Page 34 of Shadowblood Souls: The Complete Series

Twenty-Four

Riva

T he five of us hustle together through the halls of the old facility to the massive staircase that leads to the outside world. By the time we’ve reached it, I can hear the car too—or cars, more like it. At least two different growls of engines hitch as they travel along the uneven lane.

It would probably make the most sense for me to sneak up and take a peek, since I’m the smallest, but Jacob must figure I might actually flag our pursuers down or something. He marches up ahead of everyone else, slowing cautiously as he reaches ground level.

After a moment, he returns to us. “Only two vehicles: a van and a normal-sized car. They’re definitely heading this way—they just came past the gate.”

Zian’s forehead furrows. “Only two? Even with the van, those can’t hold anywhere near as many guardians as they sent after us back at the college.”

I swipe my hand across my mouth, my body still braced for battle. “They might not realize it’s us. We have no idea if they figured out we went to Engel’s old workplace.”

“That’s true,” Dominic says. “They found us on the campus, not there. There’s a decent possibility they have no idea what trail we’re on.”

Jacob glances toward the control room, his expression dark and pensive. “It’d make sense for the organization to have some kind of alert connected to the opening of the door, even after all this time. I should have thought of that. We should have moved faster.”

“They’re here now.” Zian grimaces. “And I guess we’d better not let any of them leave to tell everyone else what we were doing.”

Jacob cracks his knuckles. “Absolutely. Even if Drey could wipe us from their memories, these people must be affiliated with the current facility. Whoever questions them about what they encountered here will know what the gaps mean.”

Andreas raises his head, looking haunted for a moment before his eyes narrow. “We need to keep at least a couple of them alive for a little while—so I can search their memories about Engel. We need to know more.”

“Right. We can try to question them about what went on in this place too.” Jacob glances around at the rest of us.

“Target the oldest ones for that, as well as you can tell. They’re the ones most likely to have worked with her and to know about the facility’s history.

Everyone else, we take out as quickly as we can. ”

“We should stay down here,” I say, letting my back rest against the wall. “Out there in the open, it’ll be too easy for them to get shots at us.”

“Of course. Spread out and get ready to pick them off.”

Jacob shoots a final look at Zian, who responds by moving with me when I back up to the entrance to one of the offices. He’s still playing babysitter, even after everything.

I bite back a caustic remark and prepare myself, extending my claws from my fingers. We fended off the last bunch of guardians, even though there were more of them then and they took us by surprise. There’s nothing to worry about here.

Other than the fact that they’ve gotten so close to us twice in just a few days.

The rest of the guys duck into other doorways where they can watch the hall without being seen. Zian’s lips pull back from his teeth in a silent snarl, but he stays in completely human form.

From the way he’s talked, I suspect he prefers to remain that way when he can keep control over himself. I can’t blame him, not when I’m keeping my own most destructive inclinations locked up.

The way he looked when I got a clear glimpse of his transformation in the control room—his face twisted into a distorted fusion of animal and man. Not an actual wolf so much as the kind of wolf-man you might see in a horror movie, a deformity more than an enhancement.

But he was still Zian, no matter how much fur leapt from his skin or how his face contorted.

I hope he knows that too.

Low voices carry from outside, too quiet for me to make out the words. If they say anything that Zian picks up with his keener ears and finds concerning, he gives no indication.

Footsteps travel down the steps with a faint rasp. They know someone’s down here, and they’re trying to catch those intruders unawares.

That’s another sign that they don’t know who they’re dealing with. The guardians are aware of Zian’s sharp hearing—I think they’d expect him to have already noticed their arrival if they knew he was here.

They aren’t prepared for his supernaturally penetrating sight either. He taps my shoulder and flashes seven fingers at me. That’s how many people he can see have entered the building so far.

The footsteps tread lightly toward us. My muscles tighten in anticipation.

The muzzle of a gun comes into view beyond the edge of the doorframe.

Zian and I spring out simultaneously. We leap at the closest of the figures, him instinctively letting me take the closer one with my shorter reach.

I slam the rifle against my thigh to bend it beyond use and haul the man who was holding it into the office room. He crashes to the floor with a clang of his helmet and vest.

