Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (31 page)

Like wind chimes
, I thought, dazed. A wave of bile rushed up my throat as Kyle pushed his way forward.

I followed on shaky legs, oblivious to the people I collided with as I made my way to the edge of the crowd.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the bodies. Four were in wolf form. Three were not.

The Trackers hadn’t set up many lights in this corner of the park, but there was one just a few feet from the west entrance. It lit the bodies like a spotlight.

One figure had been hung slightly higher than the others. Red hair. Small build. Cherry-red Doc Martens.

Black spots danced in front of my eyes. This wasn’t real.

Be safe.
That was the last thing Eve had said to me.

Despite the crowd in the park, there was a large circle of open space in front of the arch, almost as though the bodies
were too much even for most of the Trackers.

The scream came again, pulling people’s attention away from the stage.

Someone shoved me aside in an effort to see what was happening.

“Jesus . . .” said a female voice just as someone else asked what the hell was going on.

Clearly, not everyone in the park knew about the bodies. The western arch wasn’t visible from most parts of the square, and people were focused on the giant video screens. It was possible most people at the rally didn’t know what had happened.

I crossed the empty space. A tremble started in my core and grew in intensity with every step until my whole body shook. Dimly, I registered a female reporter and a cameraman standing in the shadows between two trees, but they were small blips on the edge of my consciousness.

Jason was sprawled on the ground. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and he seemed to be having trouble pushing himself to his feet.

Normally, the sight of Jason bleeding on the ground would have sent me running straight to his side, but I spared him only a second’s glance before my gaze locked on Kyle and Serena. On Trey.

Trey’s body was the second to the left, right next to Eve.

Like the others, Trey had a rope around his neck, but that wasn’t what had killed him. The front of his shirt was torn in a dozen places and stiff with dried blood. He had been shot. More than once.

There was more dried blood on his hands and face. Dark patches against his dark skin. His eyes were open but completely devoid of everything that had made him . . .
Trey
.

How long had he been here, like this? An hour? Two? Long enough for the blood to dry. Long enough for the muscles in his body to begin to stiffen.

The body jerked and swayed in a sickening dance as Kyle tried to pull Serena away.

For a moment, I thought she was trying to haul her brother down, but then I realized she was supporting his weight, trying to push him up. It was what you saw people do on TV when someone tried to hang themselves. They lifted the weight so the other person could breathe. But Trey didn’t need breath. Not anymore.

Kyle managed to pull one of Serena’s hands free and she shoved him. Hard.

That explained how Jason had ended up on the ground.

Angry rumbles started in the crowd behind us.

“Serena . . .” I approached her slowly, hands held up. I swallowed as my vision blurred. “I’m sorry—
I’m so sorry
—but there’s nothing—”

“I’m not leaving him like this.” The words were a snarl as the rumbles in the crowd turned to shouts.

“Wolf lover!”

“Fleabag!”

“Hang her up next to him if she cares so much!”

I turned toward the words. So far, only a small portion of the Trackers in the park were aware of us, but more were drifting this way. I scanned the growing number of faces,
looking for any sign of Sinclair or Donovan.

Kyle moved in front of us, placing himself between us and the crowd as Jason climbed unsteadily to his feet and went to his side.

“Boost me up.”

Kyle looked at him like he was crazy. “What about your leg?”

“Just boost me up,” repeated Jason, hauling a Swiss army knife from his pocket as he backed toward the arch.

With a nervous glance at the crowd, Kyle followed. He laced his fingers together and squatted down so Jason could step onto his hands, then lifted him up.

Jason made an unsteady grab for the rope holding Trey, and Serena caught her brother’s weight as he sawed through the rope.

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she stretched Trey out on the ground. She looked small and lost—even more lost than she had looked in the detention block at Thornhill. A horrible, keening sob came from deep within her chest as she tried to smooth out the wrinkles on her brother’s bloodstained shirt.

Careful, Dobs
, Trey’s voice drifted back to me through the fog of memory.
Nice girls aren’t supposed to worry about guys like me.

