Page 164 of Shadowblood Souls
Zian shoots him a look as if he’s thinking that it really couldn’t, but he sags deeper into his seat rather than arguing. I ease away from him onto the middle seat and tug off my backpack.
At least those made it with us through the fray.
“Iamgoing to need to get changed soon,” I announce to the car at large.
Zian isn’t coated with gore. Benefits of being bigger than most of your opponents so they aren’t bleeding all over you as they die.
The thought of the battle we just fled surges back into my mind, and my stomach lurches.
“Did you see them?” I add. “The teenagers who were there?”
Dominic knits his brow. “Teenagers?” He mustn’t have heard Zian’s comment.
“Around the building. I saw one with the guardians, watching from farther away, and Zian did too.”
As Zian dips his head in acknowledgment, Andreas lets out a rough sound. “I did see a high-school age kid watching from a window on one of the other buildings with a weird expression. I thought he was just watching the fight as a startled bystander…”
“Something tripped me and Jacob,” I say. “And there was the fire that started out of the blue, and the vines that were only an illusion. Things like what we can do.”
Dominic sucks in a sharp breath. “That’s right. You said something about shadowbloods—I was so focused on getting out of there.”
“We all were,” Jacob says. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. We’re heading to Miami now.”
I scowl. “Of course it matters. We can’t just— If they have other kids they’re torturing like they did to us, we have to help them.”
“Why? If you’re right, then those kids just helped attack us.”
“They might not have had a choice,” Zian says, his voice still ragged. “Or they might have thought that we were the real problem. We know what kinds of tactics the guardians use.”
If they could turn the guys I grew up with against me, it would be pretty easy to convince a bunch of strangers who have no idea who we are that we were a greater enemy.
“We don’t have to figure it out yet,” Andreas says. “It’s not like we’re in a position to stage a prison break right now anyway.”
He pauses. “But I agree with Riva. When wedohave the chance… we can’t let them keep doing to other people what they did to us.”
I manage a tight smile in gratitude, and then another unnerving thought hits me. “What if that’s how they found us? What if the other shadowbloods can use their talents to track us down?”
An uneasy silence settles over the car. Jacob’s voice breaks it, even grimmer than before.
“Then we’ll just have to keep on moving so they never have the chance to catch up.”
Twelve
Riva
It turns out that I didn’t really need my new favorite hoodie anyway, because Miami in September is freaking hot.
We cruise along the main strip with the air conditioning blasting, but I can still feel the heat radiating through the windows of our new car alongside the bright late-afternoon sunlight. Jacob and Andreas nabbed this one not far outside Toronto, since it seems likely the guardians who survived the battle will have taken note of our previous vehicle.
The station wagon is clunky and a bit of an eyesore, but the back seat is more spacious than our most recent rides. I stretch out my legs where I’m perched next to the lefthand window.
Just this once, I managed to convince the guys that Zian should get a chance at riding shotgun. Both he and I need to be scanning the streets for possible monsters. Or shadowkind. Or whatever we’re going to call them.
The sun isn’t the only thing radiating through the windows. Thumping bass seems to reverberate out of buildings on everystreet and through the windows of open car windows on the road around us.
I kind of like it. It’s like the city is one big dance party.
Which is a good thing, because we’re doing a lot of cruising without any success so far.
