Page 150 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Four

Riva

Z ian’s words come out with the edge of a snarl. I instinctively step even closer to Griffin, my fingers tightening around his.

I don’t know how much of a chance he’s gotten to talk to the others—to apologize, to explain… Does Zian have any idea at all of the reasons Griffin decided to side with the guardians over us?

But then, I still can’t totally wrap my head around his reasoning either, can I? I’ve been willing to do what I can to see the hints of the boy I knew rise to the surface through the robotic being he’s become, but I wouldn’t put my life in his hands.

Not now. Not yet.

A beam of sunlight streaks between the leaves overhead to glare off Griffin’s blond hair. He’s still standing calmly beside me amid the jungle vegetation, but a whiff of nervous pheromones reaches my nose.

What is he afraid of?

Should I be worried that he’s unnerved or happy that he’s capable of being scared at all?

He keeps his attention on Zian, though all five of us are watching him now. “I’ve tried to explain it. Clancy acted like he wanted to take the Guardianship in a new direction, one that sounded like it’d be good for us. You all thought that might be possible too, when you first got to the island.”

He isn’t wrong, but Jacob’s lips pull into a grimace. “I wouldn’t have dragged my friends back into captivity after they’d gotten free, no matter what I thought was ‘possible.’”

“It made sense at the time. I—I didn’t know what to think about everything he was showing me, about what you were doing, the people you’d hurt. How you’d hurt them. And my sense of who you all were was muddled. I hadn’t seen you in so long.”

“But you knew us,” Zian insists. “Riva hadn’t seen us in four years, and she did everything she could to help us even after we’d been assholes to her.”

Griffin swallows audibly. “It’s not the same. I don’t know how to describe how it’s been. Like everything was flat but also blurry at the same time…”

As he trails off, the shade of sadness in his expression wrenches at my heart. He obviously doesn’t want to talk about how he ended up in his current state, but I’m not sure there’s any other way of unraveling the tension between us.

I stroke my thumb over his knuckles in an attempt at reassuring him. “What did the guardians do to you that erased all your emotions, Griffin? How did it even happen?”

His mouth twists, and he grips my hand harder. There’s pain in the answer to my question, and I’ve never really wanted to hurt him.

But maybe because he can tell that, he doesn’t refuse me.

His gaze trails off toward the wilderness as if it’s easier for him to bring back those memories when he isn’t looking at any of us. “They called it ‘desensitization.’ The basic idea seemed to be to make feeling things worse than not feeling them.”

Dominic brushes aside a fern frond that grazes his arm with the heavy breeze, his hazel eyes shadowed. “How did they do that?” he asks quietly.

Griffin’s stance stiffens a little more with each word.

“They started small. Showing me video clips that would provoke a little generic emotion in most people: a kid having a happy birthday party, a tense car chase, stuff like that. And they had me hooked up to a machine with different sensors. When they could tell that I was having an emotional response—from my heartrate and my breathing and I don’t know what else—they’d overwhelm it. ”

Jacob’s posture has turned equally rigid, as if he’s matching his twin’s discomfort. “Overwhelm it with what ?”

Griffin’s mouth twitches. “Physical pain. Electric shocks or chemicals that set off different types of aches or burns.”

Andreas’s eyes widen. “Fuck.”

Griffin blinks hard, a tremor running through his body. I set my free hand on his arm a little above our clasped hands, doing my best to steady him.

“It was a long process,” he says in a thin voice.

“They’d show a clip, catch a reaction, lance the emotions like a boil.

Then they’d play the same clip again. Over and over until my body just…

didn’t register whatever had made me feel something before.

Like a connection was snapped. And then they’d move on to the next clip. ”

Jacob’s fingers flex at his sides. A branch cracks overhead, whipping against the trunk of a neighboring tree.

“Those fucking pricks,” he spits out. More rage burns in his blue eyes than I’ve seen in weeks.

My own anger at the guardians sears through my gut, but what chokes me up is a thicker anguish. “That must have taken a long time.”

“Yes.” Griffin swallows again, his eyes gone even hazier than usual, as if he’s retreating inside his head.

“They had to—to work up through every possibility to the most intense, and destroy those automatic reactions too. I didn’t have much concept of time.

During it or after. It was more than a year, at least.”

