Page 21 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Fourteen

Dominic

T he marigolds give off a pungent scent, as bright and bold as their orange petals. I pour the last of the liquid from the small watering can over the raised garden bed and then sit down on the back step next to it.

Something that’s balled tight and hard in my chest relaxes just a little as I take in the vibrant colors and the life the flowers exude.

I don’t know whether past student residents planted them or if the garden is something the campus staff normally maintain, but I’ll take the little fragment of peace I get out of looking after them.

The only plants I ever got to handle in the facility were the ones the guardians expected me to kill. And then when that wasn’t enough?—

I shut those memories out of my mind and lean against the steps as well as I can without provoking a jab of discomfort at my back.

There are a lot of things going on in the house behind me that I can’t really take care of, but then, it’s been clear for a while that my talents are a lot more superficial than any of us would like to think. The damage we’re dealing with has roots that run far deeper than our physical bodies.

And Riva…

Before my mind can stray very far in that direction, the sound of ragged panting has my head jerking up. As I get to my feet, Jacob jogs into view from the alley that runs behind the townhouses.

Well, kind of jogging. He’s limping as much as he’s running, his face gone waxy sallow.

I catch my lips before they can pull into a full grimace. The worst damage might be way down deep, but Jake does like pushing it as close to the surface as he can get.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” he mutters in a rasp as he makes it to the back steps, as if he doesn’t look like he’s just risen from the grave. He staggers on his way up the stairs, and I catch his arm.

He shoots me a glare that’s plenty sharp despite how badly he’s exhausted himself. “I’m fine .”

Sure, he is. Just like he was fine all the days he collapsed at the side of the track in the training room, hair and clothes drenched with sweat, chest stuttering with strained breaths.

Back there, the guardians hauled him off and forced hydration into him—and whatever else he needed. Here, it’s only me.

But he didn’t think about that before he drove his body past every conceivable limit again, did he?

The moment the flash of resentment passes through me, shame burns it up. I know why he punishes himself like this—and what he’s running away from while he does.

As if any part of it is his fault. The only person here who could possibly have saved Griffin is me.

And I didn’t. I didn’t even get close enough to try.

So I hook Jacob’s arm around my neck, ignoring the pinch at the back of my shoulders, and support him on his stumbling feet into the living room. The other guys are somewhere else in the house, which is probably for the best.

Jacob has set himself up as de facto leader of our troop. It wouldn’t be good for morale if they saw him half-dead.

Jacob grunts with annoyance, but he lets me lower him onto the sofa. “I just need some water,” he grumbles.

I pour him a glass and sit next to him as he gulps it. He hasn’t actually burned out all of his strength like he has in the past, but from the way he’s set his legs, that one calf is still bothering him.

“You sprained something,” I say.

He waves me off with an uncomfortably weak gesture. “It’s not a big deal.”

It will be if the guardians track us down here. If he’s torn the muscle, it could take weeks to fully heal.

If we leave it to mend itself naturally.

There isn’t a question in my mind about whether I’ll do this—I can, and Jake needs me, so that’s all there is to it. But there’s nothing alive in the room around us.

I think about the marigolds outside. Picture snapping a couple of their stalks, and wince inwardly.

No, I can do this one all by myself.

As I bend over to set my hand against Jacob’s lower leg, he sets down his glass. “Dom, you really don’t need to?—”

“I do,” I interrupt in as firm a voice as I’d ever use with him. “If you don’t want me needing to heal you, then don’t go breaking your body.”

I’m ashamed all over again at the trace of resentment that creeps into my tone, but Jake simply lets out a resigned sigh, accepting the criticism. And then, as I will a little of the energy inside me through his pantleg into his flesh, he says in a low voice, “I’m sorry.”

I find a real smile somewhere inside myself. Even with the frustrations bubbling under the surface, I am glad I can help him this way.

“Don’t worry about it. Like you said, no big deal.”

