Page 132 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Fourteen

Zian

W hen the pair of guardians who seem to have been assigned to me come to collect me after dinner, I assume they’re going to lead me back to my room. That’s where I’ve been locked up for most of yesterday and today other than meals, since my freak-out with Riva.

Instead, they direct me toward the entrance to the facility. I walk along hesitantly, my nerves on edge.

What is Clancy going to do with me now?

Fractured memories of my panicked rage yesterday morning flit through the back of my mind, but I do my best not to look at them too closely. I focus on what’s ahead instead.

We step out onto the wide ridge into the warm evening air. The sun hasn’t quite set, the sky cast with a golden haze.

A few shadowbloods are training in the field below, but I don’t recognize any of them. I haven’t gotten many of the younger ones’ names so far.

I’m always a little afraid that if I approach them, they’ll see me as a threatening presence rather than a friendly one.

“This way,” one of the guardians says. They both walk with me down the steps and along one of the jungle paths.

The sound of burbling water reaches my supernaturally keen ears well before I see the source. When we come to the edge of a glade between the trees, I stall in my tracks.

It should be a pretty scene. A waterfall, much thinner than the one that hides the shooting range, tumbles several feet down the cliffside into a clear pond ringed by polished rocks, obviously set up for swimming. Ferns and bushes with vibrant flowers frame most of the pool.

And Riva is sitting on the grassy patch near the bank, her knees drawn up to her chest, alone.

“Clancy thought the two of you should have a chance to talk after what happened yesterday,” the guardian next to me says.

“You’ll be given your privacy. As long as you stay in this clearing, you won’t be disturbed.

When you’re ready, you can walk back to the facility—or we’ll come to escort you if you get off track. ”

Without waiting for my response, she and the other guardian vanish into the thickening shadows of the path. I stay where I halted, looking at Riva.

Clancy wants us to talk ? He’s giving us our privacy?

They say that, but Riva’s got the bands around her upper arms like they put on us yesterday. Maybe the guardians never took them off.

They’ve left mine on, a faint weight against my biceps.

The fabric is a little scuffed on mine because I tried to tear them away after I woke up in my room. The metal bits underneath wouldn’t give.

They’re obviously still monitoring us. And I’d bet they want us to do a lot more than talk. This is just a different tactic.

Riva gazes back at me from where she’s sitting. Her mouth forms a tight smile.

She tips her head toward a couple of baskets sitting on the ground next to her. “They left us swimsuits in case we wanted to get in the water and some snacks if we get hungry. I think this is Clancy’s insane idea of a date.”

Her tone is dry. I’d snort in amusement if I didn’t feel so sick.

“Something like that,” I mutter.

Riva studies me for a few moments longer, her pretty face turning so serious it sends a different sort of ache through my gut.

Her voice softens. “Are you okay after yesterday? They came at you so hard when you got upset—I’ve been worried about you the whole time.”

The ache digs deeper at her phrasing, as if what the guardians did to subdue me was more violent than my destruction of the room. There was a point when my entire world dissolved into a frantic fury to smash every piece of Clancy’s plan.

I duck my head. “I was fine after the tranquilizer wore off. Other than feeling pretty awful about the whole thing. I’m sorry if I scared you.”

Riva makes a dismissive sound. “It wasn’t your fault. It was a psychotic plan—of course you were upset.”

She was upset too, but she didn’t fly into an uncontrollable rage. I bite my lip and then force out the words.

“I can’t do it. Even like this, without being so trapped. Even if he keeps pushing it on us over and over. I just—I can’t .”

When I dare to look at Riva again, her eyes have widened.

“Don’t even think about that,” she says firmly.

“Even if you could make yourself go through with it, I wouldn’t want to.

Not like this. If anything… If anything’s ever going to happen between us, it’ll be because we both want to for ourselves, not to satisfy some sick tyrant. ”

Her gaze flicks toward the jungle around us, her chin lifting at a defiant angle, as if challenging Clancy in case he’s watching.

A bit of the tension that’s twisted up inside me loosens. I finally convince my feet to move again.

As I walk over, Riva pushes one of the baskets forward so that it can sit between us. A little shield, confirming that we aren’t even going to touch.

The sight relaxes me even more. I sink down on the grass next to her and peer at the crystalline water of the pool in the fading sunlight.

