Page 430 of Shadowblood Souls
My hands clench. I want to tear apart the people who made her feel this way.
Of course, it’s possible I already have.
Just not enough of them, clearly.
“We’re people too,” I insist. “We’re peoplefirst. No matter what the guardians or anyone else see. I see a whole lot more than your power to glow.”
Nadia is silent for a moment. “What does it matter if we never get the chance to be more?”
The impatient fury churns in my gut with a searing ache. “We will.”
I swallow thickly and grope for something to say that might make her feel better in the moment. “What would you want to do in a normal life, as a normal seventeen-year-old?”
I asked that question to a few of the other younger shadowbloods back on the island. Like them, Nadia hesitates, looking almost confused by the idea.
But as she thinks about it, a light comes into her face that wasn’t there before. Enough to soothe the sharpest edges of my rage.
She tips her head back, her eyes hazy with her daydream. “It probably sounds silly, but I kind of want to go to a real school. Experience all the drama and stuff… I mean, it’s probably hardly anything like the TV shows and movies. But still. Getting to know all those people. Learning normal stuff. Different outfits every day, hanging out after class without anyone shoving you in a cell or hauling you off to training.”
The corner of my mouth curls upward. “Yeah, that could be fun.”
Nadia fidgets with the hem of her sweater before going on. “I also always liked the cop shows. You know, when there’d be a woman in uniform tracking down the crooks and bringing them to justice. I feel like I could be good at that. ‘Stop right there. Put your hands up!’”
She laughs, but it’s a softer sound this time. My heart squeezes with pained affection.
I want her to have those dreams. I want all the kids who’ve grown up like me and my guys to have a chance at a normal future.
“It could happen,” I say, even though I don’t know how. “We’re not done yet.”
When I sneak out of the villa to examine the window Nadia mentioned, the night closes in around me in a cloak of shadows. I waited until it was fully dark like I normally have for my secret prowls, although impatience itched at me like a bad case of poison ivy.
A few security lights beam at long intervals along the wall at the edge of the grounds. I stick close to the villa where the darkness is thickest.
As I come around the back of the massive house, I scan the second floor for the small, square window. Close to the western wing, Nadia said.
The panes of glass reflect shimmers of the distant light. I’m a little more than halfway along the back of the villa when I spot the right one.
I must have seen it before; I’ve circled the building plenty of times since we arrived. I just never paid much attention to it.
But Nadia’s right. I haven’t been inside any rooms that hold a window like that.
If someone on Balthazar’s staff—or the man himself—spends time in there, it could be important. And just as when Nadia saw it, there’s a gap of about an inch between the frame and the sliding pane.
I’ve tested a few of the windows on the first floor of the western wing as surreptitiously as I could, and none of them budged. Short of smashing through the glass, which would have me discovered in an instant, I’m not getting through those.
Now I can take advantage of someone’s lapse of caution.
I flick out my claws and raise my hands to the old bricks. In the past several days, Matteo has pushed me to stretch my speed and strength as well as my scream.
This climb is going to be a piece of cake thanks to the training I’ve gotten from the pricks I’m working against.
With a little leap, I’m scaling the wall, moving my hands swiftly and precisely so my claws make only a faint click of sound each time they dig in.
It takes only a few beats of my heart before I reach the window ledge. I squeeze my hand into the gap beneath the sliding pane and shove it upward.
It rises with a rasp that has me holding my breath. But only stillness follows.
Even with my tiny frame, it’s a tight squeeze wriggling through the open space. With my shoulders hunched inward and then a twist of my hips, I finally squirm into a landing I catch with my spread hands on another tiled floor.
