Page 289 of Shadowblood Souls
I’ve managed to get more specific inwhoI target, but how… not really at all.
Gritting my teeth, I brace myself to try.
The second mouse I don’t kill outright, yanking myself out of the scream’s trance at the last second. But its mangled twitching showed there’d be no point in keeping it alive if Clancy couldn’t scoop it out and pass it to another guardian, telling him to take it to Dominic.
I still feel sick, but knowing I managed to rein myself in a little builds my confidence. With the third mouse, I encourage the demanding need inside me to inflict the pain slowly, drawing out every drop.
One bone snaps. A sliver of flesh rips.
I slam my mouth shut, and the mouse shudders. It’s going to need healing too, but it can still walk.
A startled laugh of relief tumbles from my mouth, soothing the vocal cords still quivering from my last shriek.
The next time, I don’t break anything at all. I narrow all my attention onto the panic I can sense in the rodents’ beady eyes, the twitches of their bodies as my scream grips them, drinking in the thinner stream formed by the torment of that fear—and pull back before the scream can slice any deeper.
I practice again and again, until I’ve probably given the poor things PTSD. But I haven’t done anything worse to them.
Finally, I sag back on my heels and realize that my shirt is damp with sweat.
Clancy’s small smile looks almost friendly to me now. “That was good. Very good. You’ll have a chance to practice more later. Better not to push yourself too hard all at once.”
I find myself accepting his offered hand to help me to my feet. A whisper of elation tickles through me as we return to the main clearing.
He told the truth about at least this much—he’s giving me the chance to be something other than a monster.
When I rejoin the others, Dominic still has his harness on. The straps of the shrub-carrier have been constructed well to work around his various appendages, angling under his tentacles and then across the outer part of his shoulders. Another strap around his waist holds the contraption steady, with the pot right in the middle of his back.
“It’s not too bad,” he tells me with a crooked smile. “I’m going to leave it on for the trek back to the facility just to get more used to it.”
Jacob rolls his shoulders, his expression impassive. I can’t tell if he’s been affected by the mock-killing he’s been practicing.
“What now?” he asks Clancy.
Our captor-slash-trainer has brought out a tablet. “We’ll go over more of the details of the mission back at the facility this evening. But I want you to start absorbing the key faces now so you’re most likely to recognize them later.”
He brings up a photograph of a man who looks to be in his sixties, grizzled with slicked back gray hair and lips that are both full and sharply carved in his craggy face. “This is the leader of a child abduction ring that’s been operating for decades. His people kidnap vulnerable kids and teens and sell them off into work-slavery or worse.”
A shiver of revulsion passes through me. “And there aren’t any police or whatever who can stop them?”
Clancy grimaces. “He pays off local law enforcement and operates very carefully so there’s as little evidence as possible. I think it’s time someone took matters into their own hands.”
He flips through several more photographs, pausing on each to give us time to study their faces. “These are his known associates that we’ve identified. Most of them should be with him in his home on the night we send you in.”
“What about the kids?” Dominic asks, frowning.
“They never have more than one or two on their property at a time, and never for very long. And from what we can tell, they don’t keep them at the private home. But to take every precaution, we’ll pick a time when we’re sure they’re between transactions.”
Clancy lowers the tablet and considers us. “There may be household staff on the premises. We’d prefer you didn’t harm them if you can avoid it. I’d imagine you can differentiate between them and your real targets by their behavior and clothing.”
One more factor to pay attention to. I won’t be able to simply scream at the house and carve up every human being inside it.
This assignment isn’t going to be easy.It isn’t anything like our past missions, where we had no idea what real purpose the guardians had for sending us out.
But the quiver passing through my veins is as much anticipation as it is nerves. Iwouldlike the chance to put mydeadly skills to use in a way that helps people rather than simply slaughtering those in my way.
And I’m starting to think that might be possible in ways I never imagined before.
How can I say that killing a bunch of child-slavers is a bad thing? These assholes have to know their work is evil, but they’re doing it anyway.
