Page 257 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Thirty-One

Riva

T he battle isn’t actually over, of course.

First, Zian and I haul the bound, unconscious bodies of the ten shadowbloods we were able to save up the stairwell and out into the yard.

As soon as we’re all cleared out, Dominic calls Rollick to let him know to bring the truck around while Sorsha fixes her gaze on the small building above the surface.

“It’s all going to burn,” she assures me, and snaps her fingers.

I can’t see most of the inferno, but the warble of it reaches my ears from below the ground even before the flames shoot up to swallow the upper building. Heat washes over the grass, melting the frost that’d formed there.

Every trace of the facility where we were tormented the longest, where the guardians tore us apart and shattered our early bonds, turns into ashes.

I find I don’t mind the smoky flavor that coats my mouth. It’s confirmation that we’re never coming back.

Then, late that night, we slink into the high-rise office space Andreas pulled from Cutler’s memories—a property that Toni confirmed belonged to Balthazar. The rogue shadowbloods must have found out about it one way or another and commandeered it for their own ends.

They only left three of their companions behind. Easing the door open enough to peek inside, I catch the man and the two teenaged boys in urgent conversation.

“Cutler said to get started if they weren’t back by the morning,” one of the boys is saying. “What the hell are we going to do in the middle of the night anyway?”

The man glowers at him. “We haven’t heard anything from him. Something’s gone wrong.”

The other boy cocks his head. “He might be glad if we brought in more people even if he’s okay.”

I’m not going to give them time to decide to take that route.

For what I hope is the last time I need to in my life, I open my mouth and shriek. I don’t make it loud, just give it enough audible force to make sure it’ll hit them as quickly as possible.

With the impact of the sound, the figures freeze. I punch the vicious energy through their hearts, one by one—quick, but giving the hunger inside me a few brief bursts of pain like a sort of thank you for its service.

I wouldn’t have made it this far without the banshee side of me. I might not have ever made it out of the cage-fighting ring.

I can’t say I love that part of myself, but it doesn’t seem fair to hate it either.

When the last of the rogues crumples to the ground, I make a beckoning gesture. Jacob, Zian, and Dominic follow me into the office. Sorsha brings up the rear, supported between Thorn and Snap in her still-dizzy state.

We find the serum and the pills Cutler mentioned quickly enough. Several dozen vials of clear liquid sit on the shelves in the office fridge next to bottles full of gel capsules. Sorsha scorches it all into a glob of melted glass, and we toss it into a garbage bag for more thorough disposal.

Zian lets out a shout and holds up a couple of notebooks. “I think these are Balthazar’s. It looks like they’ve got instructions, maybe some formulas.”

My gaze has latched onto a device I never expected to see again. “Here’s Engel’s laptop. They held on to that too.”

Sorsha wiggles her fingers. “I can take care of all of those.”

“Wait,” Dominic says, quiet but emphatic.

“Before we destroy them, we should take the time to look through them and figure out what he did to his shadowbloods. Maybe there’s some way to reverse the effects.

The ones Andreas wiped are still going to have to deal with a difficult temper their whole lives if we can’t. ”

I balk at the idea of leaving any shred of Balthazar’s plans intact even for an hour longer, but I force myself to nod. He’s right.

We’ve taken an awful lot from the rogues we saved. The least we can do is see if we can give something back.

Snap has left Sorsha’s side to move through the room. He pauses by the few computers on the scattered desks and flicks his forked tongue toward them.

“No one’s used these recently,” he announces.

I exhale in relief. “Toni’s already working on erasing all the data Balthazar stored online. That’ll be the end of it.”

The struggles aren’t over for our fellow shadowbloods either.

A few days later, I drift through the halls of Rollick’s Spanish mansion, where he sent us after we finished sorting out the mess in the US. The isolated setting makes the estate ideal in case any of our charges act out—and for the comings and goings of his shadowkind allies.

The former rogues seem to drift too, wandering around the rooms with slightly dazed expressions that still haven’t left them.

They’re having to build whole new identities for themselves with nothing really to go by except the names we could tell them and the slow introduction we’re giving them to their powers.

