Page 120 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Six

Riva

T he first moment when I emerge from sleep in my new bed always feels a little empty. It’s comfortable enough, with layers of covers I can bundle under against the cave-like chill, but I’m all on my own.

Sometime over the past few weeks, without even realizing it, I got used to waking up next to my guys. Mostly Dominic, but one time him and Andreas both, and once, after a particularly tumultuous evening, Jacob.

We have more freedoms here, but I’m no longer allowed the simple pleasure of a cuddle to greet the day.

I pull myself out from under the covers, wash at the sink in the corner, and dress with quick movements. I’m just slipping on my sneakers when a knock sounds on my door.

I don’t cross paths with any of my guys at breakfast, but when I’m ushered out to the facility entrance, Clancy is waiting with Jacob, Dominic, four of the younger shadowbloods, and several other guardians.

Seeing Jake, my heart skips a beat. This must be preparation for the mission we agreed to yesterday.

Clancy confirms my assumption with a nod toward the kids, who look to all be from the oldest of their generations, around seventeen.

“This group will perform some secondary work as part of your assignment off the island. It should be relatively straightforward, but we want to make sure we’ve covered all the bases before sending you into the field. ”

Celine is there, flashing me one of her bright smiles as she teases her fingers through her ponytail, but I don’t know the others by name yet. As we set off down to the clearing and then along a jungle path, she chatters energetically with a couple of her companions.

Here and there, I think I catch glimpses of that sadness I thought I noticed earlier. I feel like I should apologize to her for the last mission the guardians forced her to take on, even though it wasn’t my idea that they should hunt us down across the continent.

Behind them, the three of us “Firsts” walk in silence. I’m too keyed up to make any kind of small talk.

Dominic takes my hand and interlocks my fingers with his. Jacob sticks close to my other side, scanning the wilderness.

Despite the sticky humidity, it isn’t really an unpleasant hike. Birds twitter in the trees, and the hazy sunlight dances between the rustling leaves.

It doesn’t take long before we stop in a small clearing. Three of the guardians direct the younger shadowbloods off between the trees at the far end for whatever they need to work on. Three others and Clancy stay with us Firsts.

Clancy strolls back and forth in front of us, his hands clasped behind his back. “I know the three of you have already been through extensive training, including some missions outside your facility. And obviously you’ve added to your real-world skills in the weeks while you were on the run.”

Real-world skills that included killing a whole lot of his colleagues. My skin creeps uneasily despite his calm tone, and Dominic squeezes my fingers reassuringly.

His closer tentacle slips around my wrist as if to duplicate the casually affectionate touch with the gentle graze of its suckers. Both times I’ve seen him since arriving on the island, he’s had his strange new appendages uncovered like he’d started to feel comfortable doing on Rollick’s yacht.

I catch a couple of the younger shadowbloods glancing his way and nudging each other. My jaw sets on edge, and my grip on his hand tightens in return.

They might be like us, but I’m not going to let anyone make him ashamed of the features that are now part of him. Especially not when he’s finally found a kind of peace with his situation.

“This operation will require a few very specific skills that will need additional testing and training.” Clancy halts and turns to face the three of us.

“Riva and Jacob, you’ll be taking lead, which will require immense stealth and speed.

Dominic, if your healing ability is needed, time will be of the essence there as well.

We’d like to see where you’re currently at. ”

He points to a blotch of orange through the trees in the opposite end from where the teens are doing their training. “Start by that marker and run as fast as you can, regardless of the obstacles, to the one you’ll see ahead of you.” His arm swings to indicate the direction we’ll be running.

Then he fixes his gaze on us again. “Please give it your all. I don’t want to waste time on additional exercises that aren’t really necessary.”

I don’t want to hang around here training any longer than I need to either. Less than a week, and he’s already opened up the possibility of getting off the island.

I have no idea how we can make use of that opportunity, but I want to find out as soon as I can.

This once, we have to leave Andreas and Zian behind. But maybe we’ll learn something that could bring us back together, one way or another.

We head toward the marker, Jacob positioning himself between me and the guardians like a shield.

As we turned, we put our backs to the younger shadowbloods with a sway of Dominic’s tentacles. A shocked gasp carries after us, followed by nervous giggles and a muffled “What the hell ?”

Dom’s fingers tense momentarily in mine.

“Ignore them,” I say under my breath. “They’ll get used to it.”

They’d better.

Dominic’s grip has already relaxed again. “I know. And I do look strange. It’s worth the trade-off.”

He told me the first night we got together that he’d never want to try to remove the tentacles because then he might not be able to heal me properly if I needed his help in the future.

I raise his hand in mine to press a kiss to his knuckles, and then to the back of his tentacle still tucked around my wrist. Dominic beams at me, and I don’t give a shit that the guardian who’s following us clears his throat as if to remind us to stay focused.

Jacob shoots a death glare over his shoulder at my critic, so that helps too.

The guardian veers away from us toward the other orange marker that I can now make out through the trees. “Get ready and wait for my signal.”

