Page 579 of Shadowblood Souls
We have all the details worked out. I should feel confident. But uneasiness creeps over my skin. I find myself reaching for my cat-and-yarn necklace as if holding it will somehow make things more likely to turn out right.
My discomfort is partly from not being sure just how far the raging shadowkind will go to see through their rampage. And partly from the claustrophobic feeling the unfinished buildings give me.
That’s a benefit, really. The strip is set up like a cul-de-sac, a row of townhouses on either side of the narrow road with one more set at the dead end farther down. Once the other shadowbloods drive in, it’ll be easy to block them off.
But I can’t help thinking of the other university campus we hid out on, back when my guys and I were first on the run. The one wherewewere ambushed in the night by a squad of brutal guardians.
It didn’t look much like this. Those townhouses were dull concrete rather than the ruddy bricks that cover these outer walls. They were shorter and broader.
There were the little patios in the back, in the alley where the guardians launched their attack. Patios that held planters where Dominic tended to a tiny garden.
The angles of the shadows and the tight press of the buildings feel familiar, though. When I blink, memories flash through my mind of Brooke, the student next door who did her best to make friends with me. To protect me from the tensions she picked up on between me and the guys.
The girl who died with the stab of a guardian’s blade just seconds before my outstretched claws could save her.
No one has to die tonight. We’ll interrupt the other shadowbloods’ powers, knock them out every way we can, andcart them off in the truck that Rollick’s parked nearby. His people have spent all day outfitting a warehouse to hold the rogues, contain their powers, and keep them subdued.
Among the shadowkind lurking in the buildings around me, there’s a being called a lamia who can put any of our opponents to sleep with a touch. Steel—the scaled demon—revealed that he can shoot out a paralyzing force from a short distance that’ll last a few hours.
If that’s not enough, I can temporarily freeze the rogues with my shriek; Jacob can lock them in place with his telekinetic power. Willow the nymph volunteered to send the roots of the saplings spaced at even intervals down the street shooting from the patches of earth to bind them.
That’ll buy us the time to use the powerful sedative in the syringes we’re all carrying. Toni gave us the name of the drug the guardians found most effective for using on us.
It’s necessary, even if turning to yet another of our former captors’ tactics turns my stomach.
I’m not super keen on having Booker here either. His aura-sight hasn’t developed into any kind of talent useful for self-defense. But he and the other two shadowblood kids we rescued insisted on coming along.
They know the rogue shadowbloods better than we do—a lot better, in the case of the other kids. After some arguing, Rollick put his foot down and pointed out that we should give them the same kind of choices we wanted for ourselves.
I still don’t like it.
One of the kids has ended up playing a crucial role in the ambush. As I shift restlessly on my feet, a quiet voice forms inside my head.
Griffin says the nearest ones are just a minute or two away,Ajax says.We should put our earplugs in now.
Once we’ve sealed our ears, he’ll be the one passing on all communications between us using his telepathic talent. If any of us needs to say anything, we’ll think it at him first, and he’ll relay the message on.
I know he’s said the same thing to Booker, because the teen next to me reaches to his pocket for his plugs. His face looks yellowed in the dim light, and I don’t think it’s only because of the jaundiced security lamps.
His girlfriend is on her way, and he can’t be any more sure than I can that we’ll save her this time. Or that she won’t do something horrifying while we attempt to.
As I pull out my own earplugs, distant, raucous laughter reaches my ears from somewhere behind me. I freeze, tracking the sound as it filters through the walls.
One risk of an ambush on a college campus: drunken partiers roaming around.
One of the patrolling shadowkind must redirect the wanderers. The sound fades away. I take a few slow, steadying breaths and shove the plugs into my ears.
The industrial-strength brand we found is incredibly effective, but they don’t give me total silence. Shutting out all external sound only heightens my awareness of what’s going on inside me.
My breaths woosh in and out. The thud of my pulse quickens.
I curl my fingers around the device we picked up following Toni’s specifications. With one jab of a button, it’ll flood the street with a piercing wail that should shatter the focus of anyone who can hear it.
We got three of the devices, just in case one fails or one of us is attacked before we can activate it. Sorsha holds hers where she’s waiting as backup by an unfinished window on the third floor of another partly-constructed townhouse. Crag thegargoyle carries a third where he’ll be perched on one of the nearby rooftops.
Backups upon backups. We can’t let this confrontation go wrong.
I move to the doorway where we’ve left the door ajar and scan the street through the gap. Maybe I’d be able to make out approaching motors by now if I could hear any sound outside my body.
