Bad Bloods (19 page)

“Do you not like it?” Jane asked when I
hesitated to move.

Instead of explaining my misfortunes—because
it’d get us nowhere—I focused on intel. I needed more information
if I were going to blend in. “Why red?”

A squeak leapt out of Jane’s throat like she
actually thought I wouldn’t notice, but when I looked at her, her
right hand was raised to the worn earrings. “It was her favorite
color.”

“She made those?”

Jane nodded. “With a jewelry making kit for
kids,” she said, and I marveled such a toy existed. “They used to
be red,” she explained, “but over the years, the cheap coloring
wore off. I had the silver polished.” She tilted her forehead
toward my wrist. “Daniel gave you that, right?”

This time, I was the one to squeak.

“He seems like a very nice boy,” she said
what I couldn’t.

I stared down at the jewelry he’d given me
during my departure. I even touched it. The bracelet was the nicest
object I owned, but it was more than that. It was all the stars I
could no longer see. It was my family hanging on my wrist, a
reminder of how I would see them again.

“There are a lot of nice people out there,
Jane,” I said, thinking of every face, every last bad blood and
flock member that deserved a life. “That’s why I agreed to come—to
save them, to save people like Stephanie too.”

Jane’s eyes welled up. “Then let’s do the
best we can, yes?”

“Always.”

Blake’s coughing woke me up, but my grumbling stomach told me the
time. I’d been out for hours—maybe even the entire day—and so had
Blake. When I turned onto my side, his big blue eyes faced me like
the lake we fished by, wet and motionless.

I raised my hand to his forehead and focused
on keeping my thoughts calm as I felt his powers push against my
mind. He was too weak to read me.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, worrying my
whisper would be too loud for whatever headache he probably
had.

He coughed again, bringing his teddy bear up
to his burning cheeks. “I’m like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were sick, and then I got sick, and that
means I’m like you.” He grinned only to erupt into coughing
again.

It was a reminder that I was probably the
reason he caught such a nasty cold.

“You don’t want to get sick, Blake.”

“Nope,” he agreed, snuggling into his teddy
bear, but he didn’t close his eyes. He pressed his lips against his
teddy’s forehead and whispered against it. I had to lean in to
understand him when he repeated himself. “I can hear them.”

The thoughts. All the others kids.

“They had dads and moms too,” he said it like
it was a fact instead of a question, and I wondered what memories
and thoughts had bombarded him throughout the day and night. Blake
had no control.

I pushed his blond hair away from his clammy
forehead. “You do too.”

He shook his head, tears pushing out of his
eyes. Even he knew well enough that his situation was different. He
saw enough memories of others to know that.

“Then,” I took in a breath. “Think of me as
your father.”

His blue eyes blinked, like little oceans,
coming and going in waves. “And Mom?”

“Michele.”

He pressed his nose against his teddy bear
again, his forehead wrinkling with every thought that went through
his mind—even thoughts that probably weren’t his own.

“Their parents left because of their bad
blood.” Another thought that wasn’t his own. Blake didn’t even
understand that bad blood was a noun, not an adjective.

I stroked his back. “You can’t believe
everything you see in their heads.”

“But it’s their thoughts—”

“And people think strange things all the
time.” My voice shook. “That’s why the election is so important. It
helps people think new, better things.”

Blake’s eyebrows stitched together. “Will my
bad blood get better?”

“Of course.” I had to swallow my explanation.
It would be lost on him. Bad bloods wouldn’t get better. We would
remain the same. It was the world that had to get better.

“And I’ll have good blood? I won’t be
sick?”

“Blake, you have good blood.”

But he fell asleep.

A shaky sigh escaped me. The little boy had
come in a broken basket, with no clothes or toys or even a letter.
How they found the house, I would never know and neither would
Blake. He’d grow up and never know a thing. At least, I knew where
I came from. At least, I knew what happened to my parents. At
least, I could hate them. Blake would wonder instead, maybe even
glorify them at some point, and I didn’t know which one was worse,
hate or loving someone who didn’t deserve it.

I draped his arm over his teddy bear before
dragging his blanket back up over him.

“Dad?”

I froze as he mumbled the word. He had never
used it. Not even as a baby. But it took him saying it for me to
realize how unusual that was. Maybe he could read minds, even as an
infant. Maybe we didn’t think in thoughts but in emotions, and he
had known he was abandoned from day one. Maybe his parents had
known too. Maybe they had the same abilities to know what he was
from the day he was born. Maybe that was how they found us. So many
things were a maybe. So many maybes that made me want to punch a
wall. But there was something far more important to do.

“It’s all right, kiddo.
I’ll love you no matter how you are. No matter if you are gifted or
not, your mother and I will love you all the way to the end of
forever.
”

I hoped my voice would reach him in his
sleep, words his mother and father should’ve said to him, words I
had no right to give him but I wanted to give anyway, words I had
to give him, words every child deserved to hear.

When I forced myself to stand up, my body
ached, and my stiff muscles didn’t loosen until I reached the
doorway. As I stepped out of my bedroom and shut the door behind
me, I knew something was wrong. It was quiet. Too quiet. Especially
for twenty-three kids in the house, including me.

I sucked in a breath and held it as I made my
way downstairs. It didn’t take long to see what was happening. The
entirety of the two flocks was sitting around, the whole group
waiting for something. Waiting for me.

Their eyes landed on me, but there were too
many to return the stare. I had to find one person in particular.
Michele. Her gray eyes were fixed into a glare and her normally
pale cheeks were bright red, as red as Maggie’s curls. I found her
next, sitting next to Adam, and for once, they held hands, but he
let go of her as soon as he saw me. He started to stand up, but
Floyd rose from the large table first.

