Page 138 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Eighteen

Riva

T he low, thin voice reaches my ears as I secure the last pieces of my climbing gear.

“Riva? That’s your name, right?”

I glance around at the same time as Dominic does where he was gearing up a few feet away from me—more carefully to work around his tentacles.

A slim boy in his early teens has approached us, so quietly I didn’t notice him coming. The bright afternoon sun gleams off the rounded planes of his dark face and the stubble of even darker hair over his scalp.

His intent gaze is fixed on me. I recognize him from seeing him here and there around the facility, but we’ve never spoken before.

I tip my head in acknowledgment. “Yeah, I’m Riva. Are you going to climb too? There’s room for three on the course.”

He steps closer with a flick of his eyes toward one of the guardians stationed at the edge of the jungle around the climbing site. His voice lowers so it’s barely a murmur.

“Andreas told me I should let the Firsts know if I picked up anything that might give us a way out. I caught something from a guardian at breakfast—the supply helicopter is coming right after the last dinner shift tonight.”

Understanding clicks in my head: this is the kid Drey mentioned to me, the one who can read thoughts, just a little. Ajax—that was the name he said.

I push a smile onto my face, keeping it as relaxed as possible for the sake of the watching guardians. “Thank you for the heads up. We might check out the course after we’re done here.”

Ajax’s mouth twitches upward with a faint smile of his own, accepting the cover story I’ve offered. “I figured you’d want to hear about it,” he says, and turns to go.

I meet Dominic’s gaze and find it even more pensive than usual. He pauses and then nods to the cliffside in front of us. “We’d better get climbing.”

We can’t really talk while we’re scaling the rocky surface. I push myself faster than usual both in anticipation of the conversation to come and to let the burn of the exertion focus my thoughts.

Of course, that means I reach the ledge partway up the cliff well before Dominic does. I brace my feet on it and lean my weight against the cliffside as I give him time to catch up, rolling my shoulders.

The guardians won’t think there’s anything strange about us taking a brief break here. That’s the whole reason they included the ledge, even if on my own I’d clamber right past it.

Dominic scrambles up to join me with a huff of ragged breath and a weary smile. “I think you’ve gotten even faster since the old days.”

I give him a crooked grin in return. “I’ve had a lot more motivating me.”

He balances himself carefully on the ledge and lets one of his tentacles slip over to wrap around my wrist, the monstrous equivalent of holding my hand. “What do you think about the news?”

I bite my lip, gazing down at the jungle where I can only barely make out the forms of the watching guardians now. There’s no way they can hear us up here.

The wind gusts over me as I consider my answer, whipping my braid across my neck. “I don’t know. I guess a cargo helicopter must have a decent amount of room in it—but enough for all of us?”

Dominic strokes the tip of his tentacle over my palm in a soothing gesture. “You know we might not be able to get everyone out all at once. I don’t even know how many shadowbloods are living here.”

Neither do I, but every part of me balks at his suggestion. I push my thoughts toward other considerations. “We’d still have to figure out a way to get to the chopper and take it over without being caught along the way.”

“Yeah.” Dominic’s mouth twists. “I guess we don’t know for sure if Jake even can set off the emergency system. And we’ll only get one chance to try that trick.”

“He’s got to make it feel like a whole earthquake. A big earthquake.”

That seems like a lot, even for Jacob. I’ve seen him pull down two three-story buildings in one go, but nothing on the scale of shaking up an entire mountain.

Dominic chuckles roughly. “You know he’ll try, even if he practically kills himself doing it. The number of times he ran himself to the point of injury in the last few years at the old facility, pushing himself past his limits like he thought he was proving something…”

A melancholy cast comes over his face. I wonder how many times Dom needed to patch Jacob up after he overexerted himself.

A tickle of inspiration ripples through me. We should probably start climbing again, but I have to put the idea out there.

“Dom… You told me that you can take energy out of things even when you’re not using it to heal, right? That it makes you feel stronger, exhilarated, like my scream does for me?”

Dominic’s shoulders tense, and I reach to grasp his actual hand in the hopes of conveying that I didn’t mean any judgment in the question.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Why?”

“I was just thinking… if you can pass energy on to someone else to heal them, maybe you could pass it on to boost them when they’re already fine too.”

