Slowly, steps heavy, I walked back to the pastor’s office.
Serena didn’t open her eyes as I stepped into the room. Her face glistened with sweat and her breathing was labored. Her cracked lips formed words that were too soft for me to catch.
I crossed the room and leaned over her.
“I promise I’ll be good. Clean my plate and wash away the dirt. You don’t have to leave me here. Please don’t leave me here.” Tears leaked out from under her closed lids. “I can be good.”
“Serena?” Tentatively, I touched her shoulder. “It’s okay. You’re not there anymore. You’re safe.”
She flinched at my touch but then grew calm. Her breathing evened out and she seemed to slip deeper into sleep. I watched her for a few moments and then lowered myself to the floor next to the couch.
I tugged the extra blanket around my shoulders as my eyes roamed over the prints and posters on the walls. Like the furniture, they apparently hadn’t been worth taking when the building was cleared out.
My gaze lingered over a framed Bible verse. “‘What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’” I read the line in a whisper. Mark 8:36.
The words were set in white on a black background and reminded me of the banners at Thornhill—the ones extolling the virtue of control.
“Amy . . .” I whispered her name as I pulled my legs to my chest and rested my forehead against my knees.
After we had found out who killed Amy and why, I had expected the dreams to stop. When they hadn’t—when the dreams followed me to Thornhill—I had assumed they were the by-product of guilt at letting her killer escape and fear of losing Kyle and Serena in the camp.
All along, I had assumed the dreams were a trick of my subconscious. A fun-house mirror version of Amy dredged up by my mind to hurt me.
What if I had been wrong?
What if some part of Amy was still here? What if something she had known was keeping her here? What if something connected to CutterBrown was keeping her here?
Her voice drifted back to me from my dream. Just look, Mac. Please.
“Amy . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut and waited, but she stayed just out of reach.
8
“MAC . . .”
The weight of a hand on my shoulder. A familiar voice calling my name. I curled into the touch, still half locked in sleep.
“Trey!” The voice rose to a shout. “They’re in here!”
Serena. The church.
I jolted back to reality with a gasp.
I had a second to register Kyle’s deep-brown eyes and the relief that flooded them before he pressed his lips to mine in a kiss that tasted faintly of smoke and salt.
My vision blurred, tears fragmenting his face as he pulled back. He was here. He was all right.
I wiped my eyes roughly with the heel of my palm.
Kyle looked dirty and exhausted, but otherwise okay.
His gaze swept over me, cataloguing each scrape and bruise. “Are you all right?”
I nodded as Trey burst through the door.
Trey’s gaze locked on his sister. “What the hell happened?” he asked, going straight to her side.
Kyle stood and helped me to my feet. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, holding me close.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “She tried to shift in the junkyard. She was only able to change her hand—just like every other time—but afterward, it was like she didn’t have any strength. She couldn’t even walk on her own. After a few minutes, she seemed okay, but once we got here, she just collapsed.”
I leaned into Kyle and shivered. “She keeps drifting in and out. She was burning up. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Ree?” Trey called his sister’s name softly as he crouched next to her. Gently, he took her hand and checked her pulse. “Her heart is beating too slowly. Like a reg’s.”
Pain and worry filled his face. His expression was so unguarded and raw that watching it felt like intruding on something private.
I looked away; as I did, the realization that there were four of us in the room, not five, hit me like a slap. “Where’s Jason?” I eased away from Kyle as a wave of dread swelled in my chest.
“He’s okay,” said Kyle, putting his hand on my shoulder. “We ran into a group of Trackers and they dragged him out on a hunt.”
I stared at him, wondering how his definition of okay could be so radically different from mine.
“There was a riot downtown,” Kyle continued; “that’s part of why it took us so long to get to you. By the time we dodged the cops and were sure we hadn’t been followed from the junkyard, we got caught up by the mobs. There was fighting all the way up to Elm Street.”
My heart lurched. “Tess?”
“She’s all right.” He slid his hand down my arm and then threaded his fingers through mine. “We went by the apartment building.”
“Thank you.” I let out a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “What about your parents?”
“They’re okay. The violence hasn’t spread across the bridge.” His gaze hardened and the light from the candles wreathed his eyes in flame. “Trackers grabbed a suspected wolf at a bar. They practically beat him to death. A few locals tried to step in and it turned into a free-for-all. The bars downtown closed early to try and avoid more trouble, but all that did was drive a bunch of half-drunk, overexcited people into the streets.”
A large inebriated group with nothing to do and plenty of pent-up anger and fear? No wonder things had gotten out of control.
“We need to get out of Hemlock,” said Trey. Serena stirred in her sleep and he adjusted the blanket over her before pushing himself to his feet. The look on his face as he turned to Kyle and me was filled with threats and barely contained anger. “Before things in town get worse. Before whoever sent those men to the house track us down. I won’t let them get near her a second time.”
I swallowed. “I spoke to my father. Someone went after three other wolves from the detention block last night. He wants us to go to Colorado. To the Eumon. Eve is on her way here. She should reach town by morning.”
“What makes him—or you—think my sister will be safe with his pack?” The look Trey shot me was scathing. “In case you’ve forgotten: she was with his pack when she was caught and shipped off to Thornhill.”