Page 402 of Shadowblood Souls
“It’s a nice place for a prison,” Booker says, attempting an easy-going attitude but offering a smile as pained as mine. “Fancy old house, free run of it—even a pool.”
I glance toward the rectangle of turquoise water in the middle of the nearby patio. I dipped my fingers into it during our survey and discovered it’s heated to make it appealing despite the cooling weather.
I take to swimming about as well as the average cat, but water has been useful to us before. We disguised our conversations when we were conspiring against Clancy using the warble of the island’s waterfalls.
If Balthazar is following our voices through the bracelets, I suspect they wouldn’t pick up much when submerged.
Not that I have anything to say right now that would make it worth taking a dip.
I lift my chin with all the defiance I can summon. “We have to make the best of it while we’re here.”
I’m not sure if I manage to sound confident enough to be reassuring. Seeing Nadia’s shakiness after she came to, Booker’s concern for her, and everyone’s anguish over Lindsay’s death has left me feeling even more overwhelmed than before.
How am I supposed to help the younger shadowbloods hold it together when I’ve got a deluge of my own frustration and grief washing over me?
But it’s because of me that they’re here. Balthazar took advantage of the escape attempt I planned, of the fact that I’d gotten rid of Clancy.
He made it sound like he’d have taken control eventually anyway, but who knows whether he’d have succeeded.
My thoughts dart to Dominic’s slack form within his plastic shell, and my heart wrenches as if pulled toward him.
Andreas peers up at the house. The two-story building forms a vast C around a central courtyard. We’ve determined that our bedrooms are all in the eastern wing, with an elaborate kitchen, dining room, and other common areas including the drawing room that holds Dominic’s hospital bed beneath us.
In our search, we’ve come across a few doors that remained locked to us. We haven’t been able to venture into most of the west wing so far.
Drey speaks in a low voice, almost lost to the wind. “Are we figuring that Balthazar is actuallyhere? That room he sent the recording from—it’s somewhere in the western wing?”
“Yes,” Griffin says immediately, equally quiet. When our gazes all flick to him, he offers a subtle shrug. “I don’t know him well enough to identify him just by feel. But someone over there was feeling things that matched how he presented himself in the video while he was talking to us.”
Jacob is still a bit sallow from his own sedation, but at his twin’s remark, his eyes light up with vicious enthusiasm. “Could you tell exactly what room he’s in?”
Griffin shakes his head, frowning his apology. “I only have a vague sense of direction—and even that only because there aren’t many people other than us and him in the area.”
We start wandering across the tiled patio toward the front of the house. Zian’s mouth pulls into a grimace. “It’s a shitty trick, keeping Dominic messed up like that. If they let him wake up, he could heal himself!”
“We don’t know if hecanwake up,” I say, even though the words hurt coming out.
Andreas kicks at a pebble and sends it rattling across the stones into a planter. “Dominic was always worried that he didn’t pitch in enough, only hanging around to act as backup. But we needed him so much. We couldn’t have gotten away with half the stuff we’ve been through if he hadn’t been there to patch us up after the injuries we took.”
It’s true. I want Dominic back with us for his own sake, to have his pensively sweet presence beside me. But I also never fully realized how many gambles we made in part because we knew we could afford to take injuries that otherwise would have killed us.
Oh, Dom…
I bite my lip and reach out to squeeze Nadia’s shoulder, meeting her eyes and then the other younger shadowbloods—Booker, Sully, and Ajax. “We only just got here. We haven’t had much time to figure things out. But we have each other. That’s already better than the island.”
Under Clancy’s rule, we only saw each other in random shifts, confined to our solitary rooms in between.
A hint of a smile touches Booker’s lips. He slings his arm around Nadia’s waist and gives her a little squeeze. “That’s right. No getting rid of me now.”
She manages to snort even as she leans into his embrace. “Looking on the bright side. I should be good at that, huh?”
My attempt at a pep talk hasn’t soothed all of the kids. Sully shudders, gazing toward the gate and the truncated bridge beyond.
“It’s fucking crazy,” he bursts out abruptly, his face flushing. “That asshole is totally fucking psycho. He’s going to end up slaughtering us all like animals, like he did to Lindsay?—”
He cuts off his own rant with a snap of his mouth and bolts toward the gate.
“Sully!” My pulse hiccups, and I launch myself after him.
