If the senator knew why his granddaughter had really died, would he change his stance back? If he had seen the torture the wolves had been running from at Thornhill, would he still want them hunted down like they were something less than human?
Heart heavy, I grabbed the remote from the kitchen counter and turned off the television. As much as I wanted a quiet day with Tess, I owed it to Serena and Kyle and everyone else who had been at the camp to figure out if there was anything behind the symbol from my dream. The symbol I had seen in the detention block. It could be nothing, but it might be part of the puzzle that was Thornhill. And maybe, if I figured it out, some of the dreams would stop.
I scribbled an apology to Tess on the notepad by the phone and then grabbed my jacket and headed for Serena’s.
“Protect yourself and your fellow regs!” A woman tried to block my path as she forced an object into my palm. I jerked my hand away and stepped around her.
Once I was safely around the corner, I uncurled my fingers. A Hunt or be Hunted button. It was a phrase used by the Trackers—one they emblazoned on everything from T-shirts to posters. I tossed the button into the next garbage can I passed and then paused to wipe my palm on my jeans.
I glanced up. I had stopped in front of the music store—closed a week ago after people found out its owner was infected—and the street behind me was reflected in its dark windows. Though the sidewalks were crowded with people rushing to and from Riverside Square, a hauntingly familiar figure stood perfectly still on the other side of the street. Watching me.
Ben.
His blond hair fell over his forehead, obscuring his gray eyes. His jeans were torn at the knee and his hands were shoved deep into the pockets of a battered leather jacket. As he watched me in the window, his mouth curved up in a small smile.
A shudder rocketed down my spine as my heart rate shot sky-high.
I whirled, struggling for breath as I desperately scanned the street.
No one was watching me. Ben wasn’t there.
It was just my mind playing tricks on me. Just a ghost.
I willed my heart to stop racing.
It wasn’t the first time I had imagined seeing Ben. It had happened in Denver and a few times since we’d been back in Hemlock. “Post-traumatic stress”—that’s what Kyle called it. I guess it didn’t get much more traumatic than being hog-tied in the woods by the man who had killed your best friend.
Still, each time it happened, I felt like I was going a little bit crazy.
Shivering, I tried to put it out of my mind as I resumed my trek to the park. A few flakes drifted through the air: it looked like winter was coming early this year.
The first winter without Amy, I thought. It didn’t seem possible that it had been more than half a year since her death.
The closer I got to Riverside Square, the more people I saw with black-dagger tattoos on their necks.
On Monday, the twelfth anniversary of the day lupine syndrome had officially been announced to the world, the Trackers would hold simultaneous “unity rallies” in major cities across the country—and Hemlock would be at the center of it all.
Thanks to the Thornhill breakout—and the resulting violence and paranoia sweeping the country—the Trackers were riding a massive surge in popularity, a surge they were milking for all the publicity, donations, and political clout they could get. There were other places the group could have chosen for the main rally—larger cities with bigger venues and the ability to better accommodate a huge influx of visitors—but the name “Hemlock” would forever conjure images of the worst werewolf murder spree in history. It was the location guaranteed to get them the most attention, and they were exploiting that by billing the Hemlock event as both a call to action against wolves and as a memorial to the victims of the attacks in the spring—victims the press had dubbed The Hemlock Four.
The mayor and most of the city council had pledged to deny permits for the rally—they were afraid it would turn into a riot—but they had caved when Senator Walsh loudly and publicly voiced his support for the event. The Walsh family were the biggest philanthropists in town; no one wanted to risk alienating them. Amy’s parents were even holding a private fund-raising gala the night before the rally to raise money for a memorial sculpture in Riverside Square—one that would be inscribed with the names of each of the Hemlock victims.
I passed a lamppost bearing a flyer with a picture of Amy above the word Remember and resisted the urge to tear it down. If it hadn’t been for the former head of the Trackers, she would still be here.
Not a single day went by that I didn’t wish I could tell people the truth about who had killed Amy and why, but no one would believe me—not without proof—and I couldn’t risk anyone finding out I had been in the woods the night Branson Derby had died. Derby had been killed by a werewolf. By Kyle. If anyone learned I had been there that night, they might start looking at the people closest to me. At Kyle or Serena or Trey.
I couldn’t risk that. I wouldn’t risk them. Not even for Amy.
All I could do was watch as the rally’s organizers used Amy’s death like a prop.
It was just one of the reasons I had been avoiding downtown—and the square where the rally would be held—all week.
Unfortunately, there was only one bus that went out to Serena’s neighborhood on Saturdays, and the stop that ran along the far side of the park was the easiest place to catch it.
I stepped through the wrought iron arch—one of three—on the square’s eastern edge, and tried to suppress the feeling that I had been dropped into enemy territory.
Normally, the only people in the park before noon on weekends were skateboarders, guys sleeping on benches, and the handful of die-hard chess players who met until snow covered their strip of checkered tables. But today, hundreds of people wandered the tree-lined paths and congregated on the grass. Some of them handed out flyers while others paused to watch as mammoth video screens—the kind you saw at outdoor concerts—were erected on three sides of the square.
I gave up trying to count the number of tattoos I saw as I made my way across the park.
Every once in a while, I spotted someone in an RfW—Regs for Werewolves—shirt, but they were few and far between. Advertising the fact that you supported equal rights for the infected in a town on the verge of an anti-werewolf rally was noble to the point of suicidal.
“There is no virus!”