“We’ve been talking.”

“I can see that,” I said, taking the last two
steps into the entryway. The table was full of the older
kids—Robert, Adam, and Maggie, with Floyd now standing, and Michele
standing behind him. Niki was leaned against the wall nearest to
Robert, her arms folded over her chest. The middle kids—Ami, Vi,
Ryne, and Kally—stood in the hall, right in front of the kitchen,
and the youngest scattered around the living room, mainly sitting
where the carpet met the wood floors. Everyone was nervous. Their
curled up fists, flushed faces, or twitching habits told me
that.

I found Robert at the far end of the table,
as far as he could be away from me, with as much table between us
as possible. He didn’t look back at me.

“It’s been twenty-four hours,” I said,
knowing exactly what they’d talked about. “We can’t afford to
fight.”

“Not a fight, Daniel,” Robert said, monotone.
“Just a discussion.” He still wouldn’t look at me. He was fixated
on the wall instead.

“I’m the one who brought it up,” Floyd
bragged, his dark eyes gleaming.

It was Floyd. It wasn’t even Robert. Floyd
was the one causing the distress, and I tried to read Robert,
knowing he’d spied on us for years. Perhaps he knew of Floyd.
Perhaps that’s why he thought a battle was unavoidable. This fight
had been stirring for years.

“The final speeches are in four days, and
we’re not even organized.” Floyd gestured to all the kids, some of
whom hadn’t even showered since arriving. The group was simply too
big to control. We all knew it, but Floyd was using it. “We need
one leader to unify us,” he said what I knew he would.

My fingers twitched at my sides. “And I
suppose I know who you picked.”

“It’s nothing personal,” Robert said it like
it wasn’t.

And maybe he was right.

None of his followers were against him, but I
only had one member who defied me, and for the first time since I
saved Floyd from the bar, I wished I had listened to Adam and
abandoned the eldest member on the streets. The fleeting thought of
murdering him went through me. This was the exact reason I
should’ve never been a leader in the first place. I cared too much.
Even now, I still cared enough to find logical words instead of
emotional ones.

“There’s no reason for this,” I started
slowly. “There’s nothing to even lead. We’re waiting.”

Floyd rocked back on his heels, taller now.
“And when we do have to lead again?”

Eventually, the results would come out, and
either way, we’d have a new future to deal with. Our options
weren’t pretty either. We’d lose and fight until we died, or win
and continue to fight against generational discrimination for our
rights to live.

I swallowed, bringing my eyes down on Robert.
“What do you think about this?”

“I think Floyd is correct,” he said, “from a
militarized standpoint.”

Someone would have to make a call, and if two
people were giving conflicting orders at the same time, we’d
probably all end up dead.

“We aren’t at war yet—”

“Aren’t we?” Robert’s voice sliced through
me, and heat rose in the air. Adam also rose into the air, standing
up from his chair. Maggie tried to pull him down, but he shook her
off.

“Why’d you come if you wanted to tear us
apart?” His scream came out as fast as his powers allowed him to
move. I almost didn’t understand him, but Robert remained calm,
like he had years of practice listening to Adam’s screams.

“I didn’t. I came because”—he looked back at
the wall—“it’s best for everyone.”

“I’d rather die than listen to you,” Adam
spat.

Robert’s eyes flicked over to Adam, reading
the boy’s expression. I wondered if he realized Adam knew about our
past. Robert’s small smile told us he knew everything. “That might
happen.”

Adam paled.

Maggie cursed. “Don’t talk like that.” But
the little kids had already heard.

It was Melody that tugged on my leg, just
like Blake would’ve done, but it was Tessa—the giver of life—that
spoke first. “Are we going to die?” She was only nine.

“No,” I said, resting my hand on top of
Melody’s hair. She disappeared beneath my touch, but I could feel
her arms squeezing my calf. Ami, the blonde, had to come forward to
drag her off me.

“We can’t lie,” Robert started, but I cut him
off.

“I’ve kept my flock informed. I trained them.
I taught them to read. I’ve raised them with others, and I’m the
one with the safe house, not to mention this one.” Words raced out
of me like they would be my last. “You will not take my life from
me.”

Robert blinked, the corners of his mouth
inching up. “We have the same training, Daniel.” I froze, wondering
if he’d tell everyone about our past right here, right now. “But I
have one extra vote.” He even gestured to Floyd.

He wasn’t wrong. We had the same number of
members in our flocks until Serena left, and Floyd could be a
tipping point.

“That’s hardly a reason to change leaders,”
Michele said. It was the first time I’d heard her speak so calmly.
Unlike everyone else, she seemed unfazed by it all, but Vi was the
opposite.

“I could put all your kids in the shadows,”
she snarled at Robert.

His eyebrows shot up.

“That won’t be necessary,” I muttered
quickly, but Vi met my eyes with a drowning, dark glare.

“You can’t let him take our home.” Her voice
cracked. “It’s our home. Not theirs. It’s our only home.
Daniel—”

“Vi.” My voice strained against my
throat.

Her black eyes welled up, and for the first
time, she seemed more human than bad blood—or whatever she was.
Peyton grabbed her hand. Vi didn’t fight it. Neither did any of the
Southern Flock kids.

My eyes washed over them—their skinny faces
and dirty clothes and bitten nails—until my stare landed on Steven
and Catelyn. Both of them avoided my eyes.

“What would Serena want?” I asked them
anyway.

“She—” Robert started, but I held up my
hand.

“Not you. Them,” I said, gesturing to her
best friend, the girl Serena described as a sister and the boy who
dated her sister. Two people I’d attacked myself.