Page 137 of Shadowblood Souls
It could be there’s nothing useful on the laptop at all. That we’re even more adrift than when I first broke them out of the facility, when they had the goal of finding Engel to see what she knew.
The TV remote is sitting on the bedside table. Aimlessly, I pick it up and start flicking through the channels.
Zian gets up and comes around to get a better view of the TV, but he sits carefully on the other bed, a few feet away. I know I don’t have to worry abouthimgetting up in my personal space.
He shoots me a cautious glance, but his voice comes out with a friendly warmth despite its gruffness. “Do you figure a massacre in that little cabin will make the news? Stuff like that can’t happen very often near some tiny town.”
I consider the question seriously, lingering on a news report about traffic conditions. “Engel’s place was so isolated, it’d have been the guardians who found it. And they’d have covered it up.”
“Like it never happened.”
“Yeah.” I cross my arms, tapping my elbow against the rebandaged wound that’s hidden under my hoodie.
I wish I could erase what I did completely out of existence, as thoroughly as Andreas can wipe out memories.
I wish I could erase the ability right out ofme.
I flip the channels a few more times and pause with a jolt of recognition. The faces on the screen, the slightly hazy lighting, and the dramatic swell of music are all so familiar they send me back more than four years to the TV breaks we got in the middle of training.
A woman with billowy hair and an elegant dress wags a manicured finger at a stern-looking man with slicked-back hair. “Don’t you dare,” she says, drawing the words out.
He squares his shoulders, glowering down at her dramatically. “You’re the last person who should be threatening me, Carolina.”
Andreas has lifted his head to see what I’m watching. A soft chuckle escapes him. “That’s the crazy soap opera Griffin always wanted to watch.”
Jacob’s gaze jerks up too. At the flexing of his jaw, I feel like I have to explain—to make it clear I didn’t mean to rub salt in a wound.
Even though my own heart aches with the memory of watching these storylines play out tucked next to his twin on the sofa.
Heat tickles across my cheeks as I make myself speak. “It was actually—I liked it. Griffin just knew, and he knew you guys would tease me about it if I saidIwanted to watch the show.”
From the tick of Jacob’s eyelid, I can’t tell whether my admission made things better or worse.
Andreas arches his eyebrows, but his tone stays mild. The same careful way he’s been speaking to me ever since his last apology.
“I think you’re allowed one or two interests that are a little girly, Tink. We would never have forgotten that you could take us down in two seconds flat in a sparring match.”
Zian gives a huff. “The rest of you, maybe.”
I squirm a little, still embarrassed. “Everything in this show was just so different from the facility. They were always going to fancy places and meeting fancy people. And when they got angry, they’d just stare and snap at each other instead of stabbing or shooting.”
Not to mention that watching the characters’ melodramatic relationship issues made me feel a little less ridiculous having a crush on all five of my best friends.
Before anyone can talk about the soap I secretly adored any more—before it can provoke any further painful memories—I shut the TV off and turn back toward Dominic. “Anything else on the laptop?”
He’s brought one hand to his mouth, resting his knuckle against his lips as he scans the current batch of files. “I mean, there’s a lot on here. Some of this is kind of interesting—she’s got notes on different types of ‘monsters.’”
We all perk up.
“Like, what kinds we were made out of?” Zian asks.
Dominic shakes his head. “Nothing connecting them specifically to us. Just observations and data, abilities and possible weaknesses.”
Jacob grimaces. “Either to figure out what she wanted to fuse into us or how we were supposed to go take the things down.”
Engel had said that she originally created us in the hopes that we’d be powerful enough to fight the creatures she called monsters. Then she decided we were even more dangerous than the original monsters were.
I draw my legs up to my chest. “We’ve got to figure out more about what we are and what we can do, somehow. If the full monsters can go around mingling with humans without most people noticing,theycan obviously control their abilities just fine.”
