Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (20 page)

Ben reached into his jacket pocket with his other hand. I flinched back, expecting a weapon, but he hauled out a folded sheet of bloodstained paper and pressed it into my hand. “Those are the ones I can remember. It’s why I came here. Had to make sure it didn’t happen again . . . that they couldn’t do it again . . .” He shook his head weakly. “I never wanted to lie to you and Tess. I never meant for you to get hurt.”

He had said those last eight words to me once before—right after he had forced me to the ground and slid a needle into my arm. “Maybe not, but you did and I was.”

Ben let go of my wrist.

I stumbled back as the muscles under his clothing began to twitch and writhe.

The movement lasted only a second and then stopped as Ben let out a long, ragged sigh. The damage to his body seemed to be preventing the shift, and without shifting, he
was too far gone to heal himself.

“You and my father are alike, you know.” The words were a low, pain-choked rasp. “The two of you are . . .”

But I didn’t get to find out what the two of us were. The light drained out of Ben’s eyes as his body went limp.

Something inside my chest twisted. I bit my lip, bit it so hard the tang of copper flooded my mouth. “Ben?” His name came out a whisper. He didn’t react. He was gone.

I wanted to feel relieved. Satisfied. He had killed Amy and would have killed me. All those weeks ago, I had trained a gun on his retreating form and hated myself when I couldn’t pull the trigger. He deserved to die for what he had done to Amy. For what he had done to Tess.

But . . .

Looking at him, the scene that flashed through my mind wasn’t that night in the woods, but a snowy Sunday morning, months and months ago, when Ben had stood at the stove in our kitchen, laughing as he made pancakes for Tess and me.

The study door burst open.

Four men—all wearing the black outfits of the party’s security staff—rushed into the room, Jason on their heels. Each of them came to a stop when they saw Ben. One man managed to tear his gaze away and go to the senator’s side, but the rest stood frozen, staring at the blood and Ben’s lifeless form.

After a handful of heartbeats, one of the men walked forward and knelt next to Ben’s body, checking for a pulse. He looked over his shoulder and shook his head.

Someone should have stopped me as I stumbled out of the room, but no one did.

No one looked at me. Not even Jason.

Never in my life had I needed fresh air so badly. The smell of blood clung to the insides of my nostrils and coated my throat and made it hard to breathe in and out.

I made it to the end of the hall on trembling legs, to the French doors that led outside. I fumbled with the lock. My hands were tacky with blood—
Ben’s blood
—and left a scarlet smear on the white paint.

Cool air surrounded me as I stepped outside, but no matter how deeply I inhaled, it failed to clear my head.

A wave of vomit rushed up the back of my throat. I stumbled to an oversized flowerpot in the nick of time. My stomach heaved and my throat burned and I struggled to keep my eyes open because every time I closed them—even just to blink—I saw Ben’s lifeless body lying in a sea of red.

After a while, when there was absolutely nothing left in my stomach to bring up, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

A scrap of white near my foot caught my eye and I bent to retrieve the paper Ben had given me. When I straightened, a wave of dizziness made my knees weak.

Even though it was November, the pool was uncovered. I crossed the deck and knelt at the edge of the shallow end. I set the paper aside and thrust my hands into the water, trying to scrub them free of Ben’s blood.

The effort felt futile, like my hands would never really be clean again.

Shivering, I wiped my palms on my dress, spying bloodstains on the fabric as I did. I hoped Jason hadn’t been planning on returning it.

I knew I should go back inside—it wouldn’t take Jason long to realize I had slipped out and I had no idea where Kyle was—but I couldn’t seem to make my legs work. Dimly, I wondered if I was in some sort of shock. It felt like what I imagined shock would be, like I was detached and everything around me was distant.

Ben had been at Van Horne.

I unfolded the paper he had given me. There were two sheets. The first was thin, almost translucent—a page torn from a Bible. I remembered the Bible I had seen at the church, the one with the pages missing.

I squinted at the tiny type in the light from the house.

It was from Isaiah. One verse had been circled in red.

Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

Great. Ben had killed Amy not just because her grandfather was a senator but because of something her father had been involved with. That was really fair; that was really just.

I shredded the piece of paper and threw the scraps into the pool. They floated on top of the water as I rubbed a hand over my eyes and turned my attention to the second sheet of paper.

Half the page was missing and what remained bore
two columns of names. Twenty in all, seven of which had been circled. Each name was followed by a four-digit number—four-digit numbers like we had all been assigned at Thornhill.

Those are the ones I can remember
—that’s what Ben had said. If experiments had been going on at Van Horne, too, these were probably the names of wolves they had used as guinea pigs.
It’s why I came here. Had to make sure it didn’t happen again . . .
I glanced at the pool, at the small pieces of torn Bible verses. What if Ben had been experimented on in Van Horne? His father had said something about the camps that night in the woods. Ben hadn’t wanted to hurt me, and Derby had said . . .

Remember why you agreed to do this . . .

I struggled to grasp the words as they hovered just beyond reach.

. . . so no one else . . . so no one else has to endure what you did inside the camps.

At the time, I had assumed he had been talking about the horrible conditions that plagued all of the rehabilitation camps—food shortages, violence, overcrowding—but what if he had been referring to something much worse?

I thought of how we had found Serena in the detention block. She had been so lost and in so much pain that she had been almost feral. If Ben had been in half her condition when he had gotten out, it would have been easy for Derby to twist him to suit his needs.

Derby had turned his son into a monster, but maybe CutterBrown had given him a head start. Maybe they had
done something so awful that Ben had willingly signed on for a killing spree to stop them.

I folded the list of names and tucked it into my dress as I pushed myself to my feet. I had to find Kyle and Jason. I had to let them know I was all right and tell them about Ben. I had to find them so we could get out of here.

I could hear sirens in the distance as I headed for the house. An ambulance for Senator Walsh, probably, and the police to investigate Ben’s murder and take his body away. The thought brought me to a sudden stop in the shadows.

To hurt a werewolf that badly, to wound him so critically before he could defend himself . . . you’d have to hit more than just an internal organ or two. A knife wouldn’t have done it. Even bullets might not have done the trick.

I flashed back to the junkyard, to the memory of Serena’s claws gutting that man as easily as a knife sliding through butter.

A spike of fear slid through me. What if there was another werewolf at the party?

Kyle couldn’t be here when the police arrived. It wouldn’t matter that he hadn’t been anywhere near the study. If a werewolf had been involved and anyone suspected, even for a second, that Kyle was infected—

Rough hands grabbed my shoulders and thrust me up against the house.

The bricks scraped my shoulders and dug into my spine. I struggled to break free but an arm locked across my chest.

I pulled in a deep breath, preparing to scream, just as the person holding me shifted his weight. Light from the
house lined the edge of his jaw and threw highlights over his blond hair.

“Stephen—”

I strained against him, but it was like trying to move a boulder. Desperate, I brought my right knee up, aiming for the one spot that reduced all boys to quivering lumps of Jell-O. The long skirt slowed me down, but the blow still connected with enough force that it at least should have made Stephen loosen his hold.

He didn’t so much as blink. “The blood on your dress: Where did it come from?” His voice was an unfamiliar growl.

My knees went weak as the truth crashed over me. If Stephen hadn’t been holding me against the wall, I would have staggered.

“You did that. In the study.” The words came out in a rush. “You’re infected.”

Surprise flashed across his face. Suspicion immediately followed. He opened his mouth, but before he could utter a single word, a shape rose out of the darkness behind him, ripping him away from me.

Kyle’s voice, thick with the promise of violence, sliced through the night. “Let her go.”

T
HE GNARLED GROVE OF CEDAR TREES ON THE EDGE OF
the golf course had always been one of Amy’s favorite places. It bordered one of the water traps and was barely visible from the road. The tree trunks were so twisted that some of them curved down toward the ground and formed natural benches.