We spread ourselves out in a reasonably straight line in front of the tree that has the first marker, my hand parting from Dominic’s reluctantly. I drop into a sprinter’s starting stance.

The guardian gives the standard “Ready, set, go!” and I launch myself forward alongside the other guys.

Between the three of us, it’s no real contest. I could probably outrun even Zian’s similarly super-powered strength here in the forest, where my small size makes it easier for me to slip between the tree trunks and through the underbrush.

My feet thump over the uneven ground in a swift rhythm, finding their balance instinctively. I fly past bushes and low branches and skid to a stop just past the second marker, barely winded.

Jacob charges after me, hurtling forward as fast as his muscular legs can propel him. Dominic follows several paces behind him with his tentacles coiled close to his back.

But even though Dom’s always been the least coordinated of us, all our past training has still served him well. He reaches the two of us just seconds behind Jacob.

The guardian gives his timer a third click and studies the results. “Better than you were looking for,” he shouts back to Clancy.

“Then we can move on,” Clancy says. “Come on back, you three.”

When we tramp over to him, he motions Jacob toward another of the guardians. “Lin has some models for you to work your powers on. We want you honing that telekinetic accuracy so you can dispatch enemy combatants with no chance for them to sound a warning.”

Clancy turns to me. “I’d like to see if your claws can let you climb up a brick wall without the need for a harness. We’ve got a setup for that over here.”

Then he beckons over the last of the guardians who’ve stayed with us, who’s been lugging a large sack. The man peels it off to reveal a short, dense shrub in a thin plastic pot that’s trailing fabric straps.

“You,” Clancy says to Dominic, “need a guaranteed energy source if you’re going to be healing on the fly. So we’re going to see about making an effective harness for you, with the largest plants you can carry that won’t interfere with your movements.”

Dominic studies the shrub with a slight rise of his eyebrows. “I’m going to be porting bushes around like a baby in a carrier?”

I can’t stop a short laugh from slipping out at the image that forms in my mind. “Whatever works, right?”

It’s actually a pretty smart idea, even if it’ll look funny.

Clancy and the guardian who handled our race lead me over to a section of layered bricks they’ve set up in another clear patch of forest. I flex my claws out far enough that tufts of fur spring across the shell of my ears too and launch myself at the mottled surface.

After a few tries, I figure out the trick for sinking the tips far enough into the mortar between the rough blocks at the right angle to hold my weight.

I can’t hold myself in one spot for more than a few seconds, but by quickly jerking my hands upward one by one and scrambling with my feet catching on whatever small notches they can find, I make it to the top of the ten-foot structure in the space of a few breaths.

I push myself off and land on my feet on the ground.

Clancy nods with a satisfied air. “Give that at least ten run-throughs until you’re totally comfortable, and then we’re going to work on refining your other supernatural talent.”

My pulse hiccups at the thought of bringing out my fatal shriek. I glance toward Jacob, his pale hair partly visible through the trees, and think of the task he was sent to do.

By “dispatch,” Clancy meant “kill.”

“Are you going to tell us who we’re going up against and why?” I have to ask.

“We’ll get to that.”

He turns on his heel and leaves me to it.

I tackle the wall twenty more times just to make sure I’m fully prepared. I might have kept going if the last joints of my fingers didn’t feel ready to fall off by that point.

I stop to catch my breath, flexing my hands to stretch out some of the soreness. Clancy returns with a smaller sack I didn’t notice the guardians carrying.

He pulls it open to reveal a wire cage containing eight white mice.

I recoil instinctively. “I don’t want to kill them.”

Clancy gives me an evaluating look. “I don’t want you to either.

I think your power could be much more useful than that, in ways you might be more comfortable putting it to use.

From the video footage I’ve seen—you can only break one body at a time, but you can hold dozens of them frozen while you work your way through them. Is that right?”

“Yes.” I swallow against the sudden dryness in my mouth.

“Then if we can modulate that scream of yours, you should be able to maintain it at lower levels of influence. Simply paralyze your targets without inflicting any damage. Possibly even seek them out without touching them at all, like a sort of sonar.”

His even words steady my nerves, but doubts coil in my gut. “I don’t know. It… It really wants the pain.”

Clancy doesn’t object to my characterizing my talent as something separate from myself. “It’s in you. You can control it. You simply need to learn how.”

I drag in a breath. “What did you have in mind?”

Clancy motions for me to sit and sets the cage in front of me. “We’ll pull back from your innate impulses by degrees. Can you damage one of the mice without outright killing it?”

I give him a sharp look, and he smiles apologetically. “We have to start somewhere. If you can manage it in one go, we can scale back even more.”

Every molecule of my body balks at torturing an innocent animal, but I remember Rollick’s admonishments far too well. If I don’t learn how to control my power, then it’s going to control me when I least want it to.

Like when I nearly tore apart one of the shadowkind who’d been most welcoming to us.

The memory of Billy’s twisted, smoking body congeals inside me, stiffening my resolve. “All right. I’ll do my best.”