They might not have realized who was in this place, but they pulled on their usual guardian gear regardless.

The man swings a fist at me and pulls a knife from a sheath at his waist. I kick the weapon away with a snap of breaking bone and yank up his helmet to get a look at his face.

He’s young, not much older than my guys—not a good choice for Andreas’s memory interrogation. I hesitate for just a second, but then the man rams his knee toward my belly while groping toward a holstered pistol at his hip, and I slash out with my claws.

His head lolls as blood gurgles from his throat. I shove myself away.

Bangs and thumps are echoing through the building all around me. Zian has already bashed his first target against the wall and left the woman in a crumpled heap. He has a man pinned under his immense frame now, one who looks closer to middle-aged.

“Did you know Ursula Engel?” he growls at the guy while restraining his struggling limbs.

“Let Andreas figure that out,” I tell him, and dash back to the doorway.

Three more bodies litter the hallway outside, two with the bashed in helmets I know were Jacob’s doing and another with a couple of bullet wounds to the chest that could have been dealt by any of the guys.

In the room across from ours, Jacob has another man glued to the wall with his telekinetic force, the strands of gray in his hair suggesting he’s the oldest of those we’ve seen so far.

“Get what you need,” Jake snaps at Andreas.

Andreas stands rigidly next to him, staring at the guy with the ruddy gleam shimmering in his eyes. “I’m trying. He’s—he’s doing something that’s muddling things whenever I try to focus in.”

The man manages a sickly smile of triumph that makes my blood run cold.

What new techniques have the guardians figured out that are messing up Drey’s talent?

Before I can worry much about that, more footsteps pound down the steps as a few guardians who initially hung back charge in to defend their companions. Too late.

I dart back out at the same time as Dominic emerges from the control room, a gun in his hand. With his brisk motion to the right, we understand each other.

I hurtle at the two figures on the left, my feet pushing off the ground so swiftly the soles of my shoes barely brush the floor. Dominic fires off several shots in quick succession at the two on the right.

As his targets crumple, I slam into a woman who’s just aiming her rifle, too sluggish to match my unearthly speed. Even as I snap her neck, I’m already spinning my torso around to kick the man behind her in the face.

His helmet dents inward, puncturing his skull with a fleshy cracking sound like Jacob’s preferred tactic. I land on the floor surrounded by the four limp bodies.

The scene brings back a flicker of the arena. My stomach lurches, and I yank my attention away, toward the entrance.

I’m okay now. We’re all okay. We dealt with them all without needing any extra brutality… didn’t we?

No other voices or footfalls carry from outside. I sprint up the steps to peek out into the cooling air of what’s now evening.

Nothing stirs around the van or the car that’ve parked a short distance from our vehicle.

I race back down to the hall. “That’s all of them!”

But we don’t know how many reinforcements could be on the way. Will the last of this bunch have called for backup before they descended?

They might not have been able to say who they were fighting, but they’d have realized the situation was bad.

When I reach the room where Jacob and Andreas were working on the one man, I find Zian has dragged his captive over there too, restraining him in the corner several feet from the first.

Andreas is frowning, sweat beading on his forehead as his eyes flare and dim.

“Fucking hell,” he snaps, and glares at the man pinned to the wall. “If you don’t let me in, we’ll just have to kill you.”

He glances at the other guy too, who I guess he also tried. “That goes for both of you.”

The man Zian is holding sputters a little bloody spittle over his lips. “You’re going to do that anyway. I’m not giving you a thing.”

Dominic has come in beside me. We exchange a glance, neither of us knowing how to help.

“I can make the killing a whole lot more painful,” Jacob warns, and twists his hand to the side. The man he’s pressed against the wall lets out a grunt of agony, his features spasming.

Andreas elbows Jake. “That doesn’t help,” he says under his breath. “If their brain is fried with pain, I can’t get much out of it then either.”

Jacob scowls but eases up on the pressure.

I hug myself, uneasiness wobbling through my chest. If we can’t get any answers from them, then where do we go from here?

Jacob was right that there are millions of places Engel could have set up her cabin, if she even did that.

