Bad Bloods (2 page)

He looked at me but didn’t sit with me.
“Serena—”

“How long?” I held my own hands to prevent
them from shaking too. I couldn’t believe I was staying.

“Since the second time.”

I released the breath I had been holding.
“And you want to use me?”

He mimicked my sigh as he collapsed next to
me, his arm pressing against mine. His warmth radiated through his
jacket’s sleeve. “Where did you get that idea?”

I kept my eyes locked forward, right in
between two chipped bricks. It took me a moment to realize it was
one of the infamous bullet holes—one from the Separation Movement
that Calhoun was a solider in, the same movement that gave bad
bloods their name. Someone had died there.

I tore my eyes away. “You want me to join
your flock so I can protect you,” I repeated what Floyd had
insinuated.

“Floyd’s an idiot,” Daniel started, but when
I glared again, he tapped his kneecaps. “In a way, he wasn’t
lying.”

I nodded, attempting to stand again, but
Daniel yanked me back down. “You want to use me to understand
Robert, right?”

“And we talked about that.”

“Today,” he pointed out.

He wasn’t wrong. We had met plenty of times
since our first run-in, but it was only today I admitted my reason
for returning. I had only beaten him by a few hours, and Daniel
didn’t even get the opportunity to do it himself.

“Look,” he started, turning his torso toward
me. “I’m sorry I didn’t explain myself more clearly before, but I’m
sure you understand. I was going to. It just never felt like the
right time,” he choked on the last word and looked away, straight
at the same brick I had. “I guess it’s never the right time.” Bad
bloods don’t have time.

I grabbed his hand without meaning to,
without thinking about it, and his head jerked to the side to stare
at my hand holding his. I didn’t let go. I should’ve. My thoughts
told me to. But I didn’t. I actually squeezed harder, threading
each of my fingers through his.

He squeezed back. “It’s not the best life in
the world, but it’s all I know,” he whispered as his thumb moved
over the back of my hand. “What I don’t understand is you. How you
ran away, how you ran into this life, how you refuse to run back to
your old one…and how I can’t help but think Robert is the cause of
it.”

That memory cracked through my consciousness
the same way the fire had crackled in our fireplace that night. My
mother was screaming incoherently—words I blocked out by covering
my five-year-old ears—and my father slumped at the dining room
table, his back bobbing with his sobs. I stared at his black
jacket, gleaming with the reflection of our fireplace, a waving
sunset in his erratic movements.

We rarely used the fireplace, but it was
colder than it had ever been, and I was in brand-new pajamas, the
kind with cloth to cover the toes. I hadn’t changed in an entire
day, and I knew it was because of what had happened. They knew what
I was before I did, and I had told my parents without even meaning
to.

I only removed my hands from my ears to climb
off the couch, and that’s when I heard it.

“It isn’t your fault.” My mother’s screams
had died down, but my father’s sobs hadn’t. “We can’t save them,
but we have our daughter, and she—”

I was scratching my arms, I was grabbing the
door handle to stop myself from scratching, I was opening the door
without wanting to, I was outside before I knew it, and no one
noticed. The cold air felt much safer than the fire inside—like
time could freeze again—but it was all the noise that kept me in
place.

That’s when I met him. Robert. He was covered
in red glue, and his eyes were the darkest eyes I had ever seen,
and somehow, I felt like I was seeing where I was supposed to be.
Without even speaking, he grabbed my hand, and I felt something
similar to what I had felt once before. He was a bad blood like me,
but he was covered in real blood. It melted when the snow touched
him.

He cried that night beneath the bridge. I
hadn’t heard him cry since. He held me to keep me warm, and I held
him to comfort his tears. He never stopped crying completely, but I
wiped his tears away by touching his freckled cheeks. He watched me
with swollen eyes, and when he mimicked me, he touched my cheek and
would stop—momentarily—to take a breath. Every time his fingers
rose, I expected his touch. This time, the touch was different.

