Hemlock (5 page)

“Mac?”

“Mmmhmmm?”

“Do you think it’s my fault?”

“No.”

“If I had been there . . . with her . . .”

It was the what-if game. We al played it. We couldn’t get away from it.

Even though it was warm in the room, I drew my blankets a little tighter around myself. “It’s not your fault.”

“Okay.”

Jason was quiet for a few minutes, and I started to drift off again.

“I’m going to find it.”

“Uh-huh.” I struggled against the current of fatigue that was dragging me under. “Wait. Find what?”

“The wolf that kiled Amy.”

“Jason . . .” Even if the new attack meant the wolf was back, Jason couldn’t go after it. Not on his own; he’d get himself kiled.

“I hear vendettas are going out of style,” I said, reaching out and fumbling until I found his hand. His skin was cold, almost as cold as Amy’s had been in my dream.

“Not for everyone. There are people who wil help.”

Something in his voice set off warning bels. I started to sit up, Something in his voice set off warning bels. I started to sit up, but he gently let go of my hand and pushed me back down. “Just go to sleep, Mac. You’re exhausted.”

“But . . .”

“Forget I said anything. I was only talking.” He stood.

“Actualy,” he said, “I think I wil go back to the couch.”

“Jason . . .”

He paused at my bedroom door. “Night, Mac.”

I swalowed. “Night.”

When I was certain he was settled on the couch, when I could no longer hear him moving around the living room, I grabbed my iPod from the nightstand and scroled through the videos until I found one that had been taken last November fourteenth. I needed an image of Amy, something to wipe out the nightmare.

I turned the volume down low enough that Jason wouldn’t hear and hit play.

Amy’s hand reached toward me. “Put the camera down, birthday girl.”

“No way,” came my voice from somewhere offscreen. “The second I stop taking pictures, you’re going to make me play kid games.”

Amy roled her eyes. “That’s the point, Mac. We’re at Chuck E. Cheese’s. Games are mandatory.”

I hit pause. Amy’s face filed the screen, whole and perfect and not at al like it had been in my dream. Her grin was huge, and a temporary glitter tattoo of a star adorned her cheek. I’d worn a matching one at her insistence.

She’d talked Tess into letting her throw me a birthday party at She’d talked Tess into letting her throw me a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese’s when I turned seventeen. She said it was to make up for al the nonbirthdays I’d had when I was with Hank. It had been lame and embarrassing and, somehow, just right.

With a shaky breath, I turned off the iPod and wiped my eyes with the corner of my sheet. Then I prayed.

Are you there, Amy? It’s me, Mac.

She didn’t answer.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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SHRILL BUZZING CUT THROUGH MY SLEEP, LEAVING MY leaving my dream in tatters. I threw back the covers, gasped as my bare feet hit the cold hardwood floor, and stumble-dashed to the intercom.

I hit the button to trip the downstairs lock and glanced around the living room. There was no sign of Jason. I grabbed a white hoodie from the laundry basket Tess had left near the door and puled it on over the tank top and shorts I had worn to bed.

puled it on over the tank top and shorts I had worn to bed.

I opened the door, wrinkling my nose at the smel of stale cigar smoke from the apartment across the hal. “I overslept!” I caled. “I totaly forgot to set my alarm.”

“You didn’t. I’m early.”

I surveyed the sight before me as Kyle hit the top of the stairs.

“Wow,” I said, crossing my arms to ward off the chil from the halway. “You look horrible.” I stood to the side and Kyle walked in.

He shrugged and headed for the kitchen. I folowed and watched him search for coffee. “Second cupboard,” I reminded him.

Kyle’s clothes were rumpled. He had dark circles under his eyes, and he was moving stiffly. His shaggy, brown hair was a mess and he hadn’t shaved. Kyle usualy looked slightly disheveled in a vaguely sexy way—like an artist or the bassist in a band—but right now he looked as though he had slept in a ditch.

“You weren’t in a fight, were you?”

“No.”

“Did you go over to Heather’s?”

“Yes.” He spooned coffee into a filter without looking at me.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not realy.” He raked a hand through his hair and met my eyes.

“That al right?”

