Hemlock (7 page)

He handed me a yelow flyer.

“‘RfW Counter Raly’?” I asked, reading the large, black letters across the top of the page.

Ethan nodded. “The Trackers are having a recruitment meeting tomorrow night, and we’re going to stage a peaceful protest outside. We want to show them that not everyone in town wants them here.”

Regs for Werewolves—RfW—was a national network of werewolf rights activists. It was mostly made up of regs who opposed the rehabilitation camps and the lack of civil rights for people infected with lupine syndrome. They tried to draw attention to facts like how there were fewer annual werewolf-related fatalities than murders committed in, say, the state of California.

And they tried to raise awareness about attacks on wolves and conditions in the camps—not that anyone realy knew much about what went on behind the fences.

“I’m not realy sure the words ‘peaceful’ and ‘Tracker meeting’

go together,” I said, folding the flyer and slipping it into my backpack.

“Someone has to try, right? Look at what happened this morning.” With another smal smile, he headed to the next table, friends in tow.

I watched them try to hand out more flyers. Most people I watched them try to hand out more flyers. Most people wouldn’t take them. When they tried to give one to Trey Carson, he actualy laughed.

I liked Ethan, but I was pretty sure attending a RfW raly while the Trackers were in town was tantamount to running across a shooting range wearing nothing but a bul’s-eye duct taped to your butt.

At best, most people thought RfW was a joke. At worst, they thought the members were fleabag-loving traitors. Twelve years ago, the government announced the existence of lupine syndrome, and the whole world got scared. No matter how many pamphlets RfW handed out—no matter how many ralies they organized or statistics they quoted—that fear wasn’t going away.

Giving my head a smal shake, I rummaged through my bag until I came up with a granola bar and a banana. It wasn’t a diet thing, just a Tess-forgetting-to-buy-groceries thing.

I glanced back at the lunch line. Jason paid for his food and then turned to scan the cafeteria. His eyes locked on mine—just for a moment—before he walked to another table.

Kyle slid into the seat across from me. The slice of pizza on his tray made my stomach growl. “He’s not mad at you. Not exactly.”

I frowned and peeled back the wrapper of my granola bar.

“Then why is he sitting over there?”

Kyle took inventory of my practicaly nonexistent lunch. “Do you want me to get you something?”

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

I watched a junior claim the seat next to Jason and crank up the I watched a junior claim the seat next to Jason and crank up the charm. “I don’t get why he’s mad. Al I did was ask you to talk to him.”

“He wants you to have faith in him, I think.”

I opened my mouth to say that I did, but the words wouldn’t come out. “I just don’t want him to get hurt.”

“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved,” said Kyle with a shrug.

Three minutes ago, my lunch hadn’t looked nearly big enough; suddenly, I didn’t have an appetite. “You can’t realy think that.

He’s your best friend.”

“I know. But things aren’t always as simple as you think they should be.” He started in on his pizza.

“If I were in trouble, wouldn’t you try to help me?”

A blush I didn’t understand swept across Kyle’s cheeks.

Across the room, the junior was leaning so far into Jason that she was practicaly on his lap. “I mean, the three of us are best friends.

If I thought you were in trouble, I’d try to help.”

“Just like you would for him?”

There was a strange note in Kyle’s voice. Something almost possessive that didn’t fit the cafeteria or the conversation or the person he was talking to. Me. “Of course I would. Why would you even ask that?”

He didn’t answer.

“We’re going to go and keep an eye on him, right? Tomorrow night?”

Kyle shook his head. “Can’t. I have other plans.” He studiously avoided my gaze.

avoided my gaze.

I knew that note in Kyle’s voice—the half beat of hesitation and the quick inhale of breath that meant he was lying. “What plans?” I asked suspiciously.

Something caught his attention and he ignored the question.

Annoyed, I turned to see what he was staring at.

Not what. Who.

Heather Yoshida stood in the middle of the cafeteria, watching Kyle like the rest of the world didn’t exist. She looked almost as bad as he had this morning. Normaly, Heather looked like she had stepped out of a fashion magazine, but today she was wearing a baggy T-shirt—one that looked suspiciously like something out of Kyle’s closet—and jeans that were only one step above sweatpants. Her long, jet-black hair hung limply over her shoulders, and she wasn’t wearing a single scrap of jewelry.

