Page 29 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty

Riva

A s far as I can tell, Kansas is basically one really big grassy field. With some extra grass on the side.

The lonely road we’re cruising along winds through those stretches of grass, up and down and around low hills, and past the occasional more cultivated stretch of fading corn or other crops I can’t identify. We haven’t seen a building up close in over an hour.

Jacob is driving now, with Dominic studying the specifications Andreas wrote down from Dr. Gao’s memory of Ursula Engel’s land purchase. His head dips and rises as he shifts his attention between the notepaper and the GPS map on the guys’ joint phone.

“We should be just about there, from what I can tell. But I don’t know what the property will look like.”

He glances over his shoulder at Andreas, who’s sitting in the middle now, squished between me and Zian. “You didn’t see any mention of the usage of the property or buildings on it?”

Drey shakes his head, the slight motion sending a ripple of heat through my body that only amplifies my regrets about how I responded to his touch yesterday.

“It was definitely listed as a land purchase, not a house sale or something like that,” he says. “But that was more than twenty years ago. Who knows what she did with it?”

Zian gazes out the window with a frown. “At least if there are guardians around, we should be able to spot them way in advance.”

He’s right, but there doesn’t appear to be anyone at all around. I haven’t even spotted a tractor in the last thirty miles.

Something makes Dominic lean forward in his seat. “There’s a fence up ahead. That could be the boundary of the property.”

My expectations have clearly become skewed by life in the facility, because when he says “fence,” I immediately anticipate a ten-foot-tall monstrosity topped with spikes of barbed wire.

What actually appears on the other side of the shallow ditch is a weathered wooden fence that’d only come up to my chest.

Here and there, boards are sagging or have fallen right off it. I crane my neck to get a better look past the guys. “I don’t think anyone’s been maintaining this place for a while.”

“Or they just want it to look that way,” Jacob mutters.

“We have no idea if it was ever connected to the facility,” Andreas points out. “Who knows how many projects Engel might have had going on?”

Jacob lets out a brusque huff. “We go forward assuming they’re here. That’s a hell of a lot safer than assuming they’re not.”

For once, I agree with him.

Dominic points at the windshield. “There’s a gate up there, so probably some kind of driveway. Should we head up that way in the car or on foot?”

Jacob slows the car as we come up on the gate. We all peer at the landscape around it.

There is a dirt lane, so overgrown with tufts of grass that it’s barely visible amid the larger field around it. No recent tire marks have crushed the blades or dug into the soil. The padlock securing the gate is blotchy with rust.

Beyond the gate, the field stretches out perfectly flat as far as my eyes can see. There’s no sign of any people, not a single building. Not even a freaking bush.

“Maybe she never actually used the property?” Zian ventures. “Or she tore down whatever she built here before she left?”

Dominic rubs his mouth thoughtfully. “If it’s the latter, we should still check it out. There could be remains that’ll give us an idea of what she was doing here.”

Jacob scans our entire surroundings and makes the final call. “We’ll drive up. It’ll look stranger for there to be a car stalled here on the side of the road. Let me get the gate.”

Not bothering to turn off the engine, he tenses his shoulders and makes a brisk motion with his hand.

The padlock clicks open. It floats through the air to hang on one of the fence boards.

With another shove of his power, Jacob pushes the gate wide. Its hinges let out an ear-splitting creak that has us all wincing.

He drives us through with a brief pause to heave the gate shut again. The flattened grass from our tires would give our arrival away, but only if someone looks closely.

The car creeps onward slowly as both Jacob and Dominic crane their necks to trace the faint path of the overgrown lane through the field. The bumps in the road jostle us, and my stomach starts to churn.

The effects of the poison have been sinking deeper into me throughout our drive here, but I’ve mostly been able to tune them out. I grit my teeth and focus on the terrain outside.

When Jacob hits the brakes, we’ve traveled far enough that I can’t see the road or the gate anymore when I check the rear windshield. “I think the lane ended here,” he says.

Dominic tips his head in agreement, and we all get out to scope out the area. The grass is noticeably thicker beyond the front bumper, supporting Jacob’s theory.

But there’s still nothing useful around us. Just grass, grass, and more grass.

We spread out through it, our eyes fixed to the ground for clues. The tall blades rustle against my calves. I walk slowly so that I don’t miss anything—and so that the tremors shooting through the muscles in my legs don’t have the chance to trip me up.