If it had been a fight with his ex, it was probably best if I knew as little as possible. Heather hated me. With a vengeance. Kyle’s girlfriends always did.

girlfriends always did.

I squinted at the clock on the microwave: 6:45 a.m. “Didn’t you go home at al?”

“Mac . . .”

“Al right. Dropping subject.” I leaned tiredly against the counter and tried not to shiver. Living in a building that dated back to the 1880s might be great for atmosphere, but it was drafty. Plus, every muscle in my body was crying for more sleep; it wasn’t like I had gotten a lot of rest with everything that had happened last night.

Not that I was in a hurry to tel Kyle about Jason and Trey—

especialy since it already seemed like he was in a bad mood.

“Did you at least cal your mom?”

Kyle shrugged. “I told her I’d be out late.”

I knew the rules were different for guys—less chance of them getting jumped at 3 a.m. and no chance of them getting knocked up in the back of a Honda—but I also knew Kyle’s mom stil worried, especialy after the werewolf attacks last spring. And I liked his mother. Unlike Jason’s parents, Kyle’s had always been realy nice to me.

“Cal her,” I insisted. “I’ve got to get dressed, anyway.” I headed to my room before he could argue. As comfortable as I was around Kyle, I drew the line at hanging out in my PJs.

Not that the sight of me in a tank top and boxers would have any effect on him. Kyle was only peripheraly aware that I was a girl. That was one reason we’d always be strictly platonic. Even if I wanted to go there—which I didn’t—Kyle didn’t seem to realize there was a “there” to go to.

Ten minutes later, I was fuly dressed with deodorant under my Ten minutes later, I was fuly dressed with deodorant under my arms and a freshly washed face.

“Cereal?” I asked.

Kyle nodded.

I moved around the kitchen, splitting the last of a box of Cheerios between two bowls and dousing each with a generous amount of milk as I tried to figure out how to tel Kyle about the new attack. “I saw Jason last night,” I ventured, cautiously, as I set the milk back in the fridge.

Kyle grunted.

I turned and passed him a bowl. “You’re stil not speaking?”

“Not so much.”

“It was an accident.” Last Saturday, Jason had gotten drunk and picked a fight. If Kyle hadn’t jumped in, Jason probably would have ended up in the ER. They hadn’t spoken since. I, of course, was stuck in the middle.

Kyle shrugged and walked over to the smal, two-seater breakfast table. “Scratching a CD is an accident. Dragging your best friend into a brawl against three varsity footbal players is practicaly manslaughter.”

“At least they weren’t linebackers,” I pointed out, taking the seat across from him.

“Why do you keep making excuses for him?” Kyle sounded tired. “It doesn’t help him, you know.”

I traced patterns in my cereal with my spoon. “I’m just trying to cut him some slack. It’s not like I’ve given him a permanent ‘get out of jail free’ card.”

“No. That’s what his father’s money is for.” It was hard to

“No. That’s what his father’s money is for.” It was hard to frown with a mouthful of Cheerios, but for the next few minutes, Kyle managed. Eventualy, he said, “It’s not like he was the only one who cared about Amy.”

“You know it’s different.” Suddenly, I wasn’t very hungry. I couldn’t think about Amy and do something as mundane as eat. I pressed my hands to my abdomen and focused on the faux wood grain of the tabletop, trying to quel the sick feeling I stil got whenever I talked about how Amy had died. “He saw her body.

Anyone would be messed up after that. Think about how you’d feel if a werewolf kiled Heather.”

Kyle’s spoon clanged to the floor and I looked up, startled. “I mean . . . if you and Heather were stil together,” I clarified, not entirely sure what I had said to freak him out.

And he was definitely freaked. In fact, Kyle looked like he had been sucker punched.

Before he could say anything, the front door opened and Tess slumped into the apartment.

“There’s coffee,” I said.

She shook her head. “Too tired,” she mumbled. “Just want my bed.” She tossed her jacket over the back of the couch, dropped the morning paper onto the kitchen table, and stumbled down the hal to her room.

I waited until I heard the noise from the smal TV Tess kept in her bedroom. She always needed background noise to help her sleep.

