Page 345 of Shadowblood Souls
He pauses, a crease forming in his forehead as if he isn’t sure of what he’s going to say next. He exhales softly.
His voice comes out quieter. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, too. It always seemed… wrong, being apart from the rest of you. Especiallyyou. I tried to tell the guardians, to convince them. We supported each other in a way they didn’t seem to understand. And I didn’t know what you were thinking with me being gone, how that would affect you, but it bothered me, so it couldn’t be good.”
Another pause. His head bows. “I’m not sure it would really have made things much better if they had let me come back the way I am now, though.”
“It would have been better,” I burst out. “I wouldn’t have been thinking you weremurderedbecause of a plan I helped come up with. They couldn’t have messed with us making us believe that was mostly Riva’s fault.”
I aim a scowl at my twin. “You realize that’s the main reason they kept us apart, right? It was an easy way to lie to us, to fuck us up even more than they already had.”
“I didn’t know what they’d told you,” Griffin says. “If I had, I’d like to think I’d have fought harder to get back to you. Maybe I wouldn’t have trusted Clancy at all, even though he acted like he wanted nothing to do with the group who’d been handling me since the escape.”
I can’t conceive of what our lives would have been like if Griffin had turned up, in his currently vacant state or not, before Riva crashed back into our lives. If we’d known from the start that the guardians had lied to us about his fate—and therefore probably hers too.
It kills me even trying to picture it in comparison to what actually went down.
“All we can do is go forward from here.” Griffin glances over at me tentatively. “You’re going to be angry at me for a long time, just like the others, and I don’t resent that. But I’m doingmybest to figure out how to head in a better direction. And if you feel like you could lean on me for anything, in any way… I want to be there like I wasn’t all those years. As well as I can.”
I can’t tell how earnest he is when his tone holds only the faintest trace of emotion, but the words make my throat tighten anyway.
Lean on him? I always saw myself as the one he leaned on. When the training pushed us hard, when the guardians wouldn’t let up.
But I know that’s not really accurate. Something about his knowing but compassionate gaze, the ease to his words, could settle the rest of us down no matter what upset us, even when we were little. He kept us centered.
Where has that guy gone?
Before I have to decide how to respond, my brother’s gaze slides forward, to where Riva is just giving the teleporting kid a reassuring pat on the back.
“She loves you so much, you know,” he says. “Every time she looks at you, it’s there, shining like an entire full moon, not just a moonbeam. She wants you to be happy. Whatever you’re worried about when it comes to her, I don’t think you have to be anymore.”
He picks up his pace, leaving me grappling with a tangle of my own emotions.
It isn’t as if Riva hasn’t told me how she feels. I’m not sure I’ve totally believed it, though.
After everything I put her through…
I might not completely believe in Griffin, but hearing him say it so confidently smooths out a few rough edges inside me that I hadn’t even noticed scraping at my heart.
So maybe he hasn’t totally lost his centering gift after all.
When Riva returns to her position at the back, she gives me a curious look. “Are you and Griffin okay?”
I rub my mouth as I debate my answer. “I don’t know. But it’s possible we could get there.”
Our afternoon break stretches a little longer than the morning one. Some of the younger shadowbloods massage their calves and stretch their arms in attempts to relieve the strain.
New hope comes in the form of a strip of thinner underbrush we stumble on maybe an hour after our stop.
Zian steps out into the clearer stretch cautiously, his shoulders flexing as he glances up and down it. The rest of us follow.
I toe the grass-choked ground and make out faint ridges in the packed soil. Bits of gravel rasp against the sole of my sneaker.
“It was a road,” Dominic says, coming to the same conclusion I have a little faster. “Just a small one, like a private lane or something, and obviously not used in a while.”
Andreas peers along it into the distance. “That’s got to mean there are people aroundsomewherenot too far away.”
He turns to Griffin, whose eyes go even more vague as he must tap into his empathic sense. My twin’s mouth slants crookedly.
“Other than our group, I’m not picking up on anyone really close. I’m still aware of the big population northwest of here. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone closer. At longer distances, I can only pick up on a whole lot of emotion condensed in the same place, unless it’s someone I already know.”