Even though I was outside, it felt like there wasn’t enough air. I hauled in deep breath after deep breath and it wasn’t enough.

The packs had sent wolves to the rallies; where the hell were they? They couldn’t all be in the cage. Surely some of
them had been in the park when this had happened. Why hadn’t they stopped this?

I thought of the image I had seen of Hank in Atlanta and felt a flash of hate so deep that it sliced me to the core. If he had been here with Eve instead of sending her to Hemlock on her own . . .

You know this is your fault, too
, added a little voice in the back of my head.
Trey and Eve are dead because you wanted to stay and look for the truth instead of leaving town when you had the chance.

“Mutt lovers!”

I looked up just in time to see Kyle deflect a beer bottle aimed at Serena.

“Mac! Give me a hand!” Jason had climbed onto the top of the arch and was struggling to maintain his balance as he cut Eve down.

My stomach lurched as her body fell toward the ground.

I caught her clumsily, tripping and falling with her weight. I fought to hold on while every fiber of my body tried to recoil at the touch of her rigid body and dead flesh.

Eve’s head fell back and hit the pavement with a dull crack.

It’s because they broke her neck
, I thought as a wave of dizziness washed over me.

That wasn’t all they had done: like Trey, her shirt was caked in old, dried blood.

My stomach rolled. Werewolves could heal almost any wound and could mend practically any bone. Hanging a werewolf might not guarantee death—even if the neck was
broken. They had hanged Eve and Trey and then shot them as insurance.

The ground was cold underneath me, but not as cold as Eve’s skin.

I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye and glanced up. The reporter and her cameraman were edging closer, trying to get a better shot of Serena cradling her brother’s body. My first instinct was to grab the camera and smash it, to keep them from using Eve and Trey as some sort of sick entertainment, but then I realized that I wanted them to film this. I wanted people to see what the Trackers were capable of. I wanted them to see the lives the Trackers destroyed.

Three men with daggers on their necks broke away from the crowd. Jason lowered himself from the arch, wincing as he put too much weight on his bad leg, and then walked forward to intercept them.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Sheffield?” The leader of the trio, a man in a
Hunt or be Hunted
hoodie, put a hand on Jason’s chest and shoved. He looked like the kind of guy you found scoring drugs on street corners. “You coming to the rescue of fleabag lovers now?”

“That’s her brother.” There was a low, dangerous undercurrent to Jason’s voice. “Infected or not, he’s still her family.”

Kyle stepped forward to back him up, but Jason gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.

“That doesn’t mean you had to cut him down,” continued
the man. “Every one of those fleabags deserves to be up there.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze slid from Jason to Serena. “Looks to me like maybe you’re starting to feel sorry for them.”

Jason shrugged and turned his back on the trio. “Maybe I am.”

“We’re not finished.” The man grabbed Jason’s shoulder to spin him around, and Jason came out swinging.

Jason had gotten the crap beaten out of him plenty of times, but almost always when drunk. When he was sober, he didn’t pull punches and he was quick on his feet. Even with his injured leg, he was more than capable of taking care of himself.

His first punch took the man on the jaw. A second punch to the gut and the man folded to his knees.

The man’s friends started forward but one look at Kyle and they froze.

Jason reached out and grabbed a fistful of hair. He pulled the Tracker’s head up, forcing him to look at the bodies still hanging from the arch. “You think this helps anyone? You think this makes a single reg safer?” He yanked up again, harder. “Do you really think they deserved this? For being infected? For an accident they couldn’t control?”

He let go so suddenly that the man fell onto his side.

“You’re going to pay for this. You’ll—”

Before he could get another word out, Jason kicked him so hard that he flipped over onto his back and retched.

Pain twisted Jason’s face as he fought to keep his leg
from buckling underneath him, but a split second later, a tight smile tugged at his lips, a smile that said the pain had been worth it.

Jason stared down at the man for a moment as Kyle went to his side, then he shifted his gaze to the semicircle of Trackers that had formed around us. “Anyone else want to try?”

