Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (30 page)

The RfW protest was big—huge, even—but the number of Trackers in the square blew them out of the water. I turned to glance back the way we had come. Hundreds of people packed the sidewalk behind us; what would happen if there wasn’t enough room in the square for all of them? Apprehension slid down my spine at the thought of what that many angry Trackers might do.

It was a thought that had obviously occurred to most of the shop owners on Main Street. Almost every store was boarded up, plywood covering doors and windows like people were hunkering down for a hurricane.

A flash of movement in the gap between a sushi bar and a skateboard shop caught my eye. The crowd forced me forward, but not before I glimpsed a familiar figure.

“Mac!” Kyle called my name as I pushed my way to the alley, but I didn’t stop until I was in the shadowy gulf between the two buildings.

“What is it?” asked Jason as he and Kyle caught up with me.

A flood of unpleasant memories—memories of the night a Tracker had dragged me into an alley just like this
one—threatened to wash over me, but I pushed them back. My gaze slid over piles of flattened cardboard and an old box spring propped up on its end. We were the only ones here.

“I thought I saw something.” I ran a hand over my eyes.

“Mac . . . ?” The voice was so soft and hesitant that I almost missed it under the noise from the street behind us.

Serena eased out from behind the box spring, eyes wide and body tense. Her shirt was torn and stained, and her face was streaked with dirt and dried blood. Her gaze darted over us as she let out a deep breath.

“I thought you were Trackers. Real Trackers, I mean,” she amended, eyes flicking to Jason’s neck as she folded her arms over her chest.

I slipped the backpack from my shoulder and fished around inside. In addition to copies of the information from Amy’s DVDs, I had spare clothes, bottled water, and a package of baby wipes—basically everything we’d need if a werewolf shifted and then changed back.

“Here,” I said gently, taking out the wipes and holding out the container. “For your face. I have clean shirts, too.”

Serena stared at the package for a moment, almost like she was a little in shock, before reaching out and taking two of the disposable cloths. She passed one over her face and it came back covered in shades of gray and pink. She let it fall to the ground and then used the second cloth to clean her hands. Blood lined her cuticles and clung to the lines of her palm.

I swallowed. How had she ended up here—alone—just a block from the rally? “Where are Trey and Eve?”

Serena stared down at her hands. She was silent for a long moment, and when she finally did speak, her voice shook. “I don’t know. We were almost to your apartment when this group of Trackers piled out of a truck. They wanted to know what we were doing on the street. They kept making these comments to Eve and me—really horrible stuff—and they had Tasers. It was obvious they didn’t really think we were infected. . . . They just . . .” She shifted her weight uncomfortably and it wasn’t hard to guess what sort of things the Trackers had said or what they might have been after. “One of them hit me and tried to get me on the ground while another went after Eve. My control slipped. . . .”

She raised her head and met my gaze. “Trey told me to run. I thought he and Eve were behind me. By the time I realized they weren’t, it was too late. The Trackers had them.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that it wasn’t her fault, but Jason beat me to it. “If you hadn’t run, you would have just gotten caught with them. It wouldn’t have helped anything.”

Serena’s eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t make me feel any better. I left my brother behind. I let him get taken.”

“You’re sure they didn’t get away? Did you actually see the Trackers take Trey and Eve?” Kyle’s voice was carefully neutral, without a hint of blame, but Serena still flinched.

“I saw the truck as it drove off,” she said miserably. “I was just too far away to get to it.”

I wrapped an arm around Serena’s shoulders. “Why didn’t you go to the apartment or call? Where have you been all this time?”

“Here. More or less.” She ran a hand through her close-cropped hair. “I figured the Trackers would take Trey and Eve to the square, but after I got down here, I was trapped. Any time someone saw the blood on my clothes, they got suspicious. This is as close to the square as I’ve been able to get—not that I had any idea what I’d do once I got there.”

I stepped away and pulled a clean, long-sleeved shirt out of my backpack. It wasn’t much, but it would at least help with the clothing situation.

