“I came over to see Serena.”
“And I should let you in because . . . ?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Trey blamed me for what had happened to his sister, and it was blame I knew I deserved. I was the one who had asked Serena for help. I had asked her to come to Denver, kicking off a chain of events that had led to Thornhill’s detention block and to the project Warden Sinclair had dubbed “Willowgrove.”
I was the reason Serena had come back vacant and wild and broken.
Silence stretched out between us. “When did you get the bike?” I asked, after a long moment, hoping talk of his new toy would soften him.
It didn’t. If possible, his expression hardened into something even more severe. “It’s not mine.”
I almost asked him who the bike belonged to, but the look in his eyes stopped me.
Just when I was thinking I would have to text Serena to come let me in, Trey muttered something under his breath and stepped aside.
I hesitated, half convinced he would bite my head off—literally—if I crossed the threshold, but after a moment, I stepped into the house and pulled the door shut behind me.
As I followed Trey down the dingy front hallway, I had to step around and over boxes. I glanced in the living room: all of the Carsons’ secondhand furniture had been pushed to one side.
“Your dad found a new place?”
“Not exactly.” Trey paused at the foot of the stairs and leaned against the banister. He pressed his knuckles to the wood. Soft punches punctuated his words. “Trackers nabbed a werewolf and her boyfriend two blocks over last night. They put the boyfriend in a coma and a bullet in her head. Dad wants to get out of town—at least until after the rally. Our aunt lives in Charlotte. She’s taking Noah. Dad left this morning to drive him down.”
Noah was Serena and Trey’s kid brother. I frowned. “What about you and Serena?”
A muscle ticked along Trey’s jaw. “She doesn’t trust werewolves around her kids.”
I struggled to find something to say—anything to say—but Trey gave a stiff shrug and continued speaking while I was still fumbling for words.
“Dad was able to get a week off work. We’re just going to drive until we find some place we feel like stopping. The boxes are in case . . .”
“You decide not to come back.” I tried to keep my voice level, but the words wilted at the edges. Serena was one of my closest friends. My only female friend. I didn’t want to lose her again.
Trey watched me soberly. “Kyle should think about getting out, too. By the time the rally hits, the whole town will be a tinderbox.”
I thought about the number of dagger tattoos I had seen in the park. Trey was right: Hemlock wasn’t safe for any werewolf—especially not one who had killed the former head of the Trackers.
Suppressing a shudder at the thought of what the group would do to Kyle if they ever found out, I nodded and slipped past Trey.
“Dobs . . .” Trey’s voice stopped me when I was halfway to the top of the stairs.
I turned.
“It’s none of my business, but Kyle’s a decent guy. If you’re the only reason he’s sticking around . . .”
I tried to keep the anger and hurt from showing on my face. Did Trey really think I was so selfish that I would put Kyle in danger just to keep him by my side? “You’re right,” I said softly, “it’s none of your business.”
I jogged up the rest of the stairs.
The floorboards creaked as I made my way to Serena’s room. I raised my hand to knock, but her smooth voice cut me off. “It’s open.”
Like the rest of the house, Serena’s room was in serious need of new paint, but her father and brothers had tried to make the space cheerful. A bright-pink comforter covered the bed while turquoise lace framed the window. A pair of oversized wicker lawn chairs sat in the far corner, each heaped with purple cushions. The only thing in the room that lacked color was Serena herself. Since Thornhill, she’d worn only black or gray, never the bright clothing that had always seemed like an extension of her personality.
It was as though the camp had washed her out. Or like she was trying to fade away.
I walked into the room, and my steps faltered. Serena was curled up in one of the wicker chairs and she had company.
Jason rose from the other chair. His green eyes were bloodshot and there were dark circles underneath them, as though he hadn’t slept in days. Had he looked this worn-out yesterday at school? I racked my brain and realized I had barely seen him. We had exchanged a handful of words in the hall between classes, but that was all.
“Mac. Hey.” There was a slight, awkward catch to his voice. “I just came over to see how Ree—Serena—was doing.”
My gaze darted to Serena. “Ree?” It was a pet name—one Serena’s family used. It sounded strange coming from Jason.
Serena lowered her legs to the floor and sat up a little straighter. I tried not to notice how thin she was, how her knees and elbows were like sharp points under her clothes. Her ultrashort hair—another holdover from the camp—gave her face an elfinlike quality, and the slight hollows in her cheeks made me wonder if she had stopped eating again.
But her eyes were sharp and alert. It was a marked change from a month ago. For the first few days after Colorado—the first two weeks, really—Serena had alternated between a horrible sort of vacantness and wild, almost feral outbursts. Being back with her family had helped. There were still moments when she seemed to disappear inside herself, when flashbacks tangled with reality and left her frightened and confused, but the time between those moments seemed to grow steadily longer.
She glanced at Jason. “He was trying to drag me out. He claims going to school doesn’t count as leaving the house.”
“It doesn’t.” I stared at Jason, trying to reconcile the sight of him in Serena’s room. “Wait—that’s your bike in the driveway?”
He ran a hand through his short blond hair. “Not exactly. I sort of borrowed it from the new dealership.”
In addition to owning a huge amount of the commercial real estate in Hemlock, Jason’s father owned a chain of car and motorcycle dealerships. I cringed. “Your dad will just love that.”
“He’ll barely notice.” Jason shrugged. The gray T-shirt he wore left the black dagger on his neck exposed. The tattoo was incomplete—Jason had never become a full-fledged Tracker—but it was hard to look at the mark and not think of what was happening in the park.