Every now and then, Dominic bends down and yanks a slightly taller plant out of the ground by the roots. Without comment, I watch him tuck the weeds and wildflowers into the pockets of his parka.

Someday he’ll tell me what’s going on with him. Pushing the guys to open up hasn’t gotten me anywhere.

I don’t want him to have to do anything for me that he isn’t happy about.

We’ve been scouring the area for at least ten minutes when Zian gives a little shout. He’s staring at the ground just in front of his feet, but when we all hustle over, I can’t see anything there at all.

I mean, other than grass.

He motions toward the ground. “I’ve been trying looking through the soil as far as I can. A couple of feet down right here, there’s more than just dirt. I think it’s cement.”

My heart skips a beat. “There’s an underground building. Like the facility.”

Andreas glances across the field again. “Except it’s either a hell of a lot bigger or they didn’t bother with the aboveground part.”

Jacob’s brow furrows. “Whoever was using it must have had some way to get in.”

You’d think so, but another half hour of searching, with Zian guiding us as he traces the outline of the building through the earth, turns up nothing remotely resembling an entrance. Or any other sign that anyone at all has come out this way in the last couple of decades.

It’s Dominic who calls out to us next. While we rush to join him, he kneels down in the grass.

He’s crouched by a small metal grate, a circle no wider than his shoulders. “Any underground structure would need ventilation.”

Jacob claps his hands together. “That’s our way in.”

Andreas cocks his head skeptically. “I don’t think we’re going to fit. How big is the vent under it?”

“Only one way to find out.”

Jacob untwists the bolts holding the grate in place, and Zian heaves it up with a rasp of degrading metal. He leans down to poke his head inside, but his broad shoulders won’t even make it through the opening.

“It looks even tighter in there,” he announces with a faint echo.

Jacob’s attention fixes on me. The other guys’ gazes follow him.

My skin tightens up, but it’s the obvious answer. I’m by far the smallest of us.

“Sure,” I say before Jacob even needs to volunteer me. I’m part of the team; I won’t shy away from doing my bit. “You want me to just crawl in there and…”

“Look for a way into the building, and then find a better way to get us in,” Jacob says in a tone like I’m dim for not realizing that right off the bat.

Maybe it should have been obvious. My brain has started to feel kind of wobbly too, like little bursts of static electricity are crackling through my thoughts.

“Right.” I peek down into the dark passage. “Anyone have a light?”

When Jacob hesitates, I let myself glower at him. “I know you don’t want me armed, but what do you think I’m going to do with a flashlight that I couldn’t with my fists? There obviously aren’t any windows down there. I’m not finding any entrances if I can’t even see .”

He grumbles something under his breath and jogs back to the car. When he returns, he passes a keychain-sized LED light to me. “Get on with it.”

“Happy to.” I give him a mocking salute and bend down to squirm into the vent.

I have to go head-first, because there’s no room to turn around once I’m inside. My gut twists and shudders as I squeeze into the space that’s tight even for me.

The smell of aged metal clogs my nose, like long-dried blood. I swallow down the acid that creeps up my throat, switch on the light, and army-crawl forward.

The vent stretches out into hazy darkness ahead of me, all smooth metal with no markings to tell me anything about where I am. The tremors from my legs quickly migrate to my arms and shoulders, nibbling away at my muscles while I propel myself along.

Just keep moving. I can do this. I’m stronger than Jacob’s stupid poison.

My back starts to ache too. The narrow space presses in on me, and my breaths become increasingly shallow.

Is there even enough air down here now?

A wave of dizziness sweeps over me. I pause, bracing my head against one hand.

I can’t stop now. What am I going to do—just die here in this underground tunnel like a sniveling kid?

The guys wouldn’t even know what happened to me.

Somehow, that last thought is the most terrifying of all. They’d probably assume I’ve abandoned them purposefully.

Fuck that.

I shove myself onward, my teeth clenching so tight my jaw throbs, which at least distracts me from the expanding aches and queasiness everywhere else in my body. The tunnel veers to the right, and I contort myself to follow it, the corner jabbing my belly.

A new addition to my collection of bruises. Hurray!

A couple of body-lengths after the bend, the vent slopes sharply downward. I hesitate at the top of the incline, clutching the tiny flashlight.