Page 155 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Seven

Riva

A s the guardians usher us back into the island facility, I steal as many glances at Griffin as I can. My gut has been tangled in queasy knots since I woke up with my wrists cuffed and the clamp around my neck that squashes my throat, braced with my fellow shadowbloods in the back of a helicopter.

Griffin wasn’t locked up like that then, and he strides along beside Clancy and the guardians now as if he’s one of them. He holds his head high, his gaze steady.

My memories of the guardians’ assault on us are blurry, bits and pieces scrambled by the electric jolts of the net that caught me. I saw Griffin claiming that he called Clancy to our spot—I saw Celine fly into a rage and lunge at him.

I believed her when she confessed before. I don’t know how he could have provoked those specific details out of her about the girl she saw die and her fear of the “monsters” I might turn to for help.

Is it possible he somehow found the right emotional button to push on to make her admit to a betrayal she hadn’t committed? Or was it only in the end he was manipulating her, so he could take credit for that betrayal?

Even if it’s the latter, even if he was honest with us every moment before then… why did he do it?

He had a knife ready. I think he’d have killed her, with the excuse of self-defense, if Jacob hadn’t thrown himself in there first.

None of it makes sense. All I know is that in the next few frantic seconds, I squirmed in the net, which zapped me hard enough that my vision whited out.

And then there was a prick on the back of my neck, and everything went dark until the helicopter.

The guardians obviously overwhelmed the shadowbloods who escaped the nets. All of us from our group of escapees are cuffed alongside me in our procession—except for Celine, of course.

I don’t know what Clancy ordered the others to do with her body. He wouldn’t have left it as evidence.

Even though chances are high that she’s the one who ruined our chance at freedom, a twinge of guilt runs through my stomach, remembering her frantic expression and her neck snapping with the force of Jacob’s power.

She didn’t want to be there with us. If I hadn’t pushed for all the kids we encountered to come with us, if I’d realized how hesitant she was sooner…

It’s too late for that now. One more death that’s at least partly on my conscience.

Ahead of me in the line, Jacob sways and shakes his head as if trying to clear it. I think they drugged him like the guys told me the guardians used to after our first escape attempt, to dampen their powers.

They’ve wrapped a heavy blindfold around Andreas’s face so he can’t aim projected memories at anyone. He’s relying on Dominic to keep him on the right track, a tentacle tucked around his hand like a lead.

I can’t see Zian, who’s behind me now, but from his glazed eyes on the chopper, I’d bet they drugged him too. There aren’t many ways to contain his combination of brawn and monstrous strength.

The cuffs are pretty solid on their own, though. The guardians have had lots of time to experiment with what can hold us shadowbloods back. I can’t feel the effects of any drug, but I can tell from my furtive tests that I wouldn’t be able to snap the chain.

Clancy stops partway down the front hall, just past the door to the cafeteria, and the rest of the procession halts with him. An older man stands there, looking over the line of us captives with a dour expression that fits perfectly with his sagging features and posture.

Despite the sense of deflation he gives off, his voice comes out crisp and firm. “This is all of them, then?”

Clancy holds his posture with easy certainty, as if he isn’t the slightest bit ruffled by the events of the past couple of days. “We lost one of the second generation. Not an especially valuable talent.”

The older man grunts, his frown deepening. “We’ll talk about it later. You’d better get them shut away before they flee on you again.”

“If they do, we’ll simply round them up like we did this time,” Clancy says without showing a hint of concern.

I grit my teeth at his dismissiveness. He wouldn’t have rounded us up if Celine—or Griffin—hadn’t signaled him.

But what are the chances we’ll get another opportunity as good as the one we just lost? He’ll have figured out that we triggered the emergency system—and he’ll have adjusted it to prevent the same gambit.

Every helicopter delivery will be heavily guarded from now on, no doubt.

We had our chance, by far the best chance we were ever going to get, and it’s been wrenched from our grasp.

The guardians march us on down the hallway, pausing here and there to direct one kid or another into their rooms. I think we’ve passed mine, although it’s a little hard to tell when the rocky walls look so similar throughout the facility.

My nerves prickle with uneasiness when the last of the younger shadowbloods, a drooping Lindsay, disappears behind her thudding door.

It’s just the six of us “Firsts” now. Does Clancy have something else in mind for us?

Most of the guardians have drifted off during our walk. Only four remain with Clancy, two up ahead with him and Griffin and two others bringing up the rear.

They all grip the gun-like weapons that can shoot streams of electricity like something out of that ghost-capturing movie we all watched years ago. Although the sizzling bolts zap our bodies rather than our spirits.

The end result is the same—trapped and under their control.

I never expected to relate to the ghosts.

Clancy escorts us into a slightly larger room with a row of five chairs spaced wide apart along the middle of the space. As the guardians lead each of us to a chair, they position themselves between us.

Our collaborating is always what Clancy’s been most worried about. He’s not taking any chances.

