Hemlock (39 page)

Trying to make the movement seem as natural as possible, I let go of Kyle’s hand and put a fraction more distance between us. I didn’t want to hurt Jason.

I turned to Trey. “If the police are acting like they didn’t know about the roadblocks, does that mean they won’t come after you?

Can you guys stay?”

“I don’t know. It’s probably a wait-and-see.” Trey shrugged and a flicker of pain crossed his face. “But it’s not like we have a house to go back to.” His gaze swept the empty apartment and he pressed his knuckles to his palm, massaging his hand. I had the feeling he was resisting the urge to punch things again.

“Anyway, it’s getting late—or early, depending on how you look at it. I don’t like leaving Ree and Noah on their own—even with Henry around. And until I know whether or not the police or the LSRB
are
looking for Ree and me, I don’t want to hang around town during daylight hours.”

I was suddenly struck with al the things that were impossible to say without them sounding inadequate. Trey had saved my life.

“Thanks for, you know,
everything
. The woods. Coming with Kyle and Jason to save me. Al of it.”

Trey glanced at Kyle. “Given what happened at my place, I’d say we’re even.” He opened the door and stepped into the hal. A second later, I heard his footfal on the stairs.

“I should head out, too,” said Jason, not realy looking at either of us.

“Jason . . .”

“Jason . . .”

He met my eyes. “I’l cal you tomorrow. There are things we should talk about.”

A flutter of foreboding filed me; I didn’t want a repeat of our conversation out at Henry’s. But before I could say anything, he was gone.

And Kyle and I were alone.

“Are you okay?” he asked after the door had swung shut.

I glanced toward the bedroom and shivered. I closed my eyes, fighting off the memory of Ben’s weight on top of me as he pressed me to the floor.

“As okay as I can be, al things considered.” I opened my eyes.

“How are you?”

Kyle shoved his hands into his pockets. “Been better,” he admitted.

His face was pale and drawn and covered with a shadow of stubble. There were circles under his eyes so dark that they looked like faint smudges of ink. I noticed, absently, that he was wearing jeans with a hole over the left knee and his gray Arcade Fire Tshirt.

The corner of his mouth quirked up in a smal, mirthless smile.

“Guess I’m officialy one of those werewolves they always warn people about.”

I stared at Kyle, confused, not getting it.

“Derby,” he said. “I kiled him.”

I shook my head. “You didn’t have a choice. One of us was going to have to do it—Jason or me or Trey—he wasn’t going to let us walk out of there alive.” I wondered if I could have puled the let us walk out of there alive.” I wondered if I could have puled the trigger; thanks to Kyle, I would never have to know the answer.

I reached up and gently touched his cheek. “This doesn’t change who you are.”

He let out a low breath. “Promise?”

I was reminded of Jason staring into my eyes and asking me—a lifetime ago—if everything would be al right.

“I promise,” I whispered.

A floorboard creaked above our heads, and I lowered my hand.

“I should get up there before Tess realizes I never came home last night.”

Kyle nodded. “Okay.”

I bit my lip. After everything that had happened, I didn’t want to be away from him.

There was a muffled thud upstairs. I held my breath, listening.

The thud was immediately folowed by the sound of breaking glass.

Without thinking, I ran for the third floor, taking the stairs two at a time, not checking to see whether or not Kyle was folowing.

Tess glanced up as I hurtled into the apartment. Her eyes and nose were both extremely red. “Men are scum and I’m joining a convent.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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

TESS WAS CROUCHED DOWN, THE BROOM CLUTCHED in one hand.

She stood and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “It’l be great,” she said, voice choked with tears. “I look kiler in black and I can sing on a hiltop like Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music.”

I walked over and glanced down at the mess she had been sweeping up. Twin images of Ben stared at me from beneath a blanket of shattered glass and cracked plastic. The piggy bank he had bought her as a joke was broken in half, a few quarters and dimes glinting among the debris.

“What happened?” I asked, taking the broom and propping it against the wal before gently steering her away from the mini-wreckage.