Serena took the bundle of fabric. She waited for both Kyle and Jason to turn and shot a nervous glance toward the mouth of the alley before quickly changing.

“What happened after the party?” she asked, rolling up the sleeves to free her hands. The shirt hung off her, but it was a definite improvement. “Did you find anything?”

I gave her the CliffsNotes version. CutterBrown, Zenith, Amy’s dad, and Ben . . . I didn’t say anything about Sinclair or Natalie Goodwin. I wasn’t sure how to tell Serena that the women who had been responsible for her torture were both in Hemlock.

“Shit,” Serena breathed.

“There’s something else,” said Jason, turning back around. His gaze darkened as he glanced at me. “She needs to know.”

I bit my lip and nodded.

He started to reach for Serena’s hand and then seemed to second-guess himself, letting his arm fall back to his side. “Sinclair is still alive. She’s working with the men who showed up at your house. She was in the square
earlier—probably trying to figure out if you were one of the wolves the Trackers picked up.”

At the mention of the warden’s name, Serena went completely rigid. Her eyes widened as she absorbed Jason’s words, and then a fine trembling started in her shoulders and radiated down her spine until her whole body shook.

“She’s never going to let me go.”

Pushing aside his hesitation, Jason took Serena’s hand. “She won’t have a choice.”

Serena let out a strangled, mirthless laugh as she pulled away. “What makes you think anything will stop her? What makes you think she won’t grab me—or any one of us—the second we set foot in the square to find Trey and Eve?”

I pulled a USB key—the same USB key Amy had given me—from around my neck. “This,” I said. “The whole country believes the origin of LS is a mystery. They think Sinclair is dead and they have no idea what’s really been happening inside the camps. That’s our insurance policy. We’ll get Trey and Eve back, and we’ll use the information on this drive to throw Sinclair and Donovan so off-balance that grabbing us is the last thing on their minds.”

And even if they did still come after us, even if they got us, the truth would already be out. Some secrets were too big to stay hidden.

The cage hulked in the center of the square, just below the main stage. It was large—at least twelve feet long—but not large enough for the thirty werewolves inside. Most of them were in their wolf form—too scared or too angry to hold
back the shift—but six people had retained human shape.

“That’s twice as many as Jason saw this morning,” said Kyle.

I wondered how many of the wolves were local and if any of them had been sent here by the packs. Most towns had at least a few werewolves, but as far as I knew, Hemlock had only a handful of infected people.

We were ten yards away. The Trackers had finally started letting people near the pen and hundreds of rallygoers were clamoring for their chance to get up close and personal with “the enemy.” Most had probably never seen a real werewolf—at least not knowingly.

I shivered. The temperature had dropped with the setting sun and a breeze had started to pick up. It stirred the leaves on the ground and rustled bare branches overhead.

If part of the pen’s purpose was to show how terrifying wolves were, it was hard not to see it as a failure. Most of the wolves were pressed up against the back of the cage. They cringed away from the crowd, acting more like frightened dogs on the death row of an animal shelter than vicious killers.

There was only one exception. A wolf with fur the color of cinnamon threw itself against the walls of the cage over and over again, rattling the wire and baring its teeth. The moment it started to calm, a Tracker shoved a baton through the links of the cage, setting it off again.

Could any of the wolves be Stephen? Jason was sure he had gotten away, that he hadn’t been injured that badly and was probably putting hundreds of miles between himself
and Hemlock, but I still couldn’t help wondering.

“There.” Kyle pointed to the far side of the cage. “In the corner.”

I squinted. In the farthest corner of the cage was a cluster of wolves with coal-black fur.

“Trey’s not there.” Serena’s voice wavered, caught between hope and worry.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Positive.”

My heartbeat kicked up a notch as I spotted a familiar figure walking the perimeter of the cage. Even at a distance, I had no trouble recognizing Sinclair.

Serena saw her at the same moment. I could feel the subtle shift in the air next to me as she tensed.

Even though Sinclair wasn’t a Tracker, people cleared a path for her. It was like she gave off waves of authority. She held something in her hands—a computer tablet—and her gaze darted between it and the black wolves in the cage.

