Page 385 of Shadowblood Souls
Jacob has taken out one. Seven more to go.
It’ll be slow going for Jake. He has to know exactly where his targets are, and he can’t risk them noticing something’s wrong before he gets a grip on them.
He’ll be relying on seeing them through windows, but at least they should be staying near those while they keep watch.
As we crouch in our new positions, close enough to the sheep pen that the pungent odor of manure laces the air, Griffin raises his hand again and again.
Two down. Three. Four.
I study the men stationed around the villagers. None of their faces betray any heightened concern.
One of the insurgents patrolling farther out strides past us, just twenty feet from our crouched position. Next to me, Lindsay quivers.
I think I can direct my scream at both the men around the hostages and the five who are patrolling the outskirts at the same time without my control slipping. They’re far enough away from the main cluster of figures that it shouldn’t be too hard to distinguish them.
But if Jacob and Zian can deal with some of them first as well, that’d be better.
Griffin indicates five gone, and then six. After he lowers his hands, he picks up a stick and draws a Z and a line in the dirt.
We don’t dare speak here, but I understand. Zee managed to tackle one of the men on patrol.
Two more are left in the buildings near the courtyard, four on the outskirts, nine surrounding the villagers. We’re closer and closer to our goal, and so far, no alarm has been raised.
A murmur carries from the group of hostages. Some of the figures near the edge of the huddle are stirring.
The voices that reach my ears hold the edge of a hushed argument. I tense, spotting a woman clutching at the arm of the man next to her.
Is one of the villagers thinking of rebelling? Can’t he see the insurgents will simply shoot him?
But the locals don’t know that we’re already in the process of freeing them. He might assume they’ll end up dead either way.
Two of the terrorists march over. One of them barks something in a language I don’t know at the source of the disruption.
The villagers go still, but it’s too late. And what the insurgents do is even worse than I expected.
The one who spoke reaches into the huddle and yanks a kid out by the elbow—a little boy who can’t be more than five or sixyears old. He squeals and babbles in terror as the woman who must be his mother grasps after him.
The insurgent hefts up the kid, dangling, and points his rifle right at the boy’s face.
My gut lurches, and my lips spring open before I’ve even thought about it. But Lindsay is even faster.
The dirt beneath the gunman’s feet juts upward in a sudden bump. He stumbles, losing his balance, and the kid slips from his grasp.
Griffin’s face has gone taut with concentration, no doubt trying to rein in the violence. But the other men scramble to snatch up the kid, and one grabs another child from the far side of the huddle.
Her cry wrenches at me. I might not understand their words, but their harsh voices tell me they’re determined to punish the villagers for even considering resisting.
God only knows what’ll happen if they start firing. Maybe they’d cow the rest of the villagers—or maybe they’d provoke a larger rebellion that will end with them slaughtering so many more.
The boy wails as he’s jerked around toward the second man’s rifle, and I can’t hold back any longer. All the anguish of watching the villagers’ pain bursts from my lips in a monstrous shriek.
The sound peals out of me and hurtles across the landscape to smack into my targets. The hunger inside me twitches and yawns, eager to be sated after weeks of denial, but I narrow the jabs of my power to lance only into the nine gunmen poised around the hostages.
I can’t feel the more distant patrollers right now—and I’m afraid to loosen my grip even enough to seek them out. This has to be enough.
Please, let my fellow shadowbloods manage to handle the rest.
My power radiates through all nine men, freezing them in its clutches, but I can only tear apart one at a time. I pitch the shriek louder, harder.
