Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock Page B

that had gotten her suspended from school eight times in the past two years. No wonder she was trailing after a Tracker like a puppy in love.

    puppy in love.
    “Mac, this is Jimmy Tyler,” shouted Jason. Even shouting, he slurred his words.
    Jimmy gave me a little salute with his bottle and dragged his chair closer as Alexis glared. “I saw you in the parking lot,” he said. He shrugged off his jacket, revealing a T-shirt that said Hunt or be Hunted across the front.
    I nodded and pushed my chair back a few inches, giving him my best “not interested” look.
    He didn’t take the hint. “I’m Branson Derby’s nephew.”
    This night, literaly, could not get any worse.
    I tried to catch Jason’s attention, but he was watching the crowd on the dance floor. I noticed a button on Alexis’s jacket—a caricature of a severed wolf head—and shivered, a slight movement that Jimmy mistook for interest.
    He leaned forward and placed a hand on my knee. “You know, I’ve been hunting wolves for the past five years. Since I was fourteen.”
    He waited for me to make some smal noise of appreciation.
    Instead, I said, “I have to go talk to someone.” It wasn’t a lie—not exactly. I very much felt the need to talk to someone else. Anyone else.
    Jason looked up as I stood, but I ignored him. It hadn’t bothered him that Repulsive Tracker Boy had been hitting on me.
    I pushed my way to the bar and ordered a Coke. Shoulders hunched, I stared into my glass and wondered if I should just go home and leave Jason to fend for himself.
    “Wow. Coke. Hard-core.”

    “Wow. Coke. Hard-core.”
    I straightened. “Very.”
    Ethan Cole slid onto the bar stool next to me. “You don’t look like you’re having much fun,” he observed. If another guy had said that, it might have been a come-on, a hint that they could make my night better. Not from Ethan.
    “Nice bruise,” I remarked, noting the smudge on his cheek.
    “What happened to it being a peaceful protest?”
    “Hard to remember you’re a pacifist when someone’s fist is connecting with your face.” He ran a hand through his disheveled blue hair. “Anyway, I got hit defending Matt Johnson. It was terribly romantic—or would have been if he hadn’t just ditched me for some random colege guy.”
    I took a sip of my Coke. “And you’re crushed, I assume.”
    “Devastated.”
    I swiveled around to scan the rest of the bar, looking for Matt and his random colege conquest.
    “You can do better,” I said after I spotted them. “Easily.”
    Ethan shrugged. “Of course I can. But sometimes I like to slum it.” He grinned.
    I caught sight of Jimmy Tyler. He had abandoned Alexis and was making his way toward the bar. Great. “I’ve got to go make a cal,” I told Ethan, sliding off the stool and slipping away before he could ask what was going on.
    There was a narrow, dank halway to the left of the bar that led to the washrooms. It was the only place quiet enough to make a phone cal without going outside. There was a couple making out phone cal without going outside. There was a couple making out against one of the graffiti-covered wals, but they were too wrapped up in each other to notice me as I passed.
    Halfway between the couple and the washrooms was a busted pay phone. I leaned against it as I tried to cal Kyle. Voice mail.
    Great.
    I left a message teling him I was at the bar with Jason and to cal me. I could probably deal with getting Jason home, and Derby’s nephew would eventualy get tired of hitting on me, but stil . . .
    I slipped my phone into my pocket as raised voices drifted down the hal. The tonsil pals had left—gone somewhere more private or less private—and been replaced by Jimmy and Alexis.
    Jimmy was leaning in toward a third figure while Alexis hung back and kept an eye on the rest of the bar.
    “You were part of the protest,” said Jimmy, his voice filed with barely veiled threats.
    The figure shrugged. “Yeah. And?”
    Ethan.
    This so