Through the pressure of my hand, I sense the muscle and the fibers of tissue that’ve frayed. Closing my eyes, I will them to bind back together, to smooth out and strengthen.

My power flows out of me in a stream of warmth—and tugs at my gut at the same time. A prickling sensation ripples through my own limbs, little nips of discomfort here and there, spread out over my entire frame.

No big deal.

“Okay,” Jacob says after several seconds. “It’s good enough now. You don’t need to do more.”

The concern that leaks into his voice makes my gut twist in a different way.

Does he have any idea how much I worry about him ? Every time he wears himself to the bone like this, he’s risking toppling over some edge he can’t come back from.

And I’m not totally sure he isn’t looking forward to the day when that happens.

But I don’t know what to say to him. Riva claimed last night that I always had the right advice, but she hasn’t been with us to see the wreckage she left us in.

I can’t tell whether any of the comments that flit through my mind would make Jacob feel better or worse, so I keep my mouth shut.

He’s just slumping into the sofa in a more relaxed pose when Andreas comes thundering down the stairs with Zian at his heels.

“Our hacker came through,” Andreas announces, waving his phone. “He’s got something big on Ursula Engel. We can meet up with him tonight to hand off his collectable for all the details.”

Jacob sits up a little straighter, still wan but mildly re-energized by the prospect of making progress with our search. He flicks his damp hair away from his eyes. “All right. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

Zian frowns. “Will Riva be okay to come after last night? I guess one of us could stay back here with her…”

Jacob shakes his head, his lips curling into a sneer. “If he doesn’t see all of us, he’ll wonder what’s up—and he particularly noticed her.”

I’m not sure whether the edge that’s crept into his voice is directed more at the woman upstairs or the hacker.

“I couldn’t sense any lingering effects from the alcohol that wouldn’t have cleared up by now,” I put in.

“And if she wanted to be at the top of her game, she shouldn’t have been hitting the booze to begin with.”

I stiffen at Jacob’s tone. I might be pissed off about the past, but even I can see he’s not being fair—how could Riva have known that a single drink would interact badly with the poison he insisted on infecting her with?

But I can’t see how pointing that out will do any good. Or how wondering aloud whether the information this hacker dug up is really going to help us will either.

Maybe this opportunity won’t get us where we need to go, but we have to put ourselves out there if we want to make any progress at all. If we’re not even going to try to find answers, what’s the point of even continuing the lives the guardians inflicted on us?

I push myself to my feet. “I’ll make sure she’s in decent shape before we head out. What time do we need to leave?”

It only takes a few seconds after we’ve gotten out of the car before I’m wishing I just stayed home. The night air has cooled enough that my parka isn’t totally uncomfortable while unzipped, but it’s still a heavy weight I’d rather not be lugging around.

I veer closer to the closed buildings along the shabby commercial strip near the industrial district where the hacker asked to meet us. Having the thicker shadows draping over me settles my nerves a little.

If no one can see me, then no one can speculate. No one can even notice the things I wish weren’t strange about me.

Not that there’s anyone much around here to notice regardless. Voices travel down the street from a few women wobbling out of a bar behind us, but they’re the only people out and about nearby.

Zian scans the road and the darkened buildings along it warily. “We couldn’t have parked right by the meetup place?”

Andreas runs his hand over his head, scattering his tight curls. “He gave specific instructions about parking at least two blocks away. I think he’s a little paranoid.”

Riva lets out a short huff of amusement that draws my attention to her. She’s walking surrounded by us as usual, behind Andreas and Jacob and ahead of me and Zian—as if at this point we really have any reason to suspect that she’s going to bolt on us.

It doesn’t take much for her to catch my gaze. Honestly, when she’s nearby, it takes a conscious effort not to be tracking every movement she makes.

Even her slightest gesture seems to reverberate through the air into my skin as if she’s touched me.

