“And they were acting like humans? They had guns and Tasers. They drove Serena out of her home and hunted her down. That’s not very human.”
Looking at him, I felt a sharp, aching sadness. Infected or not, Kyle was the most human person I knew. The best person I knew. I wished there was some way I could make him see that.
After a long moment, I lay back down and rested my head on his chest.
Eventually he put his arm around me.
“We’re not coming back here, are we?” I asked, changing the subject. “After tonight, we’re not coming back to Hemlock.”
“Not for a while,” Kyle said. I shivered and he held me a little tighter. “Those men aren’t just going to give up, and if they were able to find Serena, it won’t take them long to figure out who the rest of us are. Where we live. Who we know. It’s not like Serena has a ton of friends for them to sift through.”
My heart flipped and my stomach plummeted. With everything else going on, the thought that whoever had sent those men might try to track the rest of us hadn’t even occurred to me. “What if they go after Tess? Your parents?”
I went rigid in Kyle’s embrace as panic flooded me.
“They should be okay as long as we don’t try to contact them. They’ll watch our families in the hope they can lead them to us. As long as they can’t, they should be safe.” His voice was low and steady as he ran his hand over my shoulder and upper arm, trying to coax my muscles into unknotting.
I didn’t understand how he could be so calm. “You sound like you’re okay with it. Like leaving isn’t the end of the world.”
“I’m not okay with it,” he said. “But the last time I left, I thought I had lost everything. My past. My future. Everyone I cared about. This time, whatever happens, I have you.”
“You had me before,” I said softly. “You’ve always had me.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Yeah, but this time it finally sank in.”
I was quiet for a moment. “What happens when we get to Colorado?”
Trey hadn’t been thrilled at the idea of running to the Eumon, but we didn’t have a lot of options. We could strike out on our own—run away and try to hide—but there was no guarantee we wouldn’t be found. At least with the pack, we would have people backing us up—not that being part of a pack had helped those other wolves in Denver.
Kyle brushed a strand of hair back from my face. “What do you mean?”
“Like you said: those men aren’t just going to give up. Until we know who’s after Serena and why, how will we ever know when it’s over? What’s to say we’ll ever feel safe enough to leave the Eumon?”
“Maybe we won’t want to. There are worse things than being part of a pack.”
“For you and Serena and Trey, maybe, but what about me?” Thinking about myself at a time like this felt selfish, but I didn’t want any misunderstandings between us—not when Kyle still hadn’t decided whether or not he wanted to be a member of the Eumon. “The other wolves won’t accept me. Not really. I’ll always be Hank’s reg daughter or your reg girlfriend.”
And even if they did accept me, what would I do there? They were in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn’t be able to finish school or get a job. I would be the only person in fifty miles who wasn’t infected.
I would be with Kyle, but in a way, I would be alone.
Kyle sat up. His face was completely in shadow and his tone, when he spoke, was carefully neutral. “What do you want, Mac? Because right now we don’t have a lot of choices.”
“I know. But if we’re giving up everything, don’t you at least want to know why?” I thought of the newspaper downstairs. Again, I wanted to tell him. Again, I found myself holding back.
“Of course,” said Kyle, “but knowing won’t change the fact that we can’t stay here.”
We both lapsed into silence. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t go to the pack,” I said finally. “I’m just saying I don’t want the pack to be a permanent solution. Staying because we want to is one thing. Staying because we’re scared to leave just makes the pack a prison.”
“Werewolves carry prisons with us no matter where we go,” said Kyle. “We have to put up walls because if we don’t . . .” He sighed and lay back down without finishing the sentence. He didn’t sound angry—not exactly. Just tired and frustrated. He didn’t touch me and the few inches of space between us felt like a chasm. “We can talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “For now, let’s just try to get some sleep.”
I hesitated, but eventually nodded. “Okay.”
Still, no matter how many minutes ticked by, sleep evaded me.
“Kyle . . . ?”
“Yeah?” His voice came back heavy with sleep. After all, he had even more reason to be exhausted than I did.
“You really do have me. Always.”
I waited for his response, but he was already gone.
9
SNOWFLAKES STUNG MY CHEEKS AND CLUNG TO MY lashes. They covered frozen puddles and the remainders of makeshift memorials, turning the alley white.
The snow somehow made things more bearable. I still couldn’t bring myself to enter the gap between the buildings, but I could stand at the opening and look inside.
It was the closest I had managed to get.
“Someday, you won’t even think about it.” Amy stepped around me and into the alley. “You’ll be walking down the street, lost in thought, and you’ll pass the spot where I died without a second glance. Nothing lasts forever—not even guilt and grief.”
I was freezing, but she wore a yellow sundress and her feet were bare. Her only concession to the cold was one of her brother’s dress shirts, unbuttoned and tied over her midriff.
“Amy . . .” A lump rose in my throat and I struggled to speak around it. “Is CutterBrown tied to Thornhill? Is that why you showed me the detention block and the logo? Because of CBP and your dad?”
Instead of answering, she crouched down and plucked a teddy bear from under the snow. She shot me a small, sad smile as she stood. “I never wanted any of this, you know. My death . . . these nighttime visits . . . any of it. I didn’t know this was what would happen.”