Page 24 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Sixteen

Riva

B y the time we make it back to the townhouse, night has draped itself over the sky, blotting out all the light except a speckling of stars and the artificial glow in the windows along the street.

Jacob parks out front in the usual spot. As the guys open the doors, laughter drifts out through the living room window of the townhouse next door, which they’ve left partly open to enjoy the warm early autumn air.

I scoot along the back seat and clamber out, discovering when I set down my feet that the poison in my system has been gnawing its way deeper again. A prickling jolt races up the legs I haven’t used in a few hours, and I lurch to the side.

My hand slams against the side of the car to catch my balance. I take a breath and steady my body before starting forward again.

The prickles pinch at my muscles all the way up to my hips and dig into my gut. I don’t like asking him, because there’s something about the process he obviously doesn’t like, but I think I’m going to need to get Dominic to work his healing skill on me again sometime tonight.

I roll my shoulders and walk a little stiffly to the front steps, uncomfortably aware of how Zian has hung back near me and the other guys are waiting for me rather than going on in.

Not because they’re concerned about my well-being, but because they still see me as a potential threat to be monitored.

Well, Andreas is actually concerned. He catches my gaze and offers a sympathetic grimace.

I’ve just gripped the railing next to the stairs when the door on the other side of the lane opens, letting the buoyant voices spill out louder. Brooke emerges. She trots down the steps with a little wave and strides right over to us.

“Hey!” she says, taking all five of us in with a glance, and then focuses on me. “I’m glad I caught you, Rita. I was really hoping I could talk with you for a sec.”

I push my lips into a smile as I pray to whatever higher powers might or might not exist that I can improv my way through the unexpected conversation. “Sure. What’s up?”

That’s what college-student-type people say to their friends, right?

With a flick of her gaze toward the guys poised around me, she purses her lips and tilts her head toward the lane. “Just the two of us, away from the street? It’s kind of… private. Girl stuff.”

She shoots another, more pointed look at the guys.

Jacob frowns, but he knows how weird it’d look if my supposed roommates start dictating whether I can even talk to another person without their presence.

Andreas speaks up for all of them, with a casual motion of his hand toward the back of the buildings. “Go have your girl talk.”

The guys troop inside as if it’s no big deal, but my nerves creep as I follow Brooke down the lane to the small patios that border the alley behind the townhouses.

I have no doubt at all that Zian is following my movements through the wall.

Most likely Jacob will keep watch surreptitiously from one of the back windows as well.

As if I’m going to be plotting their downfall with a history student who’s probably never encountered anything more dangerous than an A minus.

Brooke stops by the patios and leans against the wooden fence that borders her townhouse’s. It’s even darker back here beyond the reach of the streetlamps, just a couple of dim security lights illuminating the alley.

She pushes her hair back behind her ears and studies me. “I get that you might not be ready to talk about this yet. It might be hard to even think about it. But I want you to know that if you decide you need help, you can reach out to me, and I’ll do whatever I can.”

I stare at her, too bewildered to gather my words for a moment. She can’t be referring to any of the things I’d actually need help with, so what the hell is she talking about?

“I don’t know what you mean,” I manage after an awkwardly long silence.

Brooke’s mouth tightens. “Look, I’ve been there before. This guy I dated for a year in high school—I know what it looks like. How it feels. You might not want to believe it, but the way they’re treating you isn’t okay.”

She’s talking about my guys—what exactly has she noticed? A chill tickles through me.

“I’m not dating any of them. And nothing’s wrong.”

Brooke drops her voice. “It is, though. They don’t ever seem to let you out of their sight. They didn’t even want you to come talk to me—I could tell. They expect you to do whatever they say, I bet.”

“It’s not like that,” I say quickly. “We’re just—we’re all new here. We rely on each other.”

She knits her brow. “And what happens when you don’t go along with what they expect?

Sometimes it looks like you’re trying not to limp, and those scars on your arms…

I don’t want to get you in trouble with them, but you’ve got to realize that’s not normal.

That’s not how anyone who cares about you should act. ”

As she’s spoken, my stomach’s gotten so twisted up it probably looks like a pretzel now. She cares, clearly. Way more than someone who’s only had a few brief occasions to get to know me really should.