No one moved, but no one turned away, either.

I glanced over my shoulder, to the street beyond the arch. The National Guard was staying out of the square, but they had erected a barricade and what looked like some sort of command center on the corner. They weren’t letting anyone in or out of the park on this side.

Disgust and hate flooded my chest. Their command post was within full view of the arch. They must have seen what was happening. Werewolves didn’t have legal rights; their deaths apparently hadn’t been worth risking a confrontation over.

How could people call wolves monstrous when regs were capable of standing by and watching something like this?

I forced myself to focus. I could give in to the fury and despair washing over me later. For now, I had to push it into a box.

The National Guard’s barricade cut off our nearest escape route. We were trapped between a wall of armed men and the thousands of Trackers occupying the park.

It wouldn’t take long for news of a wolf-related disturbance to reach Donovan and Sinclair. As insane as it was, I was more scared of them than the Trackers. I had to cut the
legs out from under them before they found us.

I pulled Eve’s pewter charm from my pocket. I had brought it to give back to her—I just hadn’t let myself consider the possibility that we would find her like this.

As gently as I could, I lifted her head and slipped the charm around her neck. Eve cared about the Eumon more than anything. Even in death, I knew she would want the charm to stay with her.

“Be safe,” I whispered.

Tears filled my eyes as I climbed to my feet. I brushed them away roughly. There was something I had to do.

“Kyle?” Nerves made my voice a rough croak.

He backed up slowly, not taking his eyes off the Trackers—most of whom were focused on Jason.

“I’m going to the AV booth.”

It was enough to pull his full attention. He turned to me, a firestorm in his dark eyes. “What? Mac—no.”

I wrapped my hand around the USB key. “One of us has to. Sinclair and Donovan are in the square and who knows how many men they have with them. If they catch us before one of us can do this, or if the Trackers round us up . . .”

Then we were lost. We were lost and the truth would be lost with us.

We couldn’t let that happen.

“I’ll go.” Kyle reached for the drive, but I stepped out of reach.

“I can’t protect Jason and Serena. You can.”

“Mac, I can’t just let you—”

“You have to. I need to do this. We need to see this
through.” He opened his mouth to argue and I cut him off. “You can’t always be there to protect me.” Just like I had to realize I wouldn’t always be able to protect him—no matter how hard I tried. I could hear Serena crying behind me and each sob was the twist of a knife. Leaving them felt like running away, but I didn’t have a choice. “
Please
, Kyle. I need you to look after them and get them out of the park. Head for the east entrance and get them to the RfW protest—they’ll be safer there. You can do that. I can’t. You have to let me go.”

I didn’t need his permission, but I did need him to understand. I couldn’t do what had to be done unless I knew he would protect Jason and Serena. Already, the decision was tearing me in two.

The Adam’s apple in Kyle’s throat jutted out as he swallowed roughly. He knew one of us had to get to the AV booth and that I was the logical choice—he just didn’t like it. Almost fiercely, he said, “I’ll get them out of the park and meet you there.” I knew how much the words—the decision—cost him: it was written across his face. “Wait for me at the booth. I promise I’ll meet you there.”

I pressed a quick kiss to his lips. Then, before either of us could change our mind, I ran for the wrought iron fence that encircled the park, following it in order to give the Trackers near the arch a wide berth.

I thought I heard Jason shout my name, but I didn’t look back. If I looked back, I wouldn’t be strong enough to leave.

Dead leaves crunched under my feet as I ran. The noise made me feel disturbingly conspicuous, and because of it,
it took me several minutes to realize I was being followed.

I whirled, expecting the warden or Donovan’s henchmen. Instead, I came face-to-face with the reporter from the arch.

She was alone, her cameraman nowhere in sight. Her tailored blazer and designer jeans made her stand out from the rest of the people in the park, but on closer inspection, the seam of her jacket was torn at one shoulder and the knees of her jeans were stained with something dark. Mud or blood—it was impossible to tell in the shadows.