It was a strange place to discuss evil corporations and secret medical tests, but it wasn’t like we’d had many places to choose from. Though we were a ten-minute walk from Stephen’s, we could still see the lights in the distance—both those of the house and the far-off red-and-blue glow of police cars and ambulances. It was as far away as Stephen would go.

I think he would have insisted on staying even closer if the Trackers hadn’t started swarming the grounds surrounding the house. They had tried to keep us from leaving—until they realized who Stephen and Jason were.

They knew there had been a werewolf attack at the party, but no one suspected the grandson of Senator
Walsh—especially not when he was with Branson Derby’s former protégé.

I shivered. Both Jason and Kyle moved to shrug out of their jackets, but Kyle was faster and closer.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked as he draped the jacket over my shoulders.

I nodded and slipped my arms through the sleeves. “Yeah.” I wasn’t—not even remotely—but I would be. Since seeing Ben, though, I couldn’t stop shaking.

I glanced at Stephen. The dark fabric of his clothing hid most of the bloodstains. I pictured him doing that to Ben—
gutting Ben
—and the shivers grew a little worse. According to Stephen, he and his grandfather had walked in on Ben trashing the study. When the senator had tried to call for security, Ben had attacked.

Getting Amy’s brother to follow us to the grove had been relatively easy—at least once the Trackers had arrived. Keeping Stephen here and getting answers out of him? That was proving a lot harder.

His attention kept drifting back to the flashing lights. I couldn’t blame him. A short walk away, his grandfather was fighting for his life.

“He’ll be all right,” I said, momentarily putting aside my suspicions and distrust. As freaked out as I had been by what I’d found in Stephen’s car this morning—as scared as I had been when he pushed me up against the house—he was still my best friend’s brother. “Your grandfather is tough.”

Stephen glanced at me, eyes wide and a little surprised, like my words were the last thing he expected. “Thanks.”
He straightened his shoulders as his gaze shifted to Kyle. “You asked me about Van Horne a few minutes ago. It’s a camp, that’s all I know.”

“But you did know about Thornhill.” Leaning against a tree with his arms folded loosely across his chest, Jason looked casual, but the tension radiating off of him was so strong it seemed to make the shadows around him darker. He had been the most reluctant to consider the possibility of a connection between Amy’s family and the camp, but he seemed to be taking the bombshell of Stephen’s infection—and the revelation that Amy’s brother had been hiding his condition for two years—almost personally. “Mac found a pamphlet from Flagler in your car. You were there just before the camp opened.”

“Is that why you ran away this morning?” Stephen’s brows rose as he looked at me. “Because I’d been in Flagler?”

“Because you were in Flagler and you work for CutterBrown,” I corrected.

Genuine confusion—at least what looked like confusion—filled his eyes. “Why would my being there have anything to do with CBP?”

“Let’s cut the bullshit.” Jason pushed off from the tree. His eyes seemed to glint in the moonlight as he drew closer. “CutterBrown was testing a cure for LS at Thornhill and using the inmates as guinea pigs. You really expect us to believe you were there and it had no connection to your dad’s company?”

Stephen’s face—already pale—turned ashen at Jason’s words. “They were testing a cure? On inmates? And you
think CBP was involved?” He shook his head, the gesture sharp. “Not possible.”

“They weren’t just testing a cure,” I said. “They were torturing people.” The thought of Sinclair and what she had done filled me with so much anger that it made my voice shake. “They pumped them full of drugs and then hurt them to see how long it took them to shift, how effective their cure was. They strapped them to tables and broke their bones and injected them with poison. And the wolves who weren’t strong enough—the ones who died during their tests—were taken out into the woods and dumped like garbage.”

An ache formed in the pit of my stomach as I thought about the small cemetery in the woods behind Thornhill.

“There are a lot of rumors about the camps,” said Stephen, making no effort to hide his skepticism. “No one knows how many of them are true.”

“It’s not a rumor. I was there. We all were.” I crossed my arms and huddled deeper in Kyle’s jacket. “We saw the tests and the wolves they experimented on.”

Stephen’s gaze darted from me to Jason and back again. “You’re regs. How did—”