Page 306 of Shadowblood Souls
“We didn’t have any trouble with most of the mission,” I start. “We took down the first several people we found in the house before they even realized what was happening.”
I give him my account of our progress into and through the house, trading the story back and forth with Jacob, from our first kills to the kitchen staff’s warning to our ultimate victory.
With every word, the nausea gripping my stomach expands. At the time, itdidfeel like a victory.
Dominic’s revelation has drained all the justice out of that triumph, turning it hollow.
Why did I ever trust this man even a little? The guardians have never done anything except manipulate us and betray us.
I should never have believed he was any different, no matter what he said or did.
But I still need to hear what he’ll say for himself. I need to know just how aware he was of the shit he dragged us into.
Clancy takes our account in with occasional nods and sounds of encouragement. When we’ve finished, he contemplates us with a satisfied expression. “It sounds as though you fulfilled your tasks as well as I could have hoped. There can always be unexpected obstacles along the way—it’s impossible to avoid them entirely.”
“There was something else unexpected that came up,” I say, girding myself for the conversation ahead.
Clancy arches his eyebrows slightly, almost as if he’s amused. I don’t think he can have any idea what I’m about to say. “Is that so?”
I cross my arms in front of me. “Yes. Why didn’t you tell us that someone was paying you to send us in there? It wasn’t a humanitarian mission.”
Our captor’s gaze flickers with a momentary tensing of his jaw. Oh, he had no clue at all that I was going to bring that subject up.
A faint whiff of stress pheromones reaches my nose, but he recovers quickly. “An organization on this scale requires funding. Our operations can be both humanitarian and paid for.”
Griffin is looking at Clancy instead of us now, with a furrow on his brow. He didn’t know about this part either, apparently.
I raise my chin. “Sure, that’s possible. But not when the people paying you off only want you to get rid of the criminals so they can take over the same slaving business for themselves.”
“What?” Jacob snaps. He narrows his eyes at Clancy. “You hired us out tohelpsome child-abducting assholes?"
Clancy’s whole expression has tightened now. “I didn’t inquire about the plans of the group that hired us. They wanted to take out a target I was happy to see gone. If you heard something that led you to believe our sponsors had malicious intentions, you were probably mistaken.”
I snort. “Probably? You don’t even know. It didn’t occur to you to ask why these people were willing to spend who knows how much money for a mass assassination?”
Dominic wouldn’t have told me with so much certainty if he hadn’t found out enough to be totally convinced. And the fact that Clancy admits he didn’t really know one way or the other only makes me surer that Dom was right.
“It doesn’t matter,” Clancy says firmly. “You did a good thing today—you removed people who were doing horrible things from the world. We can’t control who might step in to fill a vacuum that’s been created, but if someone else picks up where they left off, they can be dealt with too.”
Jacob scowls. “As long as someone coughs up enough money to make it worth your while?”
Clancy gazes steadily back at him. “There’s a lot of injustice in the world. I see no reason we shouldn’t address it while also avoiding bankruptcy.”
He makes the whole thing sound so reasonable, but every inch of my skin is crawling at his matter-of-fact tone.
Destroying awful things could be awful in turn if it’s done for the wrong purpose.
Can’t he see that? He must.
He just doesn’t give a fuck as long as his bank account gets larger.
I catch Jacob’s eye. We don’t need to speak for me to recognize that we’re on exactly the same page.
Being paid mercenaries is a totally different thing from acting as superheroes. We don’t want this.
But as long as we’re here under Clancy’s control, we’re either carrying out his missions or he’s going to lock us up as lab rats.
Which means we’re going to have to get out of here, no question about it. All of us—the younger shadowbloods too.
