Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (29 page)

“No.” I didn’t hesitate. “He’s your dad.”

“You hate your father.”

“Completely different situation,” I said, echoing words Jason had spoken to Stephen in the grove of twisted trees. “No matter what else your dad did or didn’t do, he loved you. He loved you and he was a good father. The stuff on those DVDs doesn’t change that.”

She turned toward the water. “You’re going to tell everyone, aren’t you?”

“I have to.”

“Good.” The single word was surprisingly forceful.

“What happens?” I asked. “When it ends?”

“When this story ends, a new story starts. That’s how it goes. How it always goes.”

“Just for once, I wish you’d give me a straight answer.”

“Just this once, I wish I could.” She slipped her hand into mine, pressing something to my palm.

I glanced down at the compass necklace Jason had bought for her. “It’s yours,” I said, trying to give it back.

“I don’t need it. Not where I’m going.” Her eyes shimmered with tears and she scrubbed at them with the back of her hand, swearing softly. “I never was any good at good-byes.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

Amy started walking backward. With each step, she seemed a little lighter, like a weight was being lifted from her shoulders. She looked less like the Amy from my dreams and more like the Amy in photographs. “You can’t hold on to me forever. Besides, you don’t need me anymore.”

“I’ll always need you.”

“You’ll be fine. You have Kyle. And Jason. The three of you have one another.” A grin split her face. “You’re going to have a fantastic life, Mackenzie Dobson. You’re going to have a fantastic, amazing life, and I’ll be watching.”

With a bright flash of light, the shore and Amy burned away.

I opened my eyes and stared up at my bedroom ceiling. Daylight slipped past the edges of my curtains and filled the room. Against all odds, I had fallen asleep.

I raised a hand to my cheek. My fingertips came back wet: I had been crying.

She was really gone.

There were times when I had hated and dreaded the nightmares—times when I would have given anything to wake from them—but part of me didn’t want to let them go. I didn’t want to let Amy go.

I rolled over, reaching for Kyle. The other side of the bed was empty. I ran my hand over the sheets. They were cold.

My heart gave a small, shuddery skip as I kicked my legs free of my blankets and pushed myself to my feet.

The bedroom door was closed, but I could hear the faint murmur of voices coming from the living room.

Someone else was here.

I glanced at my alarm clock. The power was still out.

I pulled open the door and practically ran down the hall, stumbling to a clumsy stop as I reached the living room.

Kyle was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. My heart did a small flip when I saw him—one that was half relief and half exhilaration. Logically, I knew what we had done last night didn’t change anything, but I felt different in a hundred small ways that I couldn’t explain.

Kyle shot me a small, tired smile before nodding toward the couch.

Jason was back. My laptop was in front of him. The circles under his eyes were so dark that they looked like smudges of ink. He looked like hell, but he was clean shaven and wearing fresh clothes. My eyes locked on a black knee brace on his left leg.

“Just a precaution,” said Jason, tapping the brace as he followed the direction of my gaze. “They were able to patch me up. They even gave me a lollipop for not crying.”

He was all right. He was here and all right and cracking stupid jokes.

I threw myself across the living room and flung my arms around his neck.

“One night apart and you’re throwing yourself at me,” he said drily.

“I was worried about you, jerk,” I muttered, pulling back. “We both were.”

“Kyle said to let you sleep.” There was an unfamiliar weight to Jason’s voice, and the way he didn’t quite meet my eyes as he said the words made me wonder if Kyle had told him about last night.

I knew we didn’t have anything to feel guilty about, but I was suddenly very aware of my lack of pants. The extra-large T-shirt I was wearing covered more than half the dresses in my cousin’s closet, but it was still just a T-shirt.

I grabbed a knitted throw from the back of the armchair and wrapped it around myself as I sat. “Kyle filled you in on what happened?” A blush immediately flooded my cheeks. “I mean about Serena and the others and what we found on the DVDs.”

Jason nodded and ignored the blush. He ran a hand over his neck. “I might know where Serena and the others are. Maybe.”

Kyle joined us in the living room and twined his fingers with mine as he sat on the arm of my chair.

