Page 597 of Shadowblood Souls
I have a clear view of the doorway at my left and the supposed weapon at my right. I’ve also got a phone waiting for me, tucked away between two of the crates, that’s connected to the hasty camera system we set up in place of the devices the guardians removed.
The phone’s screen is divided into quarters, each with its own view: the front gate, the ground floor hallway, and two differentangles of the hall outside the gymnasium to cover the whole area. The rogues will probably check the higher floors first, but there’s nothing there that’ll interest them for long.
My heart thuds between my ribs. I rest one hand on the cool surface of the pillar and remind myself to breathe.
I’m only on my third breath when the first video stream shows the vans pulling up outside. A squad of guardians—fourteen, I count as they emerge—pour out of their vehicles and stalk up to the gate.
We’ve left it unlocked. We want them coming inside.
After testing it tentatively, one of them nudges it open. They stride onto the parking lot.
A few get back in the vans to drive the vehicles right into the compound. Others head for the entrance.
Good. It’ll be more convincing if the rogues find at least a few of them inside the building rather than all hanging out in the yard.
In a few clusters of three, the guardians head inside. On the second feed, I watch them scanning the hall and poking their heads through doorways.
They’re all holding weapons—large rifles they keep tucked under one arm at the ready. Those aren’t going to be any match for the shadowbloods’ powers.
They never really respected what we can do.
As they’re about to find out in brutal clarity. A couple of the guardians are just yanking at the fused door to the stairwell when I spot the first signs of movement in the forest beyond the fence.
My back goes rigid. I peer at the tiny rectangle on the phone’s screen until I’m sure I see a brief flash of hair amid the underbrush.
And then it starts.
The video feeds don’t offer any sound, but I can imagine the shouts of horror as the guardians stationed outside topple with a lurch of the ground. Their skin bubbles as if broiling; their bodies jerk with pain.
Is thatDevonburning them with the heat he can summon? My stomach lurches queasily.
I’m never going to mention this to Ajax. He’s lost enough of the boyfriend he loved already.
The guards slump against the asphalt, and the rogue shadowbloods prowl out of the woods.
Cutler walks in the lead, the sunlight gleaming off the skull-and-snake tattoo on his otherwise bare scalp. Nadia marches forward at his right flank, the man with the scarred forehead at his left, at least two dozen more shadowbloods storming along in their wake.
In the hall, a few of the guardians must have picked up on the sounds outside. I can see them calling to each other, a couple of them loping toward the door.
Not fast enough.
The front door flies open, and a blast of light so blinding it whites out the video footage sears down the hall. In the first few seconds, while my pulse thunders through my skull, I can’t see anything at all.
The stark glow clears to a flurry of limbs, some swinging, some flailing. The shadowbloods are flinging guardians into walls, tearing open their bellies, smashing their heads like melons.
It looks like a few of the gunmen fight back, but I don’t see any of their bullets land before they’re trampled in the rampage.
There’s a brief moment when the shadowbloods hold still, their chests heaving and their heads cocked, while all of the guardians sprawl lifeless on the floor. When no indication of further attack comes, they spring back into motion.
The rogues fan out, a few of the younger kids hanging back in the hall, the others checking the rooms much like their victims did minutes ago. Cutler reaches the stairwell and jiggles the handle.
He beckons over a couple of the teens. Whatever they do with their powers, within a matter of seconds, they’re cracking the door right off its hinges.
Here they come.
While they stream into the stairwell, I fix my gaze on the corpses in the hallway. I draw up the memories of the news reports, the scenes of destruction I’ve witnessed firsthand.
The guardians might have gotten what they bargained for, but too many innocent or unwitting people have died in the same horrible way. The rogue shadowbloods don’t care who they hurt or how much they destroy.