But she’s obviously more compassionate than the average person—and sharper-eyed. I don’t know how to explain the things she’s observed in any way that could make sense given what she’d be willing to believe.

I have to try anyway. I don’t want her stressing out over my situation when she doesn’t need to—and it’s better for us if she thinks everything’s fine over here.

I tug my hoodie closer around me. “I told you—I’ve gotten into fights. And not with those guys. I go to martial arts classes. Sometimes things get kind of rough in the sparring.”

That seems like a reasonable explanation, but Brooke’s expression stays skeptical. “Like I said, I understand if you don’t want to talk about it. As long as you remember I’m here if you change your mind.”

I wet my lips and stiffen against a wave of dizziness. Shit.

I wish I’d gotten Dominic to heal me up during the drive. She’s really going to freak out if I start swaying around like I did at the club.

“I swear,” I say, “I can see how it might look bad, but it’s really?—”

My deflection is cut off by the bang of the back door slamming open and a flurry of bodies springing out of the shadows from all around us.

I yelp and instinctively dive for cover behind our patio’s planter. All four of my guys are barging out of the house—and at least a dozen black-clothed figures have burst from the darkness down the alley and between the other buildings.

In the first couple of seconds as my pulse stutters and my mind scrambles to make sense of the scene, I register the black helmets that cover all but the intruders’ eyes and a slat around their jaws. Just like the helmets the guardians wore in the facility, only painted for stealth.

Our jailers have found us.

A startled gasp bursts from Brooke’s lips, and one of the armored figures lunges straight at her.

Panic flashes through me. I leap back over the planter, hurling myself between my unexpected friend and her attacker with my claws flicking from my fingers?—

But my weakened muscles react too sluggishly. I lash out a foot shy of the incoming guardian, who barrels straight into Brooke before she can emit a full-out scream and stabs a curved blade into her neck.

Her voice cuts out with a gurgle. Blood gushes down her fuzzy sweater and splatters the ground I’ve just fallen to.

A cry of protest tears up my throat.

No. No. She didn’t do anything—she was just standing there—she barely had anything to do with us.

The guardian shoves Brooke’s body away, and it topples over like a puppet cut off its strings. Every nerve in my body clamors to snatch her up, to drag her away from these menaces as if there’s any way to keep her safe now, but her attacker is already spinning toward me.

I spring backward, falling into a defensive crouch. My heartbeat thunders behind my ears, but not loud enough to drown out the smacks and grunts careening from the patio.

The man whips up an odd-looking gun. I hurl myself to the side just in time to avoid a dart that clatters off the brick wall behind me.

They’re trying to tranquilize us. Of course.

The bastards don’t want us dead, only back under their control.

I can’t let the brute I’m facing off with get another shot at me—I have no idea how badly the drugs in those darts will react with the toxin already in my veins. I roll to the side, leap off the wall, and ricochet straight toward him.

As I crash into him, an electric crackle sounds from where he’s tried to pull some kind of taser-like device from his pocket. But it’s his own thigh that spasms with the electric jolt, and then I’m gouging out his throat like he did to Brooke, the closest thing I can get to poetic payback.

Fury sears through my chest. He won’t hurt anyone else who didn’t deserve it now.

My gaze passes over her slumped, bloody form, and anguish floods me in turn.

Fucking damn it. If I’d just made it to him faster…

Another figure sprints toward me. I jerk around to defend myself, but before I need to, an invisible force wrenches him off his feet. It smashes his helmet against the corner of the neighboring townhouse, the metal denting right into the man’s skull.

Jacob is standing by the planters, his face rigid with concentration, his hands slashing through the air as he directs his talent.

He flings another guardian against an electrical post hard enough that the crack of a spine echoes through the air.

Then he yanks another that’s gotten too close right toward him—impaling him on the purple spines now jutting from his forearms.

The victim of his full dose of poison twitches like a fish flopping on a dock, spittle spewing from her lips before she collapses.

A massive form charges forward, so familiar and alien at the same time that my mind jars as it tries to process what I’m seeing.