get them. Moments later, he was back, one heavy red sack in each hand.

“Set them by the porch,” said Derby as he waved one of the other Trackers forward.

The Tracker lifted out a large tank—like the kind exterminators used. He covered his mouth and nose with his T-shirt and began coating the front of the house in a thick liquid. The smel drifted back to us. Not gas, but similar.

It was strong enough to make my nose burn and my stomach rol.

“That, Mr. Carson, is an accelerant. Do you know what an accelerant is?”

“Our little brother’s in there!” yeled Serena.

Derby nodded and the Tracker lit a match. “Consider it leverage,” he said, as flames roared up the front of the house.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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ORANGE LIGHT FLOODED THE YARD. I RAN FOR KYLE AS the Trackers—al but the one covering him—converged on Trey.

The fire seemed to shake Jason out of whatever spel of Derby’s he’d been under. He turned on him. “You never said anything about this! This is going too far!”

One of the Trackers broke away from the group surrounding Trey and grabbed Jason’s arms, pinning them behind his back.

Derby stared at him coldly. “Remember who it is you’re talking to, Jason.”

Jason opened his mouth to reply, but the words were lost when two things happened simultaneously: Kyle whirled on the Tracker behind him and Serena ran for the house.

Without thinking, I ran after her.

Serena fel to her knees when she was halfway to the porch. Her spine bent in a way that would leave a human paralyzed. Her bones shattered as her skin split and fur the color of coal dust flowed over her body. I stumble-tripped to a stop, my mind trying flowed over her body. I stumble-tripped to a stop, my mind trying to make sense of what I was seeing as a large, black wolf bounded over the flames and into the house.

Two of the Trackers covering Trey raced after her, but they weren’t crazy—or dedicated—enough to folow her into the fire.

Serena was infected.

She was infected and she’d been hiding it.

She was infected and she was inside a burning building.

Thoughts ricocheted in my head, each one louder than the last and each one ending with the same four words: Serena was a werewolf.

Forcing myself to focus, I fished my cel out of my pocket.

Before I could dial 911, Derby was in front of me. He grabbed the phone from my hand and flung it into the bushes edging the house.

He puled back his arm—to slap me, I think—but Kyle was suddenly between us.

Kyle’s hair was damp with perspiration and his breathing was slightly ragged, but he was holding back the shift.

Derby eyed him and hesitated. He was the kind of man who wouldn’t think twice about slapping a girl, but a muscular, seventeen-year-old boy was a different story.

There was a shout from one of the Trackers stil covering Trey, and everything seemed to move in slow motion as I turned.

Trey was on his knees.

Trey was shifting.

Trey and Serena were both infected and the world I thought I had known was unraveling.

Was everyone in town a werewolf and I just didn’t get the Was everyone in town a werewolf and I just didn’t get the memo?

One Tracker was younger than the others. Despite his muscles and tattoos, he couldn’t have been any older than nineteen. Eyes wide and frantic, he dodged forward with his Taser, trying to hit Trey before he fuly transformed. Without thinking, I ran at him, tackling him from the side.

Jason and Kyle both shouted my name as the Tracker and I fel to the ground and roled.