Free Thornhill (Hemlock) by Kathleen Peacock Page B

reassuring, but her eyes were dead. Hank always said there was a world of difference between lying well and being able to lie with your eyes.
    Kyle caught it, too. “Why can’t she answer them here?”
    In response, the guards drew their Tasers. The wolves to either side of us parted like the Red Sea, and my pulse pounded so loudly that the blowback rang in my ears.
    All Kyle had done was ask a question.
    I waited for them to order him to sit or move, but there were no commands and no warnings. In the space between heartbeats, the female guard squeezed the trigger.
    I screamed Kyle’s name as he fell to the ground. I tried to reach for him but Serena held me back as he was hit by another Taser.
    Kyle’s spine bowed and I thought I heard something crack before he fell horribly still. Other than the rise and fall of his chest, he looked dead.
    Without giving either Serena or me a chance to fully absorb what had just happened, the male guard started toward us.
    Serena panicked. Her hand shattered around mine, and I pulled free of her grip just in time to avoid being scratched. I scurried back on my butt as her body tore itself apart. Fur flowed over skin and then a coal-black wolf rose shakily to its feet.
    My gaze darted to Kyle. He had recovered enough to push himself to his hands and knees. He was trying to force himself back up, to reach us.
    Suddenly, he collapsed.
    He and every other wolf in the room.
    They slumped to the floor with their hands clasped to their heads. The bones and muscle in Serena’s body snapped and tore as she shifted back. The only people unaffected were the woman in the blazer, the man in white, and the two guards.
    And me.
    Unsure what was going on, I huddled on the floor like the other teens and watched the room from under my lashes.
    “We had it under control,” muttered the female guard, holstering her Taser.
    “Of course,” said the woman in the glasses as she slipped something into her pants pocket. “This was simply . . . neater.”
    The door behind her opened and two men dressed like hospital orderlies stepped into the room.
    The redheaded guard walked around us. I heard a sharp exhalation of breath and a small grunt as he lifted Serena. Every instinct I had screamed at me to do something, anything , as he carried Serena across the room, but if I moved, they would know I wasn’t like the others. They’d know I was a reg; I’d get kicked out and wouldn’t be any help to anyone.
    There was nothing I could do but watch.
    In a gesture that surprised me, the woman in the glasses shrugged off her jacket and draped it over Serena, partially covering her nudity as the guard eased her into the arms of the orderlies. Serena was too out of it to notice. She looked small and helpless and broken.
    They carried her through the door. The sound of the latch catching slammed through me like a bullet.
    Around me, the wolves began to stir.
    Eve met my gaze from halfway across the room. A thoughtful expression crossed her face as she pressed the heel of one hand to her temple, but I didn’t have the energy or the interest to puzzle out what the look meant.
    I crawled to Kyle as he sat up. His skin was ashen and his face was covered in sweat. “Are you okay?” I whispered.
    “Think so. It felt like someone was driving an ice pick into my brain.” His voice was raw and his chest heaved as he pulled in a deep breath. “Serena?”
    “They took her.”
    “Where?”
    I shook my head as I helped him to his feet. “I don’t know.” Saying the words made it hard to breathe.
    “It’ll be all right,” said Kyle as he wrapped his arms around me. “You heard what they said. It’s just some questions. She’ll be okay.” The words were reassuring, but unease colored each syllable.
    The voice of the male guard rang across the room. “Girls through the door on the left. Boys through the right.”
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this. We weren’t supposed to be separated. I had conned my way into