Page 134 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Fifteen

Andreas

I t’s another bright day, which means I can wear the sunglasses I requested without looking at all strange. I adjust the frames on my nose and lean back on my hands where I’m taking a brief break from training in the yard.

The dark lenses let me train my eyes on each of the guardians monitoring our progress or moving to and from the facility without them noticing the reddish gleam that gives away my talent.

For the past few days, I’ve been riffling through as many memories as I can reach, at every possible opportunity.

One of them has to have seen or experienced something that could help us get off this island.

It’s hard to narrow down my search. The only way I’ve found I can focus my ability to pry inside people’s heads is by targeting a specific person.

I started by digging up memories involving me or my friends, but those didn’t get me very far. Glimpses of moments like the attaching of bands around Riva’s arms and walking her into a bedroom to meet Zian only left me twisted up with fury and a sense of helplessness.

Clancy didn’t get to see through his plan. Riva’s okay. But just thinking about what he tried to force them into makes me want to batter him with my fists and feet until he looks worse than the victims of Riva’s screams.

Who knows what messed-up plan he’s going to come up with next? We have to escape.

I have to find a way how.

If I’d been paying more attention, we might not have gotten stuck here at all. If I’d taken a moment to scan Griffin’s mind when the guy I thought was Jacob beckoned me and Dominic down that hall in the facility…

All it would have taken was a brief peek, and I’d have known it wasn’t Jacob. That it was a trick.

I could have stopped us before we ended up trapped in that room, before he had a chance to go back to trick the others as well. I could have warned everyone.

And maybe we’d have gotten away.

I’m the only one with a talent that would have let me realize the problem before it was too late, and I fucking failed all of us.

Guilt gnaws at my gut as I adjust my position on the grass. I’m not going to miss a crucial detail like that again.

For my current quest, I’ve switched to homing in on memories involving the man in charge. Clancy gives the orders to the other guardians—he introduced most of his staff to this place.

He knows its inner workings better than anyone, so the things he told his underlings could hold the key.

The man I’m currently studying surreptitiously from behind my shades isn’t offering anything all that useful, to my disappointment.

I sink into a memory of Clancy telling him to escort a group of younger shadowbloods to the climbing course, leap from that to a moment seeing Clancy at the other side of the cafeteria, and from there to a conversation Clancy was a part of involving some sports team in the regular world.

I grimace and push myself off the coarse grass, knowing I can’t rest for long without the guardians hassling me about keeping up my training.

As if I’ll be a willing volunteer for any of their missions now that I know their motivations are more about financial gain than making the world a better place.

We have to play along for now, or we’ll end up shut away in our rooms, no chance to discover a way out at all.

I make my way through the trees to the rope course, knowing it’ll allow me a vantage point where I can check out the guardians monitoring the area without them seeing what I’m up to all that well. It can’t hurt to keep both my muscles and my agility in tiptop shape too.

After I’ve clambered up one of the ladders and set out across the hanging boards between my starting platform and the next, one of the younger shadowbloods emerges below me.

Even from above in the mottled jungle light, I recognize him immediately from his skin tone, so dark it’s almost literally black.

I’ve made a point of chatting with all the shadowbloods I’ve crossed paths with during training and meals. I want to find out what their lives have been like—and who knows when one of them might have something useful to contribute.

So I know that the kid down below is named Ajax, and that he’s part of what appears to be the middle “generation” of younger shadowbloods: the ones who are currently fourteen or fifteen years old. The few times I’ve seen him around, he’s been pretty quiet.

Now, he glances up at me, runs his hand over the stubble of hair on his scalp, and moves to the ladder on a tree ahead of me. He times it so that he reaches the platform just moments before I swing off the last board to join him.

“Hey,” he says in a low voice the guardians on the jungle floor won’t hear, with a careful but intent look at me.

He’s positioned himself like this on purpose—because he wanted to talk to me?

I walk slowly around the platform as if considering my options for my next trek. “Hey. Everything good?”

“About as good as it can be, huh.” Ajax rests his hand against the tree trunk. “You know, with my power—I’ve got a little bit of telepathy. Can’t pick up much, but I catch bits and pieces of thoughts. Stuff people are thinking the most loudly.”

A chill washes over my skin. I keep my voice quiet and even. “Oh, really? You must ‘hear’ a lot of interesting things.”

“Nah, mostly it’s boring—or I can’t even make sense of it. But yours have gotten me curious.” He pauses with a swift glance toward the guardians below. The only one in view isn’t even facing us at the moment.

Ajax drops his voice even lower. “You really think we could leave?”

I grip one of the ropes, my mouth going dry. Can I trust this kid?

For all I know, he could turn tail and inform Clancy of anything I tell him.

I measure out my words. “Anything’s possible. Why—are you thinking you’d want to?”

The boy gives a barely perceptible shrug. “I know a lot of ‘em like it here. But there’s someone who matters a lot to me that I hardly ever get to see. Back in the old facility, we were together every day.”

My mouth tightens in a grimace. I can understand his frustration too well. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. And it’s not much fun being stuck around the guardians with the way they think about us anyway.”

Ajax lifts his head, and I let myself meet his dark brown gaze. “I just wanted to say… If you find a way, I want in.”

