“What about how hard this is on Mac? Have you thought about that?”
Kyle pulled free of Jason’s grip. “Stay out of it, Jason.”
“I can’t. I’ve spent the past four days watching her get her hopes crushed and listening to her cry when she thought I couldn’t hear.”
I froze. Our second night in Denver, I had given in to the tears I’d been holding back since leaving Hemlock. I’d tried to be quiet—locking myself in the bathroom and burying my face in a towel—and I had thought Jason was asleep, but he had heard.
He had heard and hadn’t said a word.
Jason didn’t look at me; he was totally focused on Kyle. “The guy I know would care about that.”
“You think I don’t care?” Kyle’s laugh was so bitter it sent shivers down my spine. “Everything I’m doing is because I care.”
He turned away.
He turned away and everything happened too fast.
Jason grabbed Kyle’s shoulder and Kyle shoved him. Hard. Harder than he meant to, judging from the shock that flashed across his face.
Jason stumbled six or seven feet, collided with one of the pool tables, and slid to the floor. A group of werewolves looked up from their game.
I stared at Kyle, angry and bewildered and beyond hurt. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen. “That’s your best friend.” My voice cracked. “He came to Denver to help find you and that’s your response?”
I went to Jason’s side and reached down to help him up. “You okay?” He hesitated, then took my hand and staggered to his feet.
“Sure,” he muttered. “My week’s not complete until someone hits me.” He shook his head as though trying to clear it, and the fabric at his neck gaped open. I stared, horrified, as his tattoo was fully displayed.
I quickly pulled his collar closed, but I was too late. One man was already setting down his pool cue. He swore under his breath as he drew closer.
A single word was tossed from wolf to wolf: Tracker.
Games and drinks were abandoned as a semicircle of wolves closed around us. Kyle and Serena yelled our names, but I couldn’t see them through the crowd.
Jason’s fingers tightened around mine, and my hip bumped the pool table as I stepped back.
“He’s a spy. They sent a spy.” I couldn’t see the speaker, but it didn’t matter: the accusation was picked up and passed along until every face reflected a dangerous combination of fear and anger.
Kyle managed to break through the throng. He put himself between us and the nearest wolves. “He’s not a Tracker.”
A heavyset man with a lion’s mane of gray hair stalked forward. The muscles in his arms moved under his skin. “He has the tattoo.”
Kyle repositioned himself so that he was partially blocking Jason from their view. His voice was steady but with an unmistakable undercurrent of desperation. “He didn’t go through the initiation. The tattoo’s not complete. He’s not one of them.”
“You expect us to believe you? After everyone saw you talking to him? What did you do, give him the address?”
“No one gave us the address,” I said breathlessly. I caught a glimpse of Serena as she tried to make her way to the front of the crowd. “We came with Eve. She knows we’re here.”
“Bullshit,” replied the wolf. “Eve would never let a Tracker in.” The wolves pressed forward, a noose tightening around our necks.
The back of Kyle’s shirt was damp with sweat and I thought I could see muscles twitch under the fabric. “I swear: he’s just an ordinary reg. Harmless.”
“And her?” rose a voice in the crowd.
Kyle glanced at me and hesitated. Which version of the truth would get us out of this unscathed?
The wolves didn’t wait for him to decide.
In a blur of motion, a woman—partially transformed with inhuman hands and teeth—broke through the throng and tore me away from Kyle and Jason. My knees collided painfully with the floor as she forced me down. Serena shouted my name a second before the woman shredded the collar of my shirt and jacket with her claw-tipped fingers. Cold air hit my neck as she pushed my head to the side, looking for the Tracker’s brand.
Kyle was on her in an instant. His face was a mask of fury, and for the first time, I looked at him and saw a man who had killed to keep me safe. He pulled the woman off of me but lost his grip when she started to shift completely.
Bones cracked, muscles tore, and clothing fell away until a wolf with fur the color of honey had taken the woman’s place.
I tried to stand, but someone grabbed me from behind and shoved me back to my knees.
“ENOUGH!” A roar split the air, and the silence that followed was deafening.
A man strode through the crowd, two gigantic rust-colored wolves padding at his side. I strained to glimpse his face, but a hand on the back of my skull forced my gaze to the floor.
The man placed himself between me and the bulk of the wolves. “Let her go.”
That voice. I knew that voice.
The pressure on my skull fell away. I looked up just as the man turned his back on me. He was tall and lean and he held himself like someone who was used to violence. His hair, black with hints of gray, just grazed the collar of a flannel shirt.
The set of his shoulders and the way he tilted his head to the side were horribly familiar, but I couldn’t see his face.
“They’re Trackers, Curtis.” The wolf with the gray hair stepped forward. “He has the brand.”
Relief washed over me. The voice hadn’t really been familiar. Curtis. I knew how disposable names could be, but I seized it like a lifeline as I pushed myself to my feet.
“And you were what? Going to send him back in pieces? Start a war?” Each syllable was a threat.
The other wolf backed down and withdrew into the crowd.
Slowly, the wolves drifted away, returning to the pool tables and their drinks. My rescuer watched them go and then turned.
Legs threatening to buckle, I stared into my father’s eyes.
5
“HANK?” MY STOMACH DROPPED AS I TRIED TO WRAP MY mind around the man in front of me.
He grabbed my arm, and even though I had just watched him toss a werewolf across the room, I tried to twist away.
“That name died three years ago,” he said as his gaze locked on my friends.
Jason and Kyle were both on their feet. A trickle of blood ran from Jason’s mouth and he leaned against Kyle as though he couldn’t fully support his own weight. Kyle didn’t look much better. He ducked out from under Jason’s arm and Serena took his place.
Kyle stepped toward me, but at a shake of Hank’s head, three men blocked his path. “Keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t get into any more trouble.” Hank raised his voice so that it reached every corner. “No one touches them. For now.”
He crossed the room, pulling me in his wake. I tried to dig in my heels, but I couldn’t so much as slow him down. “I’m not leaving my friends!”
“I’m not giving you a choice.”
I thought I heard Kyle—or maybe Jason—yell something, but then Hank hauled me through an entrance and a door slammed shut behind us. He forced me down a drab gray hallway and then pushed me through another door.
I stumbled forward and barely caught my balance on a leather chair.
My father glanced at his hand. “I’m used to dealing with wolves.”
I rubbed my arm. The words almost sounded like an apology, but Hank never apologized. “You’re infected.”
He nodded. “Three and a half years. Almost four.”
That meant he had been infected while I was still living with him. That meant that one more aspect of my small, crappy life had been a lie.