The entire country thought she was dead and here she was at a rally that was being covered by every major news network. She was either very desperate or incredibly arrogant. Either way, if she was here, Donovan couldn’t be far. I turned in a slow circle, but with thousands of people in the square, picking out one man was impossible.

Jason appeared at Kyle’s side. He whispered something, keeping his voice low so the Trackers surrounding us wouldn’t hear.

Kyle said something in reply and Jason glanced at Serena. “You’re sure he’s not in there?”

“I know my brother.”

Jason ran a hand over the brand on his neck. “Someone said a group of wolves were moved to the western arch. They were—”

Serena didn’t wait for Jason to finish before she started pushing and squeezing her way through the crowd.

Trying to keep an eye on the blur of faces around us, I followed, Kyle and Jason on my heels.

Every so often, I spotted a camera crew. CNN, FOX, ABC. As packed as the park was, people seemed to be giving the reporters plenty of space. The fact that each crew was escorted by their own security contingent of Trackers probably helped.

Applause and cheers broke out around us as gigantic video screens flashed to life on three sides of the square: the rally was officially under way.

Each screen showed scenes from other cities where rallies were taking place: New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Seattle, Dallas—the scenes changed every few seconds.

My steps slowed as I was caught up in the sight of rallies spreading from coast to coast. What if the world had gone too far to change? What if nothing we did made a difference? The thousands of RfW members on Main Street suddenly seemed like a joke.

Jason pushed past me, trying to keep Serena in sight, strides quick despite his limp.

I stared after his rapidly retreating back until he was swallowed by the crowd.

The truth could change people—he was proof of that.
Even after he found out Kyle was infected, I think part of him still believed in the camps. I think part of him had believed right up until he saw what was happening in the detention block.

I reached up and clutched the cord around my neck. Maybe we couldn’t control whether or not the world changed, but we could give people the truth and let them decide what was right and wrong for themselves.

“Mac!” Kyle grabbed my arm as the first speech of the night began. “Look!”

I turned back toward the stage in the center of the park but he shook his head. “No,” he said, taking my shoulders and pointing me toward one of the video screens.

It was the rally in Atlanta. I opened my mouth to ask what was so important, but then the camera panned across the crowd.

“Hank.” My father’s name came out a hoarse whisper. He stood in the midst of thousands of Trackers, chanting along, acting like he was one of them. What the hell were the wolves up to?

I didn’t have time to give it much thought. The camera moved away from my father, and as I pulled my gaze from the screen, I saw Donovan standing ten feet away. My pulse kicked into overdrive, and I said a quick prayer of thanks that he was looking away from us.

Kyle had already spotted him. “Come on,” he said, taking my hand and forging a path through the crowd.

“No longer can we afford to wait for the government and the LSRB to protect us!” Speakers had been erected
throughout the park, ensuring every person heard what was said onstage. “Werewolves are a threat to our communities, our children, and our way of life!”

“Just look at Thornhill!” shouted a woman to my left—a sentiment that was quickly picked up by others.

I tightened my grip on Kyle’s hand and craned my neck as I tried to catch glimpses of the perimeter of the park. There had to be a spot where they controlled the screens and audio; we needed to know where it was.

After a moment, I spotted it: a long table covered with computers and surrounded by a yellow triangle of caution tape. It was under two sprawling elms, just a few yards to the right of one of the screens.

We needed to get there, but first we had to find Trey and Eve.

Kyle’s hand suddenly convulsed around mine, squeezing so hard that I gasped. He let go at once, but he didn’t look at me or apologize: all of his attention was focused forward.

I followed his gaze as a scream split the air. The cry was long and ragged and almost inhuman. It pulled the attention of everyone near us. It pulled my attention straight to the large wrought iron arch on the western edge of the park.

No.

My heart stopped and the breath froze in my lungs.

The arch had been turned into a gallows.

S
EVEN BODIES HUNG FROM THICK ROPES. THEY WERE
crowded so closely together that the breeze drifting through the square was enough to make them bump against one another.