Page 140 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Nineteen

Riva

W e don’t have watches or clocks, but I know my dinner is one of the middle shifts. A few shadowbloods are heading out of the cafeteria when the guardian escorts me over, and more are just arriving when I’m ushered out.

Back in my bedroom, the door thuds shut behind me with the hiss of the lock engaging. My pulse skitters through my veins as I sink down on the side of the bed.

It’s not even a bad room. It’s three times as big as the cells we were confined in at the old facility, with a soft-toned overhead fixture that mimics daylight and a cupboard to store the possessions I’ve actually been allowed to hold on to.

A few changes of clothes, picked by me out of the selection Clancy offered us—all practical and flexible, but that’s how I like them. The radio he gave me, programmed to only offer stations with no hosts talking about the outside world, just music.

A couple of novels from the small fiction library we’re allowed to borrow from, that I tried to read to pass the time but lost interest in. An assortment of weights, bands, and other exercise equipment so I can work on my strength and flexibility between outside training sessions.

How is it possible that our new captors have treated us both better and worse than any before?

Maybe that’s why it’s most important that we get out of this place. The better parts lulled me into enough complacency that the worse parts took me by surprise.

No matter how people like Clancy dress up the situation, no matter what grand ideals they announce, in the end, we’re still prisoners as long as the guardians have us.

I should never have let myself feel like somehow that could be an okay life. Like it wasn’t reasonable for me to want to make my own choices beyond someone else’s tight restrictions.

I turn on the radio and switch it to a station playing a soft but steady beat and lowkey melodies. Nothing that makes me want to dance. Just enough to focus my mind without distracting me.

It occurs to me that it might be smart to have some extra clothes along. Even the radio could be useful in some way.

But I don’t have anything to carry them with. And even though I can’t see any, I’m sure the guardians have cameras monitoring the room.

Just like the first time, we have to act normal, or we could betray our plans before we get to act on them.

And I won’t think about how badly that first escape attempt ended.

The flickers of memory bring my mind back to Griffin. A new ache forms in my stomach.

I wish I could talk to the other guys properly—make a real strategy, confirm that we’re all on the same page. We’ll have to scramble to organize ourselves once the doors open.

At least four of us can find each other through our marks.

But we have to bring Griffin with us too. It’s either that or kill him, and no matter how he’s helped Clancy or what he’s agreed to, every cell in my body recoils from the thought.

I can’t imagine the others will feel any different.

As long as he’s with the guardians, he can pinpoint our location almost instantly. The only way to make sure he isn’t with them is to keep him with us.

I’m just not sure how we’re going to accomplish that when I doubt he’s going to come willingly.

As that uneasy thought passes through my head, the floor beneath my feet vibrates with a faint tremor. My breath catches in my throat.

That’s got to be Jacob. He’s starting to shake the whole fucking mountain.

When I concentrate on my marks, I can sense that he and Dominic are together, somewhere near the facility entrance. Twinges of strain resonate from both of them.

They must be pouring a ton of effort into the attempt if a hint of it is seeping through our connection. Will their powers be enough to trigger the emergency system?

Or has all my worrying been pointless?

As I get up to turn off the music, the tremor expands. The quivering sensation spreads through my bones from the floor.

My heart pounds faster alongside it. What if the guardians realize what’s happening?

For a few seconds, the vibration plateaus, not getting any stronger or weaker. Then the stone floor lurches so hard I have to smack my hand against the wall to catch my balance.

An unnerving creaking sound resonates through the air, followed by a distant peal of an alarm—and the whir of my bedroom door sliding open.

Adrenaline jolts me into action. I dash into the hall, my attention split between possible threats in the hall outside and my awareness of my three guys through our marks.

Dom and Jake are rushing deeper into the facility, toward me. Andreas is… farther down the hall in the opposite direction, around at least one bend, but hurrying toward me too.

A few confused faces appear around the doorways nearby—younger shadowbloods trying to figure out what’s going on. Before I’ve taken more than a step toward them, two guardians hurtle into view.

They’re carrying their electrified batons and a tranq gun, but I don’t give them a chance to use either. With only a slight pang of guilt, I shriek at the one who’s slightly closer—a short, sharp scream designed to tear right through the most vital parts of him as quickly as possible.