The hovering man’s gaze catches on me for a moment, and I catch the slightest softening in his defiant expression. It’s there and then gone, but for a second I thought I saw a hint of… concern?

My first response is a jolt of anger. Who the hell is he to feel sorry for me?

Then understanding clicks in my head.

The hostile words Zian threw at me less than an hour ago. All Jacob’s sneering comments about my “sob story.” The reason I was so popular in the arena for all those years.

I don’t look like a threat. I’m a short, skinny girl you’d think you could snap in two. My only outwardly unnerving feature is my claws, and I’ve retracted those back into my fingertips.

I hate it when people see me as someone weak and fragile… but maybe that’s what we need right now. Maybe I can use the illusion of vulnerability to distract this guy from whatever technique he’s using to close off his mind.

Stir up sympathy to rattle his emotions and his concentration in a totally different way from pain.

Even though it’s my idea, my body balks for a few seconds before I can propel it forward. My skin prickles with discomfort as I place myself within clear view of both of our captives. Might as well see if the gambit will work on both of them.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jacob snaps at me, giving me the perfect opening.

I hunch my shoulders and let my voice come out quavering. “I’m just trying to help. Please don’t yell at me.”

Jacob’s expression contorts with so much surprise I’d laugh if I wasn’t aiming to give off the complete opposite impression. I turn back toward the captives, brushing my hands past my eyes as if swiping away tears.

I’ve got tears in me somewhere, the burn of grief and frustration I’ve felt more times than I can count since I reunited with my guys. Since all the way back to watching Griffin collapse in front of me and knowing I’d failed us all.

Blinking hard, I open up a channel inside me to bring those feelings to the surface rather than stuffing them as far down as they’ll go like usual. Heat builds behind my eyes.

I don’t want to risk faking it. If this is going to work, the deluge of vulnerability needs to come as fast and effective as possible.

So I open my mouth and let all my weakest thoughts tumble out, gazing vaguely at the floor, pretending I’m speaking to my guys rather than putting on a performance for our hostages.

“I always just want to help, but you never believe me. You’ve made me weak and sick and then you get mad at me because I can’t do enough. I’m trying . I’m trying so hard to make things right, to be what you want, but that’s never enough either.”

A lump I don’t have to force rises in my throat. A couple of very real tears slip down my cheeks. I take a ragged breath, leaning into the display of patheticness and ignoring the screaming of my dignity.

The guys are silent around me, but I don’t dare look at them or our captives. I can’t tell whether they’re shocked or skeptical or if they’ve figured out what I’m trying to accomplish here.

I squeeze my eyes shut for a second, and more tears trickle out.

“You want me dead too. I’ve spent the last four years thinking about nothing but getting back to you and getting you free, and all you seem to think about when you see me is how much pain you want to put me through.

How horrible it is that I’m around. How much of a burden I am.

I don’t know what else you want from me. ”

My voice breaks on the last word of its own accord. I can’t stop myself from sniffling, but maybe that’s a good thing.

I hug myself tighter, hoping I look as frail as I feel right now with all my emotions stretched to fraying.

“You can all hate me as much as you want, but you know what? You can’t hate me more than I already do.

The mistakes I’ve made, the disasters I couldn’t control…

But I have never wanted to hurt any of you—not Griffin, not the rest of you—and every second of my life when I had the choice, I did whatever I could to protect you.

If you can’t ever believe that, then… I don’t know. ”

My legs tremble beneath me, and I let them give. I slump down on the floor as if I’m totally defeated—and in that moment, I kind of am.

What if even this doesn’t work? What if I’ve just made a fool of myself and still gotten us nowhere?

I can already hear the caustic insults that Jacob is probably forming in his head right now. A sob I can’t contain hitches out of me.

I drop my head into my hands. I want to curl up in a ball so they can’t see me, so I have some kind of shell against the world again, but that would defeat the point of this demonstration.

Just hold on. Just stay here in this awful stew of emotions for as long as I can…

“I’ve got it,” Andreas says in a low rasp. “I got everything.”

As I raise my head, a strange ache spreading through my chest, Jacob sucks a breath through his teeth—and two spines crack simultaneously, our captives’ heads going slack.