Page 276 of Shadowblood Souls
There’s no real joy in his smile. “I’m glad it served you that well.”
I can’t help reaching toward him with my other hand. Maybe it’s an echo of the moment he referenced when he offered me that quick squeeze of reassurance.
My fingers brush his, and a spark quivers across my skin and into my veins. My pulse hiccups.
Whatever the guardians have done to him, I’m still just as attuned to him as I am the other guys.
Griffin swivels toward me, moving his hand out of reach with the same motion. He considers me like I’m an interesting piece of art hanging in a gallery rather than one of his closest friends.
Still, I can’t hold back the question. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
Griffin inclines his head. “I think we should help. We can, and there aren’t many people who could—not as much, not on the same level. I want to know I’ve done something good with my life. We haven’t really had the chance before.”
No, we haven’t. But it’s hard to feel totally convinced when Griffin delivers his answer in that vacant voice.
Clancy motions me back toward the hallway. “Let me show you your actual room here, and you can take some time making your decision. But I hope it won’t be a difficult one.”
Three
Jacob
Ihate this fucking room.
There’s nothing in it. Just me and a floor, ceiling, and walls that all look and feel like rock.
A steel door I can’t budge with my powers, no matter how hard I pull.
A light fixture sealed behind layers of some translucent material that’s so well-secured I can’t wrench it out either.
Of course, if I could break it, then it’d be just me and the dark. But at this point I’m too pissed off to care how practical the strategy would be.
I prowl through the small space, my sneakers smacking the flat but rough ground, my hands clenched into fists. My power zings this way and that, snatching at every surface around me for something to catch on to and snap.
The guardians screwed us over somehow. Some stupid trick that I didn’t recognize until it was too late.
When we’d gotten the kids out of the facility we invaded, I had the strongest sense that I needed to keep digging, keep searching—that there was something else important there. I remember opening a door with a rush of exhilaration that I’d finally found whatever that was.
Then the door slammed shut behind me, tossing me forward as a hissing sound filled the air. A chemical smell filled my nose.
And before I could do shit about any of it, my mind went black.
Am I still in the same building? The stone surfaces make me think of the cave the other one was built into, but all the rooms and halls there looked like a regular building, not something carved right out of the rock.
When I get my hands—or my powers—on the fuckers who’re caging us now…
I march up to the door and pound my fists against it, even though I know it won’t budge. Let them know how fucking furious I am.
They’re going to have to face me eventually. I can’t see them going to the trouble of knocking me out and shutting me in here just to leave me to starve to death.
What have they done to Riva? To the other guys?
I should have been with her—protecting her. If they’ve gotten her too…
God fuckingdamn it.
I slam my clenched hand into the door once more, hard enough that a lance of pain shoots up my arm. The renewed surge of anger and frustration sends me storming in another circuit of the room.
The guardians have always come down hardest on her. She was the one they took away when we first tried to escape.