He crumples, and the other guardian slams into the wall headfirst. Not because of me. As she slumps to the ground amid pooling blood, Jacob charges up from behind her with Dominic at his heels.

“Come on!” I shout to the younger shadowbloods, darting down the hall and beckoning them. “Everyone out—out to the facility entrance. We’re taking off!”

Nadia and Tegan venture from nearby rooms, their eyes wide but chins up. Other kids duck back into their rooms as if more afraid of escaping than staying.

Why wouldn’t they be? They have no idea what we’ll face out there.

Most of them don’t even really know me.

Andreas dashes around a corner farther down with Zian beside him. Relief flickers through me, but it isn’t enough just to have my guys.

“Let’s go!” I call out. “You don’t have to live with guardians controlling everything you do, forced to go on missions and train and the rest. We can find something better.”

My guys peer into the open rooms, motioning to the kids who are hesitating. Booker and Ajax must have joined Andreas and Zian as they rushed this way, because I spot them in the increasingly crowded hall.

Another guardian sprints into view, only to be tossed aside by a shove of Jacob’s power. Jake comes up beside me, his hair sweat-damp along his forehead and his jaw tight.

“We’ve got to get moving quickly while they’re still confused.”

“We need Griffin,” I say.

The darkening of Jacob’s eyes shows that he understands why without me saying anything more. He pauses for an instant and then strides onward. “I can find him.”

As Jake’s twin awareness leads him around the bend in the opposite direction from where Andreas came, the other guys fall into step with us. We point every shadowblood kid we pass toward the entrance, hoping they’ll listen, and hustle onward.

“We have to be ready,” Jacob says. “I don’t think Griffin can push emotions on more than one or two of us at the same time. You see it happening to someone, jump in there and interrupt him.”

Zian frowns. “I don’t want to hurt him.”

A shudder runs down my spine. “None of us do. But we’ll all be hurt if he can track us down for the guardians again. Knocking him out would be better for everyone in the long run.”

Two guardians appear in the hallway up ahead. Zian barrels forward to crash into one; I cut the other down with another truncated shriek.

Then Griffin emerges from a room just beyond their broken bodies.

He looks at the corpses and then at us, and like so often now, I can’t read the slightest emotion in his gaze. But he can obviously tell what’s going on.

“You’re breaking out,” he says in that new, vacant voice of his.

Jacob grabs his brother’s arm. “And you’re coming with us. Get moving.”

I tense, waiting for Griffin to put up some kind of fight. But after a second’s hesitation, resolve tightens his expression. “All right. I just need to get Lua. I can’t leave her here.”

Lua?

My momentary confusion is broken by a meow from just inside the doorway. Griffin shoots Jacob a look of appeal, and his twin nods.

Griffin’s fast about it. He ducks into the room and emerges within a matter of seconds, a backpack slung over one shoulder and a cat’s white-furred face poking from the unzipped top.

As we hurry toward the entrance, I check the other guys. I don’t see any sign of him warping their emotions.

Would he have grabbed his pet if he was only planning to turn the tables on us at the right moment? Or is it just to convince us to trust him?

I turn and narrow my eyes at him. “No argument? You’re happy to join us?”

Griffin blinks at me. “I don’t know if happy is the right word, but it’s become clear that none of us are better off staying here.”

It has? Since when?

As much as I’d like to badger him with questions, this isn’t the time for it.

A particularly young-looking kid with spiky white hair flits past us toward the entrance, his body seeming to stutter as he blinks out of view and reappears a few feet farther ahead in an instant. I catch sight of Celine braced in the doorway to her room, her expression taut with worry.

I wave to her as we pass. “Come with us. There’s room for everyone who’ll come.”

At least, I hope there is.

She wavers a second longer and then sprints ahead of us. Her dark hair swings as she veers into a room near the entrance, but she’s returned by the time we’ve caught up.

I guess, like Griffin, she had something here she didn’t want to leave behind, although I can’t see any sign of what that was.

A dozen or so younger shadowbloods are gathered on the dusk-draped ledge outside the entrance. Is that all? a voice in the back of my head murmurs, but I don’t let myself dwell on my disappointment.

We have to get the kids who were willing to flee out of here ASAP. That’s what matters most.