Read Online Hot Blooded (Wolf Springs Chronicles #2) by Nancy Holder - Free Book Online Page A

leaving her grandfather alone in the cabin, but she finally did. She made it into her history class just as the bell was ringing. Mrs. Walker was substituting for Mr. Henderson again. A few minutes into the hour, Sergeant Lewis and Mr. Hastings strode into the room and Mrs. Walker looked up from her book as the students fell quiet and expectantly waited to find out what was up. Katelyn could feel her own chest tighten, and her skin prickled with anxiety. Had they found Mr. Henderson? Cordelia?
    Mr. Hastings cleared his throat. The look on his face spoke volumes — something was terribly wrong. Katelyn's thoughts flew again to Cordelia.
    “Students,” he began, “I wanted to let you know that Mr. Henderson has officially been declared a missing person.”
    Gasps rose up from around the room. Katelyn tensed, in case there was more bad news. In her experience, it usually came in threes, or fours, or sixes.
    “Now, if anyone knows anything, we’d appreciate you coming forward and telling us so that we can find him quickly, before anything . . .” He trailed off.
    Before anything bad happens to him , Katelyn filled in. But he knows that something bad might have already happened to Mr. Henderson.
    In the front row, a girl raised her hand.
    Mr. Hastings acknowledged her. “Yes, Gretchen?”
    “What about Cordelia? She hasn’t been in school all week.”
    Katelyn had been wondering how long it would be before people started to question Cordelia’s absence. When Katelyn had first moved to Wolf Springs, Trick had warned her that gossip and rumors moved with G4 speed — the only G4 there was to be had in town.
    “Cordelia’s family has contacted the school about her situation,” Mr. Hastings said. “It’s a private matter that we’re not at liberty to discuss.”
    That caused several more ripples through the room. Katelyn wondered what story the Fenners had concocted.
    Gretchen leaned sideways and whispered to another girl, “They were close , Mr. Henderson and Cordelia.”
    Katelyn’s face went hot and she closed her eyes in dismay. No , she thought. No, don’t do this .
    “Are you okay?” someone murmured as a hand rested on her shoulder.
    It was Beau, who had warned her to get out of Wolf Springs because of the killings. Of course, that had been before she had become a werewolf. Now she needed to tell him that she didn’t want to investigate the killings around Wolf Springs; that she didn’t want to investigate the current deaths, or the ones Beau said his own grandmother had told him had happened half a century before. A massacre, she’d called it. A killing field.
    “I’m fine,” she murmured, studying the varnished surface of her desk.
    “I gotta tell you something,” he persisted. “My grandma had a stroke. She was yelling something fierce the other night, said she saw a demon in her window.”
    Katelyn was stunned. A werewolf?
    “She just screamed ‘Demon! Sweet Jesus protect me!’ and then she collapsed.” Beau looked wan. “She’s not doing too well.”
    She saw the unspoken plea on his face. He wanted her to help him find out what it was that his grandmother had seen. She’d been so intrigued about everything his grandmother had said about Wolf Springs before — that the town was “a banked fire,” according to her, and that every forty or fifty years or so something happened, something terrible, something epically bad. That the animals went crazy, and then people died.
    That it was starting again.
    She’d asked her grandfather about it. But now, she didn’t dare involve Beau. If the answers pointed to the existence of werewolves, she’d be signing Beau’s death warrant. She resolutely opened the book on her desk and stared at the words, but the letters swam before her eyes.
    “Kat?” he prodded.
    “Beau, I — I just don’t want to talk about . . . things,” she whispered.
    Mr. Hastings and the police sergeant walked out of the classroom, leaving a buzz of whispers and texts