“What do you mean ‘maybe’?” I asked, a sinking feeling in my stomach at the tense, miserable expression on Jason’s face. “Where do you think they are? What happened last night?”

“Sinclair and Donovan got away—for starters.” Jason’s mouth twisted around the words. “So did Stephen—after he lost control and shifted. Someone opened fire and it looked like he was hit, but he gave them the slip.” He glanced toward the window. “The Trackers are keeping it quiet for now because of all the support they’ve been getting from Senator Walsh, but sooner or later, it’ll get out. Too many people saw him before and after he shifted. If Stephen’s smart, he’s halfway to Mexico.”

He met my gaze. “I was stuck on the north side most of the night, but the bridge opened up again around dawn. The Trackers have a medical tent set up in Riverside Square. They insisted I go get checked out. Afterward . . .” Jason’s voice faltered and he shook his head. “They have more than a dozen wolves in a pen in the middle of the square—wolves they caught last night. It’s supposed to prove the LSRB isn’t doing enough to round up the infected.”

I tightened my grip on Kyle’s hand. “Serena and Trey? Eve?”

“They weren’t letting anyone near the cage—not even other Trackers. And they didn’t respond very well to bribery.” Jason turned his head and I noticed the beginnings of a bruise rising on his jaw. “But I got close enough to see that at least some of the wolves had black fur.”

“That doesn’t mean any of them are Serena or Trey,”
I said, trying to sound calm and rational as my heart and mind raced.

“No . . .” conceded Jason, leaning back and reaching into his pocket. “But I found this on one of the paths leading to the middle of the square.”

He pulled out a pewter charm on the end of a black leather cord. I didn’t need him to turn it over to know there was a symbol etched on one side—a symbol that looked like three interlocking teardrops.

The symbol of the Eumon pack.

It was Eve’s necklace.

“It gets worse,” said Kyle.

With an effort, I pulled my gaze away from the charm. “How could it possibly get worse?”

“I wasn’t the only one trying to get a look at the wolves in the cage,” said Jason.

I stared at him, waiting.

“Sinclair was there.”

B
OTH THE MAYOR AND THE GOVERNOR HAD TAKEN TO
the radio, urging people to stay in their homes and avoid downtown Hemlock. The Trackers had been quick to respond. They blamed last night’s violence—and the continued power outage—on a militant group of RfW members and accused the mayor and the governor of being in the pockets of the pro-werewolf lobby.
The rally will go ahead
, they assured their followers, in some cases going door to door to get the message out.
We will not be intimidated into silence.

As if the Trackers had ever been intimidated into anything. Jason, Kyle, and I left the safety of the apartment at 4:30 p.m.—one hour before the rally was scheduled to begin—and as we turned off Elm Street, it was clear the mayor and governor had been anything but successful in their pleas.

Hundreds of people clogged the streets—many with dagger tattoos, but plenty without. The closer we got to the downtown strip, the worse the crowds became, until I had
to fight against the throng not to be separated from Kyle and Jason.

I tried to tell myself that this was a good thing. We needed Riverside Square to be as packed and chaotic as possible if we had any hope of getting near the cage in the center of the park. Still, being surrounded by this many people who would turn on us if they found out Kyle was infected or that Jason and I had werewolf sympathies made my skin crawl.

At least the crowds made it harder to take in the full scale of last night’s destruction. Though I caught glimpses of burned-out buildings and cars, I couldn’t linger on any one sight for more than a second or two.

The wall of people ahead of us parted, moving away from the center of the street and heading for the sidewalks as we neared an intersection. I soon saw why: the National Guard had erected a barricade across the street, blocking off all traffic.

“I don’t understand.” I squeezed past a man who reeked of cigars and sweat as we made our way past the barricade. “I know the Trackers said the rally was still going ahead, but don’t the guards take orders from the governor or the mayor? Why block off the street but still let people through? Why not just shut everything down?”

“They don’t want a fight,” said Kyle, eyes sweeping the sea of faces. “Every network in the country has reporters and news crews here. If they tried to stop the rally and things turned violent . . .”