“Ben broke up with me.” She sniffed loudly. “He caled me at the Cat. Colect. From a pay phone. On his way to Ohio. Who does that?”

I swalowed. Who, indeed. What kind of murderer took the time to break up with his girlfriend as he fled town? “Did he say why?” I asked, dreading the answer.

She shook her head, but then nodded. “He said he ran into an old girlfriend when he was in Dayton and that they’ve been emailing. The jerk was cyber-cheating on me. For months.”

emailing. The jerk was cyber-cheating on me. For months.”

I wrapped her in a hug. “I’m so sorry, Tess.” I had cared about Ben and trusted him, but Tess had actualy loved him. The fact that Ben Fielding hadn’t realy existed—that he’d just been a costume worn by Ian Derby—didn’t make Tess’s pain any less real.

But as hurt as she was now, I couldn’t tel her the actual reason Ben had ended things. It would destroy her if she found out the man she’d been kissing at night had murdered four people—

including Amy.

I heard a smal creak and tensed. Kyle opened my bedroom door a crack, relief sliding over his face as he realized everything was al right. He must have gone up the fire escape.

He stepped back before Tess could spot him.

“It’s like I didn’t know him at al.” Tess puled away and frowned, studying my face. She reached out and tilted my chin.

“What happened to your cheek? And why weren’t you in your room?”

Right. Derby had sliced me when cutting off the gag. Henry hadn’t thought the cut needed stitches and I’d almost forgotten about it. I glanced down. Thankfuly, the black sweatpants and red hoodie I’d borrowed from Serena covered the gash on my arm and the dozens of bruises on my limbs.

“I fel when I was over at Jason’s,” I lied. “By the pool. And I was downstairs, in the laundry room.” Luckily, Tess was too preoccupied to question why I would be doing laundry at dawn on a Sunday morning.

I forced myself to act like it was a normal breakup so she’d I forced myself to act like it was a normal breakup so she’d never suspect otherwise. “Do you want me to go out and get a tub of rocky road?” My sleep-deprived body practicaly cried out at the thought, but I ignored it. “We can eat ice cream and make a list of al the things that were wrong with him.”

She shook her head. “Actualy, I think I’m going to go lie down.

I just want to turn off al the lights and crawl under my comforter and sleep for, like, forty-eight hours.”

I frowned. Tess’s breakup ritual always included ice cream and making what she caled “The List of Judgment.” I’d seen her through the disintegration of five relationships before Ben. The guys and the circumstances changed, but the ritual stayed the same.

Until now, apparently.

Worried, I watched her walk slowly to her bedroom and shut the door.

I tried to tel myself that she would be okay, that Tess bounced back from everything.

With a smal sigh, I quickly swept up the pile of broken mementos and dumped it in the trash so she wouldn’t see it when she came out.

When I walked into my room, Kyle was standing by the window with one hand wrapped around the frame.

“I should go,” he said softly as I closed the door behind me.

My heart sank. “You’re not staying?”

“Better not. Tess.”

I reached behind me and turned the latch. “She’l have to knock.”

knock.”

The sun was coming up and the dawn light made Kyle’s hair look like it was shot through with strands of copper. I stared at his shirt, and despite everything that had happened, the ghost of a smile crossed my lips. We had driven three hours to catch Arcade Fire play. We hadn’t told Jason or Amy or Heather about the concert—we’d had taken off. Just the two of us.

I crossed the room. A breeze stirred the curtains around us as I gently brushed my lips against his—the first time I had kissed him since that morning at Henry’s. How was it possible that was only yesterday? It felt like years had been crammed into the past twenty-four hours.

After a moment, Kyle puled back. “I figured you’d stil be mad at me—you know, about the stuff Jason said. At Henry’s.”

I shook my head. “I’m too tired to be mad. Plus, I figure knocking me out of the way of a bulet gets you about a milion bonus points.”

A shadow crossed his face, gone so quickly that I barely had time to register it.

I opened my mouth to point out that he couldn’t stand by the window indefinitely, but the words were lost in a yawn.

Kyle reached out and gently traced the curve of my cheek, his fingers grazing the shalow cut Derby had left there. “You’re exhausted. You should get some sleep.”