Sometimes the sensation brings out the impulse to touch her in return, to pull her as close to me as I possibly can.

But whenever that happens, other images dart through my mind: of how her expression would change if she saw all of me now, or of that scene from four years ago while Griffin lay dying…

My heart hardens up and my ribs seem to lock tight around it.

She said last night that she wishes she could fix what was broken, but some things aren’t fixable. No, she isn’t to blame for plenty of our problems, but for her to talk like that when she’s the one who smashed our tight-knit group to pieces—the memory makes my hands clench.

How can I feel that way but not be able to shake the certainty tugging at me that she belongs with our broken shards?

I’m lost in those thoughts rather than paying attention to the world around us, so the man who lurches out of the shadows next to another bar we’re passing takes me by surprise.

From the sour smell wafting from the alley and his jerk of his jeans, he was just pissing on the ground. That’s all I have time to register before he’s letting out a whistle and making a grab at Riva’s ass.

Rage flares through my body. Even though there are three guys around me who are all more skilled at fighting than I am—not to mention Riva herself—my fist is flying before I’ve realized what I’m doing.

I punch the guy right in the face, catching his cheek and the side of his nose. An ache radiates through my knuckles, and his head snaps to the side with a pained woof of air escaping his mouth.

Zian has leapt to join me a second later, but the jerk is shuffling off, swearing under his breath and cradling his bruising face.

I lower my hand, staring at it for a second as if it could tell me where that split-second reaction came from. A faint hum of fury is still humming through my gut.

Riva has turned to peer at me. When I hesitantly meet her bright brown eyes, she offers me a slanted smile. “I could have walloped him myself and saved your hand. But thank you for defending my honor.”

Jacob snorts at the second comment, and I feel twice as awkward about my reaction.

“Yeah,” I mutter, ducking my head.

But I remember how Jake reacted when the hacker guy started putting the moves on Riva. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d have punched this jackass if he’d seen him first.

She belongs with us. She left us behind, but now she’s back, and she is ours.

Even if I don’t like thinking that way, the understanding is here, simmering away in the back of my skull.

No one speaks again the rest of the short walk to the out-of-business restaurant where we’re meeting the hacker. The back door is unlocked, as promised.

We step into a room quite smaller than the one before, empty other than a couple of bare shelves and the smell of stale bread. Zian stays poised near the exit, and Jacob immediately moves to the inner door to check it as an escape route.

As he rattles the doorknob, it jerks in his grasp. He backs up a step so the hacker can step into the room with us.

The beady-eyed man looks us all over, his arms crossed over his chest. His attention narrows in on the bag Zian has slung over his shoulder.

“Where’s my payment?” he asks.

Zian pulls out the action figure in its box but keeps it close.

Andreas cocks his head. “Where’s our information?”

The hacker turns to him. “Your target was difficult to trace. Someone’s done a lot of covering of her tracks. She must be important. But they weren’t quite good enough to completely throw me off.”

“So, what do you have, then?” Jacob says sharply.

The hacker shrugs as if our impatience means nothing to him.

“I was able to confirm that she worked in a very hush-hush branch of a specific security company starting about thirty years ago, for several years after that. I have the address for the office where she was located. I can’t tell you what happened to her after that, but the people there might have more answers for you. ”

After that, she probably moved on to the facility. It’s the right timeframe.

My heart beats faster. Jacob motions for Zian to come closer, and the bigger guy does, carrying the action figure.

The hacker pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Full directions and coordinates,” he says. “I didn’t slack off on you.”

“I should hope not,” Jacob grumbles.

Andreas holds out his hand. As the hacker extends the paper to him with one arm, he reaches the other toward the box. The exchange happens perfectly simultaneously.

The hacker shoots us all a broad grin. “A pleasure doing business with you.” Then he vanishes into the front of the derelict restaurant again.

While Andreas unfolds the paper, my breath catches in my throat.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s see where we’re heading tomorrow.”