Will he let us even be in the same room together again after this?

My worries form a pulsing ache in my stomach. I swallow against the collar and wince at the choking sensation.

Clancy strides to the front of the room where a large screen about five feet across hangs on the wall. He picks up a control from a small metal side table and paces past the screen.

Griffin hangs back by the side table, watching. His face remains as blank as it was during our first reunion here.

I can’t tell if he’s still feeling anything at all.

Even if his ploy with Celine was meant to help us, could the chaos of the fight have screwed up the progress he’s made? Sent him back into his closed-off state, every flicker of emotion automatically dismissed?

Clancy clicks a button, and the screen lights up, though it’s only a flat, pale gray at the moment. He swivels to face the five of us.

“You have not abided by the terms of our agreement. I’ve offered you the opportunity to do something incredibly constructive with your powers while learning how to use them in the best possible ways, and you threw that generosity in my face.”

The choke-collar suppresses my derisive laugh.

Generosity? He was using us to fill his bank account.

No awareness of his hypocrisy shows in Clancy’s expression. He taps the controller lightly against his thigh, considering all of us like a professor contemplating the expulsion of a bunch of disruptive students.

“You must see now how impossible striking out on your own is,” he goes on, with a condescending edge that raises my hackles even more.

“You were never meant to have normal lives. You aren’t normal.

But if we work together, you can have something better than anyone else in the Guardianship would be willing to offer you. ”

Does he expect a response?

Jacob and Zian stare at him dully. Andreas can’t see him at all.

Dominic sits in the chair next to me, a shiver running through his tentacles and his mouth set in a flat line. His gaze darts around the room, but I’m not sure what he’s looking for.

And with my voice cut off, I can’t answer even if I wanted to.

Clancy squares his shoulders with an imperious air.

“I’m hoping that you’ve learned your lesson, and we can move forward as I planned.

But I can’t allow more diversions. I have a mission that some of you will be sent on, one you should want to see fulfilled as much as I do.

You can accept that challenge with full cooperation, or I’ll assign you to continued testing until we find an effective way of harnessing your powers and ensuring your compliance. ”

That doesn’t sound ominous at all. I contain a shiver of my own.

Jacob manages to cock his head with a trace of alertness. But there’s still a faint slur in his voice from the drugs. “What mission?”

Clancy brings up an image on the screen—a video, panning through a dusty village of ramshackle huts and a few cars that look at least three decades out of date. The only detail giving away the modern time period is the high-tech army tank standing off to the side in the first shot.

The scene is mostly brown and gray except for the blotches of deepening red that scatter the ground… and the bodies slumped there. The camera takes in a few dozen corpses, fresh enough that blood still seeps from some of their wounds.

Men. Women. Children. All of them dressed in simple tees or blouses, ratty jeans or canvas slacks.

Despite my resistance to anything Clancy wants to show us, my chest clenches up in horror.

Clancy motions toward the video. “The national government of the country where this slaughter took place has been dealing with a large group of hostile insurgents for several years. The group’s current MO is to hold an entire rural village hostage, killing the civilians one by one until the government complies with their demands.

When the military has attempted to intervene, the insurgents use the villagers as shields and have mostly escaped unscathed… while leaving no survivors behind.”

He rests his cool gaze on us. “Government officials heard of my services and reached out to me. They expect based on past behavior patterns that the terrorists will strike again within a week. To ensure the villagers’ safety and push back against the insurgents to discourage or even prevent future attacks, they need a team with skills beyond their own. ”

And that’s where he wants us to come in.

The worst part is that the sight of the decimated village tugs at my heart. I would want to protect people like that if my powers could shield them.

But how can we trust anything Clancy says now? Who knows what other ulterior motives he could have?

Those officials are probably offering him a huge fee, for one thing.

Does it really matter, though? Would I rather go back to being prodded and tested, knowing I let a bunch of innocent people die that I could have saved, just to spite him?

That’s exactly the dilemma Clancy wants us to face.

He crosses his arms over his chest, his blue eyes turning penetrating.

“You’ll need to agree to take on this mission without knowing which of you will actually be sent out.

And understanding that if you agree and you sabotage the assignment, your friends will suffer for it.

There are lengths I’d have preferred not to go to, but if that’s what’s necessary for you to respect the responsibility you’re being given, so be it. ”

My skin turns clammy beneath my shirt.

Of course, he’s made it clear that if we don’t agree, we’ll all be tormented regardless.

We’ve gotten out of every tight spot we’ve found ourselves in before now… but my scrambling mind can’t identify a single shimmer of hope.

Clancy nods to the guardians around us. “I’m sending you back to your rooms to recover and think on it. Any harm that you inflict on my people will be inflicted on yours twice over, so be careful how you use your powers. You have twenty-four hours to make a decision. Choose wisely.”

With a rasp of his heel, he turns his back on us.