Hemlock 03: Willowgrove Read Free

states where killing a werewolf wasn’t illegal, leaving crowds free to act without fear of repercussion—as long as the target of their violence really was infected. Dozens—maybe even hundreds—of wolves had been murdered since the breakout.
    My father, Hank, had warned me this would happen. I should have known he’d be right.
    Most of the violence hadn’t hit Hemlock. Yet. It was concentrated in cities with wolf packs and large pockets of infected people. But it was only a matter of time—especially with the Trackers in town.
    I pressed my palms to the concrete ledge that encircled the rooftop as I counted burning buildings and listened to the distant echoes of shouts and screams. The anonymous city below fell into chaos and all I could do was watch.
    I had done this. It had been my idea to take down Thornhill. All of this death and destruction was the result of my actions.
    “Martyr, much?”
    I turned as Amy stepped out of the shadows. Even though it was November, she was wearing cutoffs and a sleeveless gray shirt. Her pale skin seemed to glow in the moonlight, and her knees were scraped raw and bloodstained.
    I should have known she would turn up in a place like this. In death, she lived for places like this.
    The air around her shimmered and changed as she crossed the rooftop. Empty space became white tile walls. Darkness became blinding fluorescent lights. The smell of smoke was drowned out by the scent of bleach.
    The detention block at Thornhill. The place where dozens of wolves—including my friend Serena—had been tortured in Warden Winifred Sinclair’s crazed search for a cure to lupine syndrome. The place I had seen in dreams every night since the breakout.
    I shook my head and stepped back. “I don’t want to be here.”
    Amy raised an eyebrow. “And I do?” She tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear and the light caught a flash of silver at her wrist—a bangle her brother had brought her back from Mexico one spring break.
    She stared at me expectantly, but then, instead of waiting for a reply, grabbed my hand and began dragging me toward the control room. My heart rate spiked as I tried to pull away. I didn’t want to go in there. I didn’t want to see videos of Serena being tortured. Not again.
    But Amy was always stronger than I was in dreams. No matter how I resisted, I couldn’t stop her from pulling me through the door and toward the only source of light in the room: a bank of nine computer monitors. “You need to see,” she said.
    “I’ve already seen.” I tried to twist away. It wasn’t any use.
    “Not the videos.”
    She let go so suddenly that I stumbled forward.
    “What do you mean?”
    Eight of the monitors displayed a screen saver of the camp logo. The ninth showed an image of Serena behind a metal table, her shirt torn and her eyes wide. The video had been taken the night we arrived in the camp, after we had been separated. I glanced over my shoulder. “Besides the videos, what else is there?”
    “Just look, Mac. Please. I need you to look.” Amy’s voice was uncharacteristically tired and small, so un-Amylike that I couldn’t refuse it.
    Chest tight, I focused my attention back on the screen. Serena’s image filled the monitor—well, almost filled it. Six or seven icons cluttered the taskbar and a spreadsheet was open behind the video player.
    “There isn’t anything else here.” But as I spoke, my gazewas drawn to the upper left-hand corner of the spreadsheet, where a small splash of black—what looked like part of a logo—was just visible beneath the other open windows.
    Amy closed the distance between us. Leaning in so close that her breath left a layer of frost on my cheek, she said, “Everyone always sees more than they remember. And sometimes people see things they’re not ready to accept.”
    I woke with a start, disorientated and confused. I wasn’t in my bedroom and I wasn’t back in the dormitory at Thornhill. There was a weight across