Dominic blinks at me, and understanding dawns on his face with a strange mix of hope and horror. “If I can get to Jacob at the right moment, maybe I can pump up his powers.”

“It could be worth trying. If you’re okay with it.”

He gives both my fingers and my wrist one last affectionate squeeze and turns toward the cliffside again. “If it would get us out of here, I’d try just about anything.”

I take the second half of the climb slower, making sure I don’t get too far ahead of Dominic. I still reach the upper ledge a couple of minutes ahead of him.

Stretching out my arms, I peer over the craggy landscape in the direction of the facility. The landing strip where our private plane took us to and from our mission lies above it. That’s probably where the cargo chopper lands too.

Supplies must be delivered pretty regularly. It’s not like this is the only chance we’ll get.

I’m just not sure how much better prepared we could be. Or how much worse our circumstances might become the longer we delay.

When Dominic reaches me, he takes one look at my face and slings his arm around me. I hug him back, tucking my head against the crook of his neck and breathing in his familiar tangy scent, sharper now with the sweat he’s worked up during the climb.

“We’ll figure it out,” he murmurs to me. “One way or another. One time or another.”

I wish I could feel as sure as he sounds.

He cups my cheek and brings my mouth to his. My skin lights up from head to toe as our breaths mingle.

I haven’t gotten to kiss any of my guys more than briefly since I hooked up with Jacob in the van. The soft but determined press of Dominic’s lips against mine leaves all my nerves tingling—and aching for more.

He draws back only far enough to rest his forehead against mine. His voice comes out with an unusually husky note.

“I’ve missed getting to be this close with you.”

My throat chokes up. “Me too.”

“One more thing to look forward to when we get out of this, Sugar.”

The new nickname heats me up even more. I can’t resist claiming one more lingering kiss before we head down the mountainside again.

We chuck off our gear for the trio of preteen shadowbloods who’ve come for a climb and set off toward the facility. My thoughts spin in my head.

Dominic doesn’t push for further answers. He knows that a problem like this needs to be contemplated carefully.

We come out into the clearing beneath the facility in time to see a procession scaling the winding path higher above the entrance.

I stop in my tracks, squinting at the figures who are just cresting the peak of this part of the mountain range. My heart thumps harder, but I don’t make out the forms of any of my guys—or any other shadowbloods I recognize.

I do catch the ruddy gleam of the short-cropped hair on the man at the back of the line. I’d know that color and the confident gait anywhere.

Clancy is directing a bunch of the shadowbloods off somewhere.

“Another assignment?” Dominic murmurs next to me.

“Must be.” My stomach knots with the question of what mess he’s bringing them into this time.

Dom hesitates before he speaks again. “It means some of the kids won’t be here… but he won’t be either. And last time he brought at least a few other guardians with him. You were gone until the next day, weren’t you?”

The knot clenches tighter. “Yeah.”

I know what he’s saying. The mission gives us an additional opening.

The facility’s leader will be away, out of easy reach to give orders, when the supplies arrive. There’ll be fewer guardians in general to tackle a rebellion.

How many opportunities are we going to get like that ?

One of the guardians still here strides over to us with a curt air. “Riva, you’re having lunch now. Dominic, you have another hour of training time.”

Splitting us up as they always like to do. They wouldn’t want us to have too long at once to feel comfortable in each other’s company.

Except when they’re trying to force me to fuck one of the guys, that is.

I grab Dominic’s hand for a quick squeeze before the guardian gets insistent. He surprises me by tugging me right to him in an embrace.

The jolt of pleasure at his kiss mingles with my apprehension. We’ve avoided most overt PDAs in front of our captors.

But the gesture isn’t really about stealing a momentary make-out session. Dom’s lips brush my cheek next, and the faintest whisper travels to my ears.

“It’s your call. Say the word, and we’ll be with you.”

He steps back at the guardian’s clearing of her throat. I shoot him a nervous smile and hustle up the stone steps to the facility.

The knot in my stomach feels like a boulder now. Why is it up to me?

But I already know the answer to that. I’m the one who instigated our last escape and our attempt at breaking the younger shadowbloods out of a different facility.

I’m the one who has the most need to escape from here, the one Clancy has imposed on the most.