“It is a nice spot.”

“Yeah. Under different circumstances, I’d appreciate the gesture.” Riva laughs roughly and then digs into the basket. “I guess we might as well make the most of it.”

Under the cloth covering, we find raspberry and custard tarts, a container of popcorn, miniature sandwiches, and a couple of bottles of what turns out to be lemonade.

Riva sips hers and wrinkles her nose at it. “Not sour enough.”

I find I’m capable of smiling at her. “You’ll have to ask them to import some lemons so you can make your own, Shrimp.”

“That’s not likely to happen. I don’t think Clancy is very happy with me right now in general.”

I pause, my stomach clenching all over again. “I saw Dom at lunch. We talked a little.”

I don’t know how much I should say out loud in case Clancy’s monitoring us. But Riva can obviously guess that Dominic told me about their mission—and what they found out about Clancy’s approach to global activism—from my brief remark.

She sighs and takes a bite of one of the tarts. “It was too good to be true right from the start, wasn’t it? We’ll figure something out.”

She’s already working on a plan—I know her well enough to tell. She got us out of a facility before.

But that one wasn’t on an isolated island. And it was only the four of us she needed to break out.

“At least we have the chance to train and improve our skills while we’re here,” I say.

“I’ve been working on the exercises Rollick suggested for controlling my shifts.

Obviously they didn’t help yesterday, but in less tense situations, I think I’m making progress.

He wasn’t wrong about some things even if… things have turned out badly here too.”

I wince inwardly as images come back to me of the pictures Clancy showed me when he was first pitching his new plan for us shadowbloods. Things went very badly before—there’s no denying that fact.

Riva considers my expression. “You heard about what the shadowkind did to the kids we got free.”

“I saw the photos he has.”

She gives a soft hum but doesn’t say anything else, her gaze going momentarily distant. I wish I could read her mind.

This whole situation would be so much easier if we all could communicate through thoughts alone. Although I’m not sure I’d want Riva seeing everything that’s in my head.

She slips off her running shoes and socks before scooting onto one of the smooth stones around the pool. With a tug of her pantlegs to her knees, she dips her feet into the water.

“Not bad.” She swishes her feet back and forth. “Not as warm as I’d usually like, but I guess it’d be a little much to expect a hot tub.”

The rippling water tempts me. We spent all that time on the yacht sailing around the ocean, and I never really got the chance to swim.

I hesitate and then ease over to the pool’s edge too. The water laps around my feet and calves, as warm as the tropical air around us.

I shoot Riva a sideways glance. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. This is perfect.”

She laughs more openly this time, the bright, buoyant sound that sends a giddy shiver right down the middle of me. “No one’s stopping you from diving in.”

I suppose that’s true. I look down at myself and then at the other basket with the swimming clothes. But I don’t really want to get changed with Riva right here, even though I know she’d avert her eyes for my privacy.

I don’t want to deal with the feelings that’d rise up in me, getting undressed with her so close by.

But it’s not as if I’m particularly attached to the tee and sweats I’m wearing. Without letting myself second-guess the impulse, I push off right into the water in my regular clothes.

Riva laughs again, the perfect soundtrack to the delight of the warm water closing around my large frame. I kick off from one end of the pool to the other, but it’s only about fifteen feet across, so not much of a workout.

Oh, well. It isn’t the swimming I like most anyway.

I stretch out on my back, flexing my muscles in the right places to keep me afloat. My body bobs in the peaceful water.

For a moment, I feel as if I weigh nothing at all.

I close my eyes, absorbing the sensation of floating free. My body drifts toward the spray of the waterfall, and I scull briefly to nudge myself away.

There’s a soft splash and a shift in the water’s gentle currents. I glance up to see Riva has joined me, leaving on her tee and sweats like I did.

Her silvery braid trails behind her head in the water. She grins at me and paddles around the pool.

I can’t help following her movements, unwilling to return to the meditative state of my float.

Her slim arms dart through the water with both strength and grace. The water darkens her eyelashes, bringing out her bright brown eyes.

It’s only about a minute before she paddles back over to the bank where she was sitting before. She scrambles out and gives herself a quick rubdown with one of the towels from the basket before hunkering down at the edge of the water again. “That’s enough of that.”