“I’m scared to close my eyes,” I confessed, the words barely a whisper. “I’m scared I’l end up back in the woods.” The thought of those lost hours between the needle slipping into my arm and the moment I regained consciousness terrified me. It had been too moment I regained consciousness terrified me. It had been too close to being dead, too close to what had happened to Amy.

And God only knew whether or not Amy herself would show up in my dreams. I’d been certain the nightmares would stop if I could solve the riddle of her death. But finding out it had been Ben and letting him get away . . .

I shuddered.

Kyle frowned and ran his hand along my arm, stopping his fingers when they were just over the pulse in my wrist. He looked serious and a little sad. “Could you sleep if I stayed?”

I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

He let go of my wrist and turned toward the fire escape. For a horrible second, I thought he was going to leave, but he quietly closed the window and shut the curtains.

I stepped back as he kicked off his Vans and pushed his hair away from his face.

“Bet you think I’m a total wuss,” I said. I bit my lip and blinked away tears. I hated being so afraid, hated that Derby and Ben had made me scared to close my eyes in my own bedroom.

“Shhhhh,” murmured Kyle, taking my hand and puling me gently toward the bed.

I lay on top of the covers, facing the wal, and Kyle stretched out behind me, putting his back to the room. He draped his arm over my waist and threaded his fingers through mine.

After a while, I closed my eyes. Nothing terrible waited for me in the darkness, and I eventualy felt the thick pul of sleep.

“Kyle?” My voice came out a mumble.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah?”

I struggled to speak before I was completely sucked under. “I love you.”

He squeezed my hand. “Me too.”

For the first time in weeks, I didn’t dream.

I opened my eyes and blinked. My thoughts were sleep-sluggish and it took me a moment to remember why I had been sleeping, fuly dressed, in the middle of the day.

The events of the previous evening came rushing back, and I roled over to curl against Kyle.

He wasn’t there.

Confused, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. I was completely alone.

Someone had covered me with a blanket, but my bedroom was empty and the window was open.

I caught a glimpse of white out of the corner of my eye and glanced down. A folded piece of paper was next to me on the bed.

My name was written on the front in Kyle’s familiar, looping scrawl.

Mackenzie
.

Not
Mac
but
Mackenzie
.

Nothing good ever came of anyone using my ful name.

Hands shaking, trying to ignore the queasy feeling in my stomach, I unfolded the sheet of paper.

Mac,

I’m sorry I didn’t wake you. I knew you’d try to talk
me out of leaving and I was scared I’d let you. By the
me out of leaving and I was scared I’d let you. By the
time you read this, I’ll be gone. My stuff’s already in the
car—I just couldn’t leave without seeing you and making
sure you were okay.

What happened in the woods was a warning. You said I
got bonus points for saving you from a bullet, but I could
have scratched you in the process. I wouldn’t have been
able to live with myself if that had happened.

I’m too dangerous to be around anyone I care about.

And there’s nothing to say the Trackers won’t come back
or that someone won’t figure out what I am. If they do,
and you’re with me, you’ll be at risk. So will my parents. I
can’t take that chance.

I know you’ll be angry and hurt, but I also know you’ll
be all right. You’re always all right. And after enough
time has passed, you’ll realize this was for the best.

Kyle

PS: Keep an eye on Jason. He messed up, but he tried
to fix things. We probably wouldn’t have made it out of
the woods without him.

I tried to read the letter a second time, but the words blurred together.

He’d known. Downstairs, in Ben’s apartment, when I said he didn’t have to leave with the Trackers gone, Kyle had already made up his mind to disappear.

When he had stood by the window, his bags had been in the car downstairs. When he had wrapped his arm around me—when I told him I loved him—he’d just been waiting until I fel asleep told him I loved him—he’d just been waiting until I fel asleep before slipping away.

Choking back a sob, I crawled across the bed and grabbed my iPod from the nightstand. Fumbling, I hooked it up to my portable speakers and hit shuffle, hoping music would drown out the strangled noises trying to fight their way free of my throat.