More than a year of constant agony for every emotion that stirred inside him. Tears prick at the back of my eyes.

“I still don’t understand why they wanted to do that in the first place,” I say roughly.

“So my own emotions wouldn’t confuse what I was reading in other people. So I wouldn’t be affected by the things I read.”

Jacob scowls. “And your feelings are just gone? You can’t bring them back?”

Griffin raises his shoulders in an awkward shrug. “I’m not sure I even know how to try. By the end, the whole concept of what it was like to feel things wasn’t something I could grasp.” He pauses. “And by then, I—I kind of thought maybe they were right. Maybe it was better like that.”

“What?” Zian sputters. “How could them torturing you be good?”

I feel Griffin bracing himself in the shift of his stance. Another whiff of anxiety reaches my nose.

His jaw works, and then he glances around at each of us with obvious effort. “It’s because I couldn’t control my emotions that they caught us. The first time. I gave away that we were going to try to escape.”

Andreas’s forehead furrows. “What do you mean?”

A rasp creeps into Griffin’s voice. “They showed me the surveillance video when they told me. The afternoon before we were going to break out—right before we went back to our cells. I must have been thinking about getting free, and just for a moment I smiled at all of you. So bright they couldn’t miss it. ”

I shake my head. “One moment couldn’t have given everything away.”

Griffin hangs his head. “They said they already suspected we were planning something. I guess it would have been hard to completely hide the conversations we were having, no matter how careful we were being. But they didn’t think we were ready to make a move until they saw that.

I guess I normally looked sad when it was time for us to leave. ”

His free hand clenches, and then he raises his chin. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I can’t even—I can’t even feel how sorry I know I am, but I ruined everything, and none of this would ever have gone so wrong if my emotions hadn’t been so noticeable, and?—”

My chest hitches with a sob I can’t totally suppress, and I yank Griffin into a full embrace. He bows his head next to mine, his jaw coming to rest against my cheek.

“They were probably lying,” I insist, my voice shaking with vehemence. “They couldn’t have been that sure just because you smiled . And even if it was that, it wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t help being happy.”

“They made it so I wouldn’t be any more. I couldn’t be happy or sad or angry or anything.”

“And that isn’t better. That isn’t you . If we couldn’t have escaped without you being broken, then it wasn’t the right time to escape. You weren’t the problem.”

Andreas clears his throat, sounding pretty choked up himself. “In case it isn’t clear, we all agree on that point. I’d never have blamed you, Griffin.”

Zian’s foot scuffs against the uneven ground. “I’m sorry for coming down so hard on you. I didn’t realize?—”

“It’s okay.” Griffin pulls a few inches back from me, his hands coming to rest on my forearms. “I wasn’t sure how much I should talk about it—if you’re going to accept what I did, it should be because I’ve made up for it now , not because you feel bad about what happened to me before.”

Jacob’s eyes still blaze with fury, but I don’t think that rage is directed at his brother anymore. “Can we fix it?” He glances at Dom. “Can you heal whatever they fucked up inside him?”

Dominic extends a cautious tentacle to rest on Griffin’s elbow and pauses. “I can’t pick up on any physical damage. It’s not like a typical injury.”

I turn my hands to grip Griffin’s arms like he’s holding mine. “You said that you’re starting to feel things again.”

He nods, gazing down at me. “The more I’m close to you, the more things are reemerging. It’s—it’s a little unsettling after all this time, and I’m still figuring out how to sort through all the sensations, but I think it’s better than staying numb.”

It makes sense that it took the draw between our shadowy essences to get through to him. I’ve never experienced anything like the urgent clamor in my blood except when I’m physically close with these five men.

The guardians could never have provoked that one feeling in him to torment it out of him.

Imagining the torture they inflicted on him makes my stomach plummet. “The feelings that are coming back—are they triggering the pain the guardians put you through?”

It’s got to all be tangled up in a big mess inside him.

Griffin manages to give me a smile that’s only slightly strained. “That’s part of what I’m sorting through. But I have to deal with it before it can get better. You’ve been helping a lot. Don’t feel bad about it. I want everything you’re willing to offer.”

He sounds so sure that I only hesitate for a second before giving in to the urge that sweeps through me at his words. Bobbing up on my toes, I press my mouth to his.