“There was another werewolf attack,” I said, figuring there was

“There was another werewolf attack,” I said, figuring there was no good way to say it. I gave Kyle the CliffsNotes version of what Jason had told me.

He stared at the ceiling, like he expected it to open up and give him answers. “It could just be someone who was infected last spring and who didn’t turn themselves in. The attack could have been an accident. A wolf who just lost control.”

Back when werewolves were just creatures in scary stories—

back before the government announced the existence of lupine syndrome—everyone always said they transformed during a ful moon. Real werewolves could shift any time, at any place. Fear and anger were two big triggers. The better a person was at controling their emotions, the better they were at controling the shifts. Supposedly, control got easier with practice.

Kyle met my eyes. “Or else the wolf is back.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure I can even think about that.” I wanted them to find the wolf that had kiled Amy, but I didn’t want the attacks to start again. I didn’t want anyone else to go through what we had.

I reached for the paper Tess had left on the table, hoping there’d be something about the attack in its pages despite Jason’s theory that the police were keeping it quiet. A bal of lead settled into my stomach as I scanned the front page. Everything Jason said to me when I was half-asleep came crashing back.
I’m going to
find it. The wolf that killed Amy. There are people who will
help.

“What is it?” asked Kyle.

I handed him the paper and swalowed. “The Trackers are in I handed him the paper and swalowed. “The Trackers are in Hemlock.”

Kyle puled into the school parking lot and found a spot behind a BMW with a Go Coyotes! bumper sticker. Next to the BMW, Kyle’s ancient Honda looked severely outclassed. Almost everyone from the north side of town went to Kennedy, even though their parents were always complaining about the need for another high school in that part of town.

I climbed out of the car, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and glanced up at the hulking, three-story building. KHS had been constructed out of plain, light-brown bricks and had been designed by someone who obviously felt straight lines and neat blocks were an architectural religion. It had about as much personality as an IRS office.

“Promise me you’l talk to Jason,” I said as we navigated our way toward the front steps through a sea of American Eagle.

Kyle opened his mouth to object, but I cut him off. “The Trackers are seriously bad news and you’ve always been the best at talking sense into him.”

The Trackers claimed to be the ultimate community watch for the werewolf age. They proactively went after people infected with LS, rounding them up and shipping them off to government-run rehabilitation camps.

But the werewolves didn’t always make it to the camps alive, and even regs—regular humans—had a habit of getting hurt when the Trackers were around.

the Trackers were around.

People jokingly caled them exterminators. If only they knew.

I slid an elastic off my wrist and puled my hair into a messy bun at the nape of my neck. The September morning was chily and overcast, but a trickle of sweat ran down my spine. Amy wasn’t the first person I cared about who had been murdered.

We couldn’t let Jason get involved with them.

Kyle shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He looked better than he had when he’d turned up at the apartment; I’d made him comb his hair and shave. He hadn’t been thriled with the idea of using a pink Classic Lady Bic, but he did it to shut me up. “Jason and I are barely speaking. He’s not going to care about anything I have to say. Not for a while.”

“Please, Kyle. Hank always used to say that smal warning signs paved the way for big trouble.”

Kyle snorted. “Mac, your dad was probably talking about knocking over liquor stores and grand theft whatever.”

I opened my mouth to toss back a snarky retort, but the words died on my lips. Three men—too old to be students—were hanging around the main doors. One of them was surreptitiously snapping pictures of the crowd with his phone.

He turned his head to say something to the man on his left, and I caught a glimpse of the tattoo on his neck: A red
T
over a black dagger. The official Tracker crest. The last time I had been this close to one of those tattoos, I’d been nine and living with Hank.

Eight years later, I stil had nightmares about it.

I could think of only one reason they’d be hanging around the school and taking pictures: they were searching for students school and taking pictures: they were searching for students infected with LS. Every muscle in my body tensed as my pulse started to race.

Somehow, I made it past them and through the doors. The familiar sights and sounds of the main lobby surrounded me—the glass wal of the administration office, the bank of pay phones, the academic pennants hanging from the rafters—but it was almost like another image was overlaid on top of everything: a block of run-down tenements surrounded by cracked pavement and broken glass.