Kathleen Peacock: Thornhill

I turned to tell Jason we should follow her, but he was already reaching for his keys.

“Are you sure you’ve never tailed anyone before?” asked Serena as she leaned between the front seats.

The ghost of a grin crossed Jason’s face. “Is that a compliment?” He pulled over and killed the engine before reaching across me for the pain pills in the glove compartment.

“Still hungover?” I asked.

“Just a headache.” He tossed back two pills. “Plus the whole getting-cut-up-with-a-bottle thing.”

“Don’t worry,” said Serena, patting his upper arm and smirking when he winced, “lots of women like men with mileage on them. Not me, personally, but lots of women.”

“If it keeps me off your list, I’ll add a scar or two.”

A block ahead, Eve slipped out of the Thunderbird and crossed the street. The neighborhood was filled with overgrown lots and ramshackle warehouses and had a serious postapocalyptic vibe, but she walked as though she were untouchable—all swagger and confidence and big boots.

She disappeared around a corner.

Jason stopped me as I reached for my door handle. “Give her a sec. You don’t want to spook her.”

Serena let out an exasperated sigh. “She’s a werewolf, not a horse.” Before Jason could object, she slid out of the car and started down the block, leaving us to follow.

Eve had parked across from a four-story brick building. It looked like an old factory, but there were no signs to identify it. The windows were all either boarded up or busted, and the whole thing was surrounded by an enormous chain-link fence.

I walked the length of the fence and turned the corner. It was completely unbroken. There were no openings or gates.

“I think she went over,” said Serena. “I can hear music coming from inside. . . .” She peered up at the fence. “It’s high, but I could definitely make it.”

Jason stared at her. “It’s at least fifteen feet.”

She shrugged. “So?”

He shook his head. “Just . . . wondering what it would actually take to keep one of you out.” He ran his fingers over the fence. “Too thick for wire cutters. Why would anyone build a fence without a gate?”

Rough hands suddenly spun me around and thrust me against the fence. “Because we don’t need gates.” Eve’s eyes—a gray green the color of mist on a pond—flashed. She pressed her arm across my neck: hard enough to make breathing difficult but not so hard as to actually crush my windpipe. She was smaller than I was, but size didn’t matter when you were up against a werewolf.

Without looking at them, she addressed Jason and Serena. “I can pulverize the reg’s neck before you get to me. You might want to back up a step. Or three.”

To me, she said, “Why are you following me?”

I tried to answer and ended up coughing until she relaxed her hold a fraction of an inch.

“We’re looking for our friend,” said Serena quickly. “The one we asked you about.”

The colors in Eve’s eyes seemed to darken and swirl. “I told you: I’ve never seen him.” She was great at lying with her face and voice, but her eyes were as changeable as the weather. They gave her away.

“Don’t believe you,” I rasped.

“This friend of yours? He’s a werewolf?” She waited for me to give a small nod. “No offense, but most wolves who come to Denver don’t want to be found. At least not by regs.”

“What makes you think she’s a reg?” Jason sounded closer, as though he had eased forward despite the warning.

“If she were infected, would you have listened to me when I told you to stay back?” Eve released me unexpectedly and I had to grab the fence to keep from landing on my butt. “Do yourselves a favor and go. This isn’t a mixed neighborhood.”

I swallowed and lifted a hand to massage my throat. Kyle was in Denver and Eve had seen him. If I hadn’t been sure before, I was now. Relief flooded my chest. “Please, if he’s inside, just tell him I’m out here. If he doesn’t want to see me, I’ll go.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jason raise an eyebrow. “Please. My name is Mac. Mackenzie Dobson. Just tell him I’m here.”

Confusion flashed across Eve’s face. It was replaced, a second later, by anger. “Lying about your name doesn’t make me want to help you.”

I stared at her, baffled. “Why would I lie?”

“You tell me.” With inhuman speed, she reached around me and plucked my wallet from my back pocket.

“Hey!”

She fished out my driver’s license, tilted her head to the side, and went completely still. Emotions flickered through her eyes but none of them made any sense. Surprise, resignation, and something that looked almost like fear. “Mackenzie Dobson from Hemlock.”

“I don’t know you.” I was very sure of that, despite the too-familiar way she was staring at me.

Eve shrugged. “We know someone in common.”

Hadn’t we already established that I was looking for Kyle?

Serena was apparently thinking the same thing. “Kyle Harper,” she said. “Mac showed you his photo in the coffee shop. The person we’ve been talking about for the past five minutes.”

Eve’s mouth twisted into a small smile, one that looked more pained than amused. “Right. Of course. You might as well follow me.”

I exchanged worried glances with Serena and Jason as we trailed Eve around the corner. None of this was adding up.

Eve tugged on a section of the fence. It lifted on hidden hinges, creating an opening just large enough to crawl through.

“Maybe you guys should stay here,” I whispered, forgetting, momentarily, how futile whispers were.

Jason shot me a scathing look that clearly said we were not going to have this conversation.

Eve glanced back. “All three of you are coming. I’m not risking any of you running off to tell someone what you’ve seen.”

“All we’ve seen is a fence and an abandoned building,” muttered Jason.

She shrugged. “If the night patrol were doing their job, you wouldn’t have gotten within half a block of this place.”

Eve gestured at the opening. With a frown, Serena dropped to her knees and wormed her way through the small gap. Jason went next, barely managing to squeeze his broad shoulders through. I went last, followed by Eve.

I climbed to my feet on the other side and dusted clumps of dead grass from my palms and jeans. The lot surrounding the building was a knee-high tangle of weeds and shrubs. Without hesitation, Eve waded into the brush, moving as silently as a ghost and leaving just as much of a trace.

The path she took us on curved around the building and eventually led to three stone steps and a steel door. Eve climbed the steps slowly, almost reluctantly. She wrapped her hand around the door handle and paused. The fear that she was second-guessing her decision to let us in thundered through my chest as she turned and shot me a piercing glance that was almost a glare. I had never met her before today, so why did I get the feeling she hated me?

She gave her head a small shake, then pulled the door open and disappeared inside.

I climbed the steps. Just before I crossed the threshold, Jason’s fingers skimmed my hand. “Are you sure about this?”

“No.”

A WAVE OF LIGHT AND SOUND CRASHED OVER US. THE entire first floor of the building was one gigantic, open space broken only by support beams. Trance music picked up the frantic beating of my heart while a kaleidoscope of colors—purple, orange, red, and blue—swept a dance floor and illuminated several dozen dancers.

Although I wasn’t sure if what they were doing could accurately be called dancing .

Dancing implied normal, human movement. This was motion supercharged by the strength and grace that came with LS. It was bodies leaping high in the air, twisting in ways that should have been painful and that would have broken a reg body to pieces.