Page 362 of Shadowblood Souls
But she deserves the truth as much as we did, doesn’t she?
I swallow down my doubts. “When we escaped the first time, we tracked down one of the founders of the Guardianship—a woman who worked with Clancy’s parents. She’s the one who figured out the process for merging humans with… with what they think of as monsters. She told us that when we—the Firsts—were very young and she saw how we were developing, she decided she’d made a mistake. She wanted us dead.”
Nadia’s eyebrows shoot up. “But they kept making more of us.”
“It seems like the other founders and whoever else had control by then didn’t agree with her. They shut her out more and more.”
I tilt my head, thinking of the laptop we stole from her home in the Canadian wilderness, the one that’s either still in Rollick’s hands with the rest of our old supplies or tossed in the trash if he didn’t bother to hold on to our packs.
“We found some records from her work,” I go on. “We couldn’t understand much of it, but as far as we could tell, whenthe other guardians pushed her for her process, she left out some parts. She might have been hoping it wouldn’t work at all. It looks like what actually happened was the later shadowbloods they created had a lot less of the ‘monstrous’ stuff working for them.”
Nadia hums to herself. Then, to my surprise, she lets out a dry bark of a laugh. “Well, that sucks.”
It’s my turn to have my eyebrows shoot up. “You’d rather you had more power?”
“Sure.” She runs her hands through her thick black hair, rumpling the short strands. “Right now I can just glow a bit. If I could set off a whole solar bomb or something… We’d have a lot easier time keeping out of the guardians’ hands, wouldn’t we?”
Somehow it hadn’t occurred to me that she might feel that way.
“It isn’t always a good feeling,” I have to point out. “I don’t really like seeing what I’ve done, even if it helps us.”
“But you wouldn’t get rid of the power if you had the choice, would you?”
I open my mouth and close it again.
There was a time when I’d hoped the real monsters, the shadowkind, might be able to tell us how to carve our monstrous parts out of us. That was before I knew about all the younger shadowbloods who needed our help to escape.
Before I realized just how far-reaching the Guardianship’s influence extended.
“No,” I admit. “Not right now. Not as long as we might still need it.”
Ajax’s measured voice travels from behind us, making me startle. “I wish I could read a lot more of people’s minds. Even if I’d probably see stuff that’s disturbing.”
I turn to face him where he’s standing a few steps back on the path, chiding myself for getting so caught up in the conversationthat I didn’t hear him coming. Although he’ll have trained in all the same non-supernatural skills like stealth that the rest of us have, so maybe it’s not totally my fault.
I guess I haven’t horrified the younger shadowbloods after all, at least not all of them.
“You might get stronger,” I say, shifting my gaze between him and Nadia. “The six of us all had our powers expand over time, especially once we were technically adults. I didn’t know I could scream like that until a few months ago.”
Nadia perks up visibly. She rubs her hands together with a smirk that looks a little devious. “Maybe we’ll figure out ways to develop the talents more when we get to decide how we train for ourselves.”
I suppose that’s possible, although I’d imagine the guardians have prodded as much ability out of the younger shadowbloods as they possibly could already. It seems kinder to keep that thought to myself for now.
“You never know.”
Ajax yawns and drifts away. After giving the city one last longing glance, Nadia does the same.
As their footsteps rasp off through the jungle, Jacob rejoins me. He rests his hand on the back of my head, the gesture still tentative after everything we’ve been through until I lean into his touch.
“They’ll be okay,” he says. “We’ll all be okay. Because you’re making sure of it.”
I don’t know how to answer. Do I even think that’s true?
But looking out over the glow of the city we’ve pushed ourselves so hard to find, it’s a little easier to believe it than before.
I wake up on my uneven bed of soil and fallen leaves to a sorrowfulmeowthat carries through the underbrush.
As I push myself upright, Griffin is already shoving through the nearby bushes. “Lua?”