I turned my gaze back to Kyle. He looked lost and tired and, maybe, a bit angry. After a moment, he seemed to remember I existed.

“Is everything okay?” I frowned, remembering how Kyle hadn’t wanted to talk about his ex earlier. “Is something going on with Heather?”

He flinched slightly at the sound of her name. A flashing neon sign lit up my brain: PREGNANT. The word felt like a knife sliding into my chest—oddly painful for something I didn’t have a direct stake in.

“I’m okay,” he said. Two words that had never sounded less convincing. “I just remembered that I’ve got someplace to be.”

Confused and worried, I watched Kyle stand and walk out of Confused and worried, I watched Kyle stand and walk out of the cafeteria. He used the door that led to the gym so that he wouldn’t have to walk past Heather.

If he was avoiding her, it didn’t work: five seconds later, she trailed after him.

A prickly feeling crept up my neck, and I glanced around the room. Four tables away, Jason was watching me, completely ignoring the girl who was giggling and clutching his arm.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I LET YOU TALK ME INTO THIS,” MUTTERED

Serena as the number 16 bus rumbled over the bridge connecting the north and south sides of town.

“I didn’t talk you into anything,” I reminded her as we reached Jason’s neighborhood and began passing a string of progressively nicer—and larger—houses. “You invited yourself along.”

“Okay, then I can’t believe you didn’t talk me out of this.”

“Okay, then I can’t believe you didn’t talk me out of this.”

Serena reached across me and tugged the pul string, signaling that we wanted off at the next stop.

The bus slowed to a halt and we folowed a line of nannies and housekeepers to the doors. Public transit in this part of town was for the people who supported the big houses, not the people who owned them.

I checked the display on my cel phone as we started walking toward the community center. We weren’t late. And Kyle hadn’t caled.

I’d tried twice to convince him to come, but he used the same vague excuse—the same lie—both times: He had plans. Plans that did not include babysitting Jason.

It wasn’t like this was how I wanted to spend my Friday night—

especialy not after the things Jason had said to me in the cafeteria yesterday—but someone had to keep an eye on him.

I glanced at Serena. She had a resigned and slightly apprehensive look on her face.

“You realy don’t have to come.”

She shook her head. “No. I want to go. Trey heard that Riley Parker wasn’t even infected, that they let him go this morning.

Apparently, he was so traumatized that his parents won’t send him back to Kennedy and are talking about suing. If the Trackers are going to start randomly dragging people away without proof, I’d like to know as much about them as possible.”

Unofficialy, the Trackers had no authority of any kind. They were a civilian group and subject to civilian laws. But a lot of police were a civilian group and subject to civilian laws. But a lot of police departments let them have free rein when they came to town. It was easier that way. Besides, it wasn’t like werewolves had any rights to violate. If Riley Parker had been infected, his parents wouldn’t be talking about suing anyone.

We turned onto a winding road lined with thick hedges and gated driveways.

“Explain to me, again, why this part of town needs its own community center when they already have a country club?” asked Serena as the offending building came into view.

I opened my mouth to answer but was shocked silent by the sight of a dozen people hovering at the edge of the parking lot, al carrying bright signs.

RfW had actualy shown up.

“They’re either realy balsy or incredibly stupid,” whispered Serena as we passed.

I spotted Ethan and said a quick prayer of thanks that he was facing the other direction. I didn’t want to see the flash of disappointment on his face when he realized I was there for the meeting and not the raly.

We climbed the center’s wide, granite steps, and I took a deep breath. How bad could it be? I’d probably have to shake a few hands and listen to a few speeches. Two hours and I’d be out of there—hopefuly with a promise from Jason not to join. I could handle two hours.

Besides, I might even learn something about the latest attack.

Though I’d told Jason it was probably a different white wolf, the fear that I was wrong—that maybe the wolf was back or had fear that I was wrong—that maybe the wolf was back or had never left—had steadily gnawed at me over the past two days.

In the months after the attacks ended—as it became clear that the police might never find the person responsible—I had convinced myself that I could be okay without any answers or closure. Now there was doubt, and suddenly I wasn’t okay at al.

