Page 252 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

The few bits of goodness we found here—the sofa where we tucked ourselves together to watch a movie or TV show on our occasional breaks, the table where we ate lunch and snacks in companionable conversation—the guardians must have taken with them when they abandoned ship.

All that’s left are the pillars along the edges of the rooms and a few odds and ends like dusty exercise mats.

We’ve added our own touch too. Over the past day, we’ve assembled a structure at the far end of the room that looks reasonably weapon-ish. It’s taller than me and twice as long as that, all metal and glass and various controls fused together.

It doesn’t do anything, but it looks intimidating to me even though I know that it’s really a heap of junk. Hopefully it’ll be convincing enough to the shadowbloods that they’ll take it seriously.

I lead Sorsha over to a pillar where we’ve left a few crates for extra shelter. As she settles into her place, bracing her arms against the boxes, I cross the room to the matching setup on the opposite side.

I have a clear view of the doorway at my left and the supposed weapon at my right. I’ve also got a phone waiting for me, tucked away between two of the crates, that’s connected to the hasty camera system we set up in place of the devices the guardians removed.

The phone’s screen is divided into quarters, each with its own view: the front gate, the ground floor hallway, and two different angles of the hall outside the gymnasium to cover the whole area.

The rogues will probably check the higher floors first, but there’s nothing there that’ll interest them for long.

My heart thuds between my ribs. I rest one hand on the cool surface of the pillar and remind myself to breathe.

I’m only on my third breath when the first video stream shows the vans pulling up outside. A squad of guardians—fourteen, I count as they emerge—pour out of their vehicles and stalk up to the gate.

We’ve left it unlocked. We want them coming inside.

After testing it tentatively, one of them nudges it open. They stride onto the parking lot.

A few get back in the vans to drive the vehicles right into the compound. Others head for the entrance.

Good. It’ll be more convincing if the rogues find at least a few of them inside the building rather than all hanging out in the yard.

In a few clusters of three, the guardians head inside. On the second feed, I watch them scanning the hall and poking their heads through doorways.

They’re all holding weapons—large rifles they keep tucked under one arm at the ready. Those aren’t going to be any match for the shadowbloods’ powers.

They never really respected what we can do.

As they’re about to find out in brutal clarity. A couple of the guardians are just yanking at the fused door to the stairwell when I spot the first signs of movement in the forest beyond the fence.

My back goes rigid. I peer at the tiny rectangle on the phone’s screen until I’m sure I see a brief flash of hair amid the underbrush.

And then it starts.

The video feeds don’t offer any sound, but I can imagine the shouts of horror as the guardians stationed outside topple with a lurch of the ground. Their skin bubbles as if broiling; their bodies jerk with pain.

Is that Devon burning them with the heat he can summon? My stomach lurches queasily.

I’m never going to mention this to Ajax. He’s lost enough of the boyfriend he loved already.

The guards slump against the asphalt, and the rogue shadowbloods prowl out of the woods.

Cutler walks in the lead, the sunlight gleaming off the skull-and-snake tattoo on his otherwise bare scalp. Nadia marches forward at his right flank, the man with the scarred forehead at his left, at least two dozen more shadowbloods storming along in their wake.

In the hall, a few of the guardians must have picked up on the sounds outside. I can see them calling to each other, a couple of them loping toward the door.

Not fast enough.

The front door flies open, and a blast of light so blinding it whites out the video footage sears down the hall. In the first few seconds, while my pulse thunders through my skull, I can’t see anything at all.

The stark glow clears to a flurry of limbs, some swinging, some flailing. The shadowbloods are flinging guardians into walls, tearing open their bellies, smashing their heads like melons.

It looks like a few of the gunmen fight back, but I don’t see any of their bullets land before they’re trampled in the rampage.

There’s a brief moment when the shadowbloods hold still, their chests heaving and their heads cocked, while all of the guardians sprawl lifeless on the floor. When no indication of further attack comes, they spring back into motion.

The rogues fan out, a few of the younger kids hanging back in the hall, the others checking the rooms much like their victims did minutes ago. Cutler reaches the stairwell and jiggles the handle.

He beckons over a couple of the teens. Whatever they do with their powers, within a matter of seconds, they’re cracking the door right off its hinges.

Here they come.

While they stream into the stairwell, I fix my gaze on the corpses in the hallway. I draw up the memories of the news reports, the scenes of destruction I’ve witnessed firsthand.

The guardians might have gotten what they bargained for, but too many innocent or unwitting people have died in the same horrible way. The rogue shadowbloods don’t care who they hurt or how much they destroy.

They want to inflict the pain they’re feeling on the rest of the world, as if it’s some kind of justice.

And I have to stop them.

A shriek builds at the base of my throat. I hold it in, honing it, expanding it, bracing myself for the moment it’s time to use it.

They have one more chance. One last opportunity we could give them to show they’re more than the monsters Balthazar turned them into.

Finally, they ease out into the hall outside the gymnasium. Cutler is frowning. His followers do a quick check of the other rooms as they stalk forward.

They glance into the former pool room too, but at the moment, they won’t be able to see anything inside. Then Devon peers into the gymnasium and lets out an eager shout.

He points toward our contraption looming at the far end of the gym. The others gather closer—and then several of their heads jerk to the side.

Andreas is fulfilling his part of the plan. He’ll be projecting a memory into all of their heads: an image he searched out of his own store of recollections to fit the task.

They’ll hear a child crying. See a little girl peeking her face out from behind a box by the far wall, frightened and bleeding from a scrape on her cheek.

Who will try to help her, and who will decide getting straight to the weapon is more important? Who still has the most basic instinct of compassion?

Devon doubles back, a flicker of concern crossing his taut face. The scarred man turns with a twitch of a frown. Several heads dip together in hurried discussion.

Six of the rogues step into the former pool room. I watch Devon disappear from view, and the scarred man, a few more teens. One of the other adults and a couple of the kids linger outside to see what their companions discover.

Cutler and the rest show no sign of caring what’s going on with the little girl. They stride into the gymnasium without a backward glance, heading straight for the supposed weapon.

Nadia hustles in alongside them, nothing but fierce resolve showing in her expression. I didn’t see her so much as hesitate during the commotion in the hall.

My heart sinks, but I don’t let the punch of dread shake my concentration. This isn’t the result I wanted to see, but it is what it is.

I have to accept reality. Clinging on to unjustified hope has already left too many people dead when maybe we could have stopped the carnage sooner.

The rogues march toward the weapon, their gazes sweeping the room. They can’t see me or my waiting companions. They have no idea we’re here.

But just before Jacob rams an invisible force into the door to slam it shut in their wake, before my lips have even parted to give my killing shriek the full power I can put behind it, something must catch Cutler’s attention.

He whirls around, his yell reverberating through the room an instant before the bang of the door. “It’s a trap!”

With a stutter of my heart, I hurl my killing shriek from my throat.