Page 607 of Shadowblood Souls
“Wait,” Dominic says, quiet but emphatic. “Before we destroy them, we should take the time to look through them and figure out what he did to his shadowbloods. Maybe there’s some way to reverse the effects. The ones Andreas wiped are still going to have to deal with a difficult temper their whole lives if we can’t.”
I balk at the idea of leaving any shred of Balthazar’s plans intact even for an hour longer, but I force myself to nod. He’s right.
We’ve taken an awful lot from the rogues we saved. The least we can do is see if we can give something back.
Snap has left Sorsha’s side to move through the room. He pauses by the few computers on the scattered desks and flicks his forked tongue toward them.
“No one’s used these recently,” he announces.
I exhale in relief. “Toni’s already working on erasing all the data Balthazar stored online. That’ll be the end of it.”
The struggles aren’t over for our fellow shadowbloods either.
A few days later, I drift through the halls of Rollick’s Spanish mansion, where he sent us after we finished sorting out the mess in the US. The isolated setting makes the estate ideal in case anyof our charges act out—and for the comings and goings of his shadowkind allies.
The former rogues seem to drift too, wandering around the rooms with slightly dazed expressions that still haven’t left them. They’re having to build whole new identities for themselves with nothing really to go by except the names we could tell them and the slow introduction we’re giving them to their powers.
Some of the teens have taken to hanging out together, taking comfort in their shared confusion. I find five of them in the sitting room with a laptop Rollick gave them. They’re watching music videos online.
One of them points at the screen. “That one next.”
“We just listened to it!” another protests.
“Like an hour ago. It’s my favorite.”
Another of the girls scratches her head. “Do you think we’ve heard enough music yet that we can really have favorites?”
The first girl sets her hands on her hips and takes on a sassy tone. “Iknowthat’s the best song I’ve ever heard even if I can’t remember most of the ones I listened to before.”
The bunch of them break out into laughter. The sound peals out of the room and wraps around my heart with a glow of relief.
They can be happy. That’s a start.
That’s the most important thing, really. I don’t think any of us shadowbloods had much of a chance to be happy while we were dealing with one villain or another controlling our lives.
One of the guys slings his arm around the first girl’s waist, and she peeks at him coyly through her eyelashes. Then I step into the room, and they all go momentarily silent. Not nervous but aware that they should pay attention to whatever I might say.
It feels weird being treated as an authority figure, even though I do know a lot more about what we are and what we’ve been through than any of them do now.
I smile at them to show I’m totally on board with how they’re occupying their time. “Maybe we could set up a dance party here one night. Andreas did that for me once—it can be a lot of fun.”
The girl who was demanding her favorite song beams at me. “That sounds awesome!”
The glow inside me expands a little. “I’ll talk to the guys about what we can pull together, then. And I’ll see all of you for our powers practice sessions later.”
An eager light gleams in all of their eyes. I don’t totally like how enthusiastic they are to uncover the powers they’ve forgotten, but it’s not as if I can blame them for being eager to own their strength. And we have to teach them what they’re capable of so they can learn how to control those powers.
I just hope we can be good enough teachers to ensure they never take things too far again.
In the next room over, Ajax and Devon are sitting on a loveseat together, flipping through a book of photos from around the world. Ajax is just tapping one of the scenes. “The island we were on looked kind of like this. At least, the jungle part in the middle of the mountains.”
Devon tilts his head to the side. “That doesn’t look so bad. It’s pretty—and peaceful.”
Ajax chuckles softly. “It probably wouldn’t be bad if we were there for an actual vacation or something. Maybe we can actually do that someday.”
I stay silent so as not to disturb them overtly, but think a question toward Ajax.Are you going to tell him abouteverythingthat happened?
We’ve filled the younger shadowbloods in on the broader strokes of our history but kept the events of the past month particularly vague. I’m not sure how they’d react to knowing the full details of what we endured—or the destruction they carriedout. But we’re giving Ajax some leeway with his boyfriend, since he knows Devon better than any of us.