A smiling man in crisp blue jeans and a white T-shirt handed us each a pamphlet as we stepped through the doors. “Welcome,” he said. “You’re just in time.”

“Thanks,” I muttered, taking the piece of paper and trying not to look at the Tracker crest tattooed on his neck as we walked past him and into the smal gymnasium.

We navigated our way around the dozens of teens sitting on the floor and found a free space along the back wal.

Jason stood near the front, talking to people I didn’t recognize.

Just beyond him was a row of pictures: poster-sized images of the four people who’d been kiled last spring. In between photos of a smiling twenty-something girl and a serious middle-age man was Amy’s last yearbook picture.

I felt a pang in my chest as I stared at the photo. The morning it had been taken, Amy had swung by my place early so she could do my hair and makeup. She even caled Tess the night before and had her confiscate al of my elastics so I couldn’t wear a ponytail.

“It’s our second-to-last yearbook photos,” she’d said. “In twenty years, I want us to flip through our yearbooks and marvel at how fabulous we looked.”

“Wow,” whispered Serena as she scanned her pamphlet. “This is pretty heavy for a teen recruitment drive.”

is pretty heavy for a teen recruitment drive.”

I glanced down at my own folded sheet of paper.
WHY THE

CAMPS DON’T WORK
was printed in large, red letters across the top.

Twelve years ago, when the government announced the existence of lupine syndrome, they passed an emergency bil and built seven rehabilitation camps. There were only two ways to catch LS—a bite or a scratch from a fuly or partialy transformed werewolf—and there was a thirty-day incubation period before the disease was ful-blown and people actualy started shape-shifting.

After those thirty days, al newly infected people were supposed to turn themselves in for lifelong internment. Their assets were seized and they lost al of their constitutional rights. There were no appeals and no second chances.

Not surprisingly, plenty of people tried to keep their condition a secret. They didn’t turn themselves in and they spent their lives constantly looking over their shoulders, ready to run at any moment. There was an LS tip line you were supposed to cal if you suspected someone was a werewolf in hiding.

I turned the pamphlet over.
Thou shall not suffer a wolf to
live
was printed in old-fashioned script on the back.

The words sent a jolt through me.

I’d been nine on the day a group of men with tattoos on their necks beat Leah to death while our neighbors cheered them on. I hadn’t seen the whole thing—not even most of it—but I had
heard
it. I hadn’t been able to squeeze my way through the crowd, but I’d heard Leah scream and beg and, at the end, howl.

I’d heard Leah scream and beg and, at the end, howl.

And when Hank had found me, when he swept me up in his arms, I’d clung to him and buried my face against his jacket and caled him “Daddy.” It was the only time I could remember doing any of those things.

“Isn’t that Amy’s grandfather?”

I looked up, startled out of my thoughts. Senator Walsh was indeed walking to a podium at the front of the room. At Amy’s funeral, he had looked shrunken and weak. Now he looked energized—like the years had falen away and he was ready to take on the world.

I wasn’t sure about the world, but he’d definitely been making waves in Washington. Before Amy’s death, he’d been one of the most vocal supporters of increased werewolf rights. Two months ago, he had held a press conference to publicly throw his support behind building additional camps and implementing more aggressive procedures to target werewolves.

It was a complete turnabout and beyond major news. A Holywood ghostwriter was supposedly working on a book about it.

But that didn’t explain what he was doing here. This was just a local Tracker meeting and he was a US senator.

He cleared his throat and the room fel silent. “For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Senator John Walsh. Amy Walsh was my granddaughter.” His gaze swept the crowd. “Until last year, I believed—as some of you might—that werewolves were unfairly persecuted in our country. Unfortunately, it took tragedy here in Hemlock to show me how wrong I was. If stricter here in Hemlock to show me how wrong I was. If stricter measures had been in place to proactively apprehend people infected with lupine syndrome, then my granddaughter might stil be here today.” He gripped the edge of the podium. “I can’t change the past, but I can work toward a safer future. For Amy’s memory and for al of you. With that, I’d like to turn the floor over to someone who
is
working toward that safer future: Branson Derby.”