He doesn’t sound like a schemer trying to manipulate me into a confession. He sounds like a nervous but hopeful kid.

I study him for a moment, slipping through his skull into his memories.

I see him sitting on his own in a corner, wincing at the insult that tumbles out of a guardian’s mind into his head. I see him waving goodbye to a group of other kids, his other hand clenched, as he’s escorted out of a facility’s training room.

Emotions don’t come through with my talent, not directly, but I can sense how unhappy he was in those memories from the feel of his body.

I pull back out and re-focus on him here in the present. “I’m just… considering my options. But if you pick up on any thoughts that might help with that goal, even a little, you should let me or one of the other Firsts know ASAP.” I hesitate. “Well, any of the firsts other than Griffin.”

Ajax makes a face. “He’s always with Clancy anyway. What’s his deal?”

I wish I had a better answer. “I don’t know. He wasn’t like that before.”

I don’t want to linger any longer in conversation in case the guardians take notice. Ajax turns toward a net-like configuration of ropes, and I set off along another path of hanging boards.

An ache has formed in the pit of my stomach. It isn’t just Riva and my friends counting on me.

I’ve just given that kid a reason to hope. I need to have something more for him the next time we talk.

I’ve scaled most of the course when one of the guardians calls up that it’s time for lunch. Ajax has already left, and I don’t see him again on my way to the mountain facility.

They switch up our shifts and never let us know when we’ll see each other again specifically to make it harder for us to plan anything. They pretend it’s freedom, but really it’s just another kind of cage.

As I’m climbing the steps to the mountainside entrance, Clancy himself appears. He gives me a brisk nod and gazes out over the training grounds for a moment before returning inside.

I have to take off the sunglasses once I step into the facility to avoid raising suspicions, but I can’t resist fixing my gaze on him while I follow him down the hall. Imagine all the useful information that’s tucked inside his memories.

But I only glimpse a fancy dinner someplace that’s got to be nowhere near the island, with crystal chandeliers and people in tuxedos and evening gowns, and then a fragment of a childhood elementary-school test. Before I can dig any farther, a guardian steps out of the cafeteria ahead of me.

I jerk my gaze away, hoping she didn’t notice me using my talent. When she doesn’t say anything, only motions me inside, I exhale softly in relief.

Even if the quest feels pointless, I have to keep trying. Giving up definitely won’t get us anywhere.

As subtly as I can manage, I flit through the memories of the guardian standing near the buffet table while I grab a hamburger, fries, and salad for my lunch. Clancy yelled at him one time for showing up late to his post, but I don’t see how that could factor into our plans.

Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying.

My lack of progress makes it hard to appreciate seeing Zian walk into the room. How much of a friend am I if I can’t get us closer to freedom?

Freedom he needs even more than I do.

He shoots me a small smile and makes a gesture to indicate he’ll sit with me. My gaze slides past him to the guardian who escorted him in.

I’ve seen that guy talking to Clancy pretty often. Maybe he’s a closer associate than the others.

But he stands there by the doorway watching all of us. If my eyes flare red for more than a few seconds, he’s bound to notice.

Fuck. I don’t want to let the chance go.

“Zee,” I murmur when the bigger guy sits down across from me. “Could you go keep the guardian who came in with you busy for a bit? Ask him about your schedule for the rest of the day or something like that—just keep his attention away from me?”

Zian’s forehead furrows. “I can give it a shot. I don’t know how long I can keep him talking for.”

“Whatever you can manage is fine.”

He sets off without question or complaint. Trusting that I’d only ask him to do this if it was important.

Zian approaches the guardian from the side, and the man turns to better face him. His frown doesn’t indicate much patience for the interruption.

I train my gaze on him and leap in.

Clancy, Clancy, Clancy. Grabbing breakfast together, a briefing on training progress, daily orders.

I’m aware of Zian shuffling his feet at the edge of my awareness, but I force myself to keep digging. He’s doing his best, and I have to too.

Then I stumble into a memory of what looks like a facility control room, though with the stone walls specific to the island. Clancy is gesturing to a set of controls.

An emergency system? asks the guardian whose head I’m in.

Clancy nods. Earthquakes in this region are infrequent and rarely severe, but we need to be prepared.

If a tremor strikes that sets off the sensors, the rooms will automatically unlock.

We’ll need to get all of the shadowbloods out into the valley as quickly as possible. As few assets lost as possible.

My host stares at the pane Clancy pointed at with its zigzag symbol, so I stare at it with him. Sensors that’ll make our rooms unlock?

Of course, we’d need an earthquake to make that happen.

But Jacob once toppled two three-story buildings with his power. Maybe…

Zian passes between me and the guardian on his return, cutting off my connection—and ensuring the man doesn’t see the fading flash of red in my gaze. He drops back into his seat and gives me a curious look.

“Get anywhere?”

“You know, I just might have.” A hint of a smile touches my lips. “I could use a little more help—from your X-ray vision this time. Look through the walls around here and check if you see this symbol anywhere.”

I squirt ketchup next to my fries and scrape the tines of my salad fork through the scarlet liquid. Sketching out the emblem from the guardian’s memory, that just might be the key we so desperately need.