Page 56 of Fearsome Dream

Girding myself, I seek out Rollick’s gaze at the edge of the crowd. “The six of us—and anyone else who’s willing to help and follow our lead—will head back to the States. We can predict where the other shadowbloods are headed. We’ll stop the attacks, take out the former inmates, and do whatever we can to get through to the kids.”

The corner of Rollick’s mouth lifts in a slanted smile. “It sounds like you have your plan all worked out. You don’t need permission from me. But I assume you could use a method of transportation.”

I shrug awkwardly. “Unfortunately, we can’t just leap through a portal.”

“My private jet is getting quite a workout these days.” He dips his head to me. “We can set off as soon as you say the word. I wouldn’t mind getting back to my usual turf myself.”

“I’m in,” Sorsha says without hesitation.

Snap sets a possessive hand on her shoulder and looks toward his friends. “We go where Sorsha goes.”

I turn to check with my guys. Every one of them looks back at me with total resolve.

“We’re not going to let those kids down,” Zian rumbles, his dark gaze stormy.

Please, may that be true—and may we save them without letting down a whole lot of other people who don’t deserve to die either.

Twenty

Griffin

By the time we get within ten miles of the wayward shadowblood group, Riva doesn’t need to borrow my locating talent for us to keep track of them. I can taste their erratic fury even from that distance, like wavering blasts of a scorching wind.

The caustic emotion prickles through my awareness, setting my nerves on edge. I’m used to picking up on other people’s feelings, and I’ve absorbed some horrible sensations, but nothing that eats at my insides quite like this before.

It’s like acid, burning away at my thoughts, at every gentler feeling inside me.

What must it be doing to the people who are experiencing it firsthand?

From where I’m sitting next to Andreas at the front of the SUV that’s carrying us, Sorsha, and a bunch of ephemeral, invisible shadowkind on our quest, I point to the right at an intersection. “They’re that way.”

The glow of streetlamps and late-night bar windows streaks over our vehicle through the darkness. A giggle passing between a swaying group of friends filters through my window from the city street.

Riva stirs impatiently in the seat behind me. “How do the shadowbloods feel?”

“Angry.” The word pops out before I can shape it into something fully accurate. It isn’t a fraction enough to convey what I’m picking up on.

As another prickling wave washes over me, I swallow and try again. “I didn’t realize how angry they were when I was sensing the fight with you and the guardians in the forest. Or maybe they weren’t that angry yet, when they’d only just seen Balthazar killed. It’s like… like there’s no room for anything else in them. It doesn’t stay the same—it shifts and takes on different flavors, but everything is tainted by it.”

In the rearview mirror, I see Jacob’s mouth twist. I catch the hitch of guilt that hits him.

“That sounds like how I felt,” my twin says. “When I thought you were dead and that Riva had set you up for the guardians and turned on us. I did horrible things when that rage was gripping me. If I… if I could be that harsh with people who were my friends, who knows how far they’ll go against strangers they never cared about at all?”

There’s a rustle of movement—Riva taking Jacob’s hand. Compassion and pain mingles with those memories, but a whisper of relief passes through my brother at her gesture.

Dominic leans forward from behind the driver’s seat. “Can you calm them down with your powers?”

My stomach tightens. “I tried in the forest, and you could see it didn’t work very well then. But it might be easier closer up.”

With each surge of fury that sears into me, I believe in that possibility less.

Sorsha rolls her shoulders where she’s sitting in the very back next to Zian. “Maybe we should have brought along the kids we already freed. They grew up with some of the others—they might know what to say.”

“No,” Riva says firmly before the phoenix’s last word has faded from the air. “Booker tried to talk Nadia down last time, and she didn’t listen at all. The others might even be angry that the three of them came with us. The powers they have can’t protect them from an attack. This isourfight.”

Sorsha nods, but I taste the tendril of doubt that winds through her other emotions. She’s letting us call the shots when it comes to our fellow shadowbloods, but after what’s already gone down, she isn’t totally convinced we’re right.

I don’t think Riva is completely sure either. She’s just desperately hoping to find a way through this mess that doesn’t involve slaughtering children.

---