“Bye-bye reelection,” finished Jason. “Besides, there’s that whole pesky freedom of assembly thing.”

“Wow,” said Kyle, “you actually managed to stay awake for an entire civics class.”

I was pretty sure freedom of assembly only applied to peaceful gatherings—something I really doubted the Trackers were capable of—but I didn’t point that out as I hugged my backpack to my chest. “You do both realize this is the flimsiest plan we’ve ever come up with, right? I’m not even sure it qualifies as a plan.”

“That’s what makes it so brilliant.” Jason shoved a drunk Tracker out of his way, ignoring the slurred curses that followed. Although he kept saying the knee brace was just a precaution, he walked with a noticeable limp. “Sinclair and her band of merry mercenaries would never expect us to be this stupid. It gives us the element of surprise.”

“Assuming the warden is still there,” replied Kyle.

“She will be.” There wasn’t a trace of doubt in my mind. Sinclair hadn’t had any more luck getting near the cage than Jason, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try again. They couldn’t know whether or not we had gotten out of town. With four black wolves in Tracker custody, the warden had to be considering the possibility that the group had gotten their hands on Serena. Werewolves had a habit of dying when the Trackers got involved, and Serena was far too valuable to risk leaving in their custody. Besides, Sinclair wanted the data Stephen had stolen from CBP and she knew we had at least some of it. We had risked everything to get Serena out of Thornhill: Sinclair had to know she could use her as bait.

We reached Main Street.

“Jesus . . .” Jason’s voice—barely audible over the swelling hum of the crowd—was a mixture of trepidation and awe.

“Where did they all come from?” I knew there were hundreds of Trackers in town—maybe even thousands—but nothing could have prepared me for the sheer number of people spread out before us. They stretched for blocks.

I squinted at a nearby group. They were all carrying signs.

INFECTION DOESN’T DISCRIMINATE
.

THE CAMPS DON’T WORK
.

MY WIFE IS A WEREWOLF
.

“They’re not Trackers. . . .” My voice was a dazed murmur.

The RfW had come back. Even after last night’s violence, they were here.

I slipped my backpack over my shoulder, freeing my hand so I could twine my fingers with Kyle’s. Not everyone was like the Trackers; not everyone believed in the camps. Seeing the RfW protest gave me a small spark of hope.

The crowd pushed us forward.

Ten-foot-high interlocking metal fences had been placed between the sidewalks and the street, creating a sort of corral that allowed the Trackers to reach the square without walking through the pro-werewolf demonstration. The setup prevented a physical confrontation between the two groups—at least for the time being—but Trackers still
hurled insults and bottles over the fence and the RfW gave as good as they got.

Under normal circumstances, the sidewalks on Main Street were wide enough for three or four people to walk abreast, but the number of Trackers trying to reach the park forced Jason to fall into step behind us. Kyle, meanwhile, stayed on my left, putting himself between me and the members of the National Guard who were stationed every few feet on either side of the fence.

One of the RfW protestors launched himself at the barricade, making it halfway up before a guard pulled him down and swung at his ribs with a baton.

“You know,” said Jason from just over my shoulder, “if it wasn’t for the tattoos and the homemade signs, it’d be pretty hard to tell everyone apart.”

“They’re not going to be able to keep control. Not for long.” Though it was doubtful anyone in the crowd around us could hear him, Kyle leaned in close. “Do you think this could be why the packs sent wolves? As protection for the RfW?”

I considered it for a moment, then shook my head. “I don’t think so.” Protecting an RfW protest—even a protest like this—didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would require maximum secrecy. It definitely didn’t seem like the sort of thing Hank would keep from Eve or reason enough for him to want me out of town before the rally.

Our progress slowed to a crawl as the square came into view. There were more guards here, but they were hanging back, leaving the park completely to the Trackers. The
sun set early this time of year—it was already starting to dip toward the horizon—but huge lights had been set up around the square, rendering it as bright as noon. For a moment, I thought the power had come back on, and then I realized the Trackers must have brought generators.

The ever-cynic in me wondered if maybe they had caused the blackout so that they could be the only light in the darkness.