Some of the teens have taken to hanging out together, taking comfort in their shared confusion. I find five of them in the sitting room with a laptop Rollick gave them. They’re watching music videos online.

One of them points at the screen. “That one next.”

“We just listened to it!” another protests.

“Like an hour ago. It’s my favorite.”

Another of the girls scratches her head. “Do you think we’ve heard enough music yet that we can really have favorites?”

The first girl sets her hands on her hips and takes on a sassy tone. “I know that’s the best song I’ve ever heard even if I can’t remember most of the ones I listened to before.”

The bunch of them break out into laughter. The sound peals out of the room and wraps around my heart with a glow of relief.

They can be happy. That’s a start.

That’s the most important thing, really. I don’t think any of us shadowbloods had much of a chance to be happy while we were dealing with one villain or another controlling our lives.

One of the guys slings his arm around the first girl’s waist, and she peeks at him coyly through her eyelashes. Then I step into the room, and they all go momentarily silent. Not nervous but aware that they should pay attention to whatever I might say.

It feels weird being treated as an authority figure, even though I do know a lot more about what we are and what we’ve been through than any of them do now.

I smile at them to show I’m totally on board with how they’re occupying their time. “Maybe we could set up a dance party here one night. Andreas did that for me once—it can be a lot of fun.”

The girl who was demanding her favorite song beams at me. “That sounds awesome!”

The glow inside me expands a little. “I’ll talk to the guys about what we can pull together, then. And I’ll see all of you for our powers practice sessions later.”

An eager light gleams in all of their eyes.

I don’t totally like how enthusiastic they are to uncover the powers they’ve forgotten, but it’s not as if I can blame them for being eager to own their strength.

And we have to teach them what they’re capable of so they can learn how to control those powers.

I just hope we can be good enough teachers to ensure they never take things too far again.

In the next room over, Ajax and Devon are sitting on a loveseat together, flipping through a book of photos from around the world. Ajax is just tapping one of the scenes. “The island we were on looked kind of like this. At least, the jungle part in the middle of the mountains.”

Devon tilts his head to the side. “That doesn’t look so bad. It’s pretty—and peaceful.”

Ajax chuckles softly. “It probably wouldn’t be bad if we were there for an actual vacation or something. Maybe we can actually do that someday.”

I stay silent so as not to disturb them overtly, but think a question toward Ajax. Are you going to tell him about everything that happened?

We’ve filled the younger shadowbloods in on the broader strokes of our history but kept the events of the past month particularly vague.

I’m not sure how they’d react to knowing the full details of what we endured—or the destruction they carried out.

But we’re giving Ajax some leeway with his boyfriend, since he knows Devon better than any of us.

Ajax doesn’t give any outward sign that he’s talking to me. Not yet. I’m seeing how it goes. And… I feel like the things he did after Balthazar messed with him weren’t really him anyway.

Yeah, that’s fair.

He’s been taking their relationship slowly too—letting Devon know how important they were to each other but making it clear that he doesn’t need to reciprocate. As I watch, Devon scoots a little closer so he’s tucked right against the other boy.

I don’t need Griffin’s empathic ability to read the joy that beams from Ajax’s face.

I pass the kitchen, where Omar and the other criminal shadowblood we rescued are putting away the recently-washed breakfast dishes. Omar has been surprisingly upbeat since waking up from the memory wipe, and his good mood seems to rub off on the other man.

Rollick has been overseeing their recovery, since they have a little trouble accepting my guys and me as authorities the way the teens do. There are always at least a few shadowkind monitoring them from the shadows too.

Just before I reach the corner that leads to the row of bedrooms, Nadia comes striding around the corner. She stops when she sees me with a hesitant smile that makes my heart ache.

I think she can tell that things weren’t so great between us right before she lost her memories. It’s hard for me to never let my regrets over how those last few weeks played out color my expression or my voice.

She has no idea just how much she lost. I don’t know if it’ll ever make sense to tell her about Booker.

But I’m doing my best to be both a friend and a big sister figure to her now—better than I managed it before.

“Are you ready to shine?” I ask her in a lightly teasing tone.