Daniel’s hand was on my face. “Serena.” He
came into focus just as his lips inched into a lopsided smile.
“Where did you just go?” he spoke as softly as his touch, his thumb
gliding over my cheekbone. That’s when I felt it. The cold wetness
smearing across my skin.

I shrank away and wiped my tears on the back
of my sleeve. Other than my nightmare, I hadn’t cried since my
imprisonment. I hadn’t let a single tear escape, and yet—now of all
times—my tears came with vengeance.

“Serena—”

“I miss them,” I managed, swallowing the rest
of my tears with their honesty. “I miss them a lot.” My elbows
rested on my jittery knees, and my head fell into my hands. “I
remember so much about them, even though I didn’t stay with them
for long.” One fleeting glance at Daniel and I knew he was
purposely keeping his expression unreadable. His facial features
were too stoic. I wanted a reaction so badly, I pushed him harder
by continuing, “My dad was a cop. My mom hugged me a lot. I can’t
really remember what she did, but I think she was a writer.”

She used to smell the same way my books
did—the ones I remembered reading but not retaining the ability to
read beyond a few words. I leaned forward to snatch the paper out
of my back pocket. “She always told me stories, especially at
night, and my favorite one was about the stars and the moon and how
we were all born from them.” I unfolded the paper to stare at the
clunky handwriting, knowing it was my father’s but wishing it was
my mother’s elegant script. “That’s why they’re so beautiful to us,
but that’s also why we should respect them.”

“What do you mean?” Finally, he said
something.

I found him over the paper and folded it.
“Well, for one, the darkness can shelter us, protect us in our
sleep, but it can also let all the bad things hide.” A frown etched
onto my face instead of the smile I wished to share. When I
realized my failure, I searched the sky. A white light pushed
against the back of the murky overcast, bright enough for me to
predict. It’d be a full moon in a week. “The full moon can be
romantic, light up paths for us, but it can also scare people into
believing in monsters.” Bad bloods were the monsters now. “All of
my mom’s stories proved that,” I said. “She used to tell me that a
full moon is when mysterious things happen and wishes come true.” I
stared at the little paper in my hands. “Do you think she tells my
sister those stories?”

Daniel didn’t respond. He only listened. I
had told him before I had a sister. He had probably assumed I lied,
but I hadn’t. It was the truth, and it tumbled out like a story my
mom created before bedtime. I tried to picture her telling stories
to my sister, but nothing came. I only saw the little girl, with
Mom’s hair and Dad’s eyes, standing in the road, saying my
name.

“I’ve never met her,” I confessed, staring at
the writing bleeding through the folded end. “I think her name is
on this, but I can’t read.”

Daniel reached for it. “I can—”

“No.” I held the note against my chest. “I
want to learn and read it on my own,” I explained, softer than my
previous snap.

Daniel’s head tilted. “Robert never taught
you.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a question or a
statement, but I responded anyway. “He can’t read.”

Daniel’s eyes swept over me. He took the time
to rub his face before looking away.

“He can’t read,” I repeated, studying his
reaction. “Right?”

Daniel’s hand lowered to his lap. “I can
teach you,” he said, and when he faced me again, he was remarkably
closer than I realized. His hand moved to rest on my knee. My heart
stabilized. “What else do you want?”

It was a question I had never heard before,
and the way Daniel stumbled over the sentence suggested he had
never been able to say it before either. Bad bloods weren’t allowed
to want anything. Not even life. So, when I was asked, my mind
spiraled into obscurity, never actually solidifying an answer even
though I searched for one.

“I’ve never been allowed to want anything,” I
confessed.

“Me neither,” Daniel agreed, and for a brief
second, I was oblivious to the fact that his lips were on mine.

***

We stretched our time out, walking back to
the Northern Flock in a slow but steady stride, and lost our
thoughts to the ruts in the road. From how much I had been to Cal’s
without seeing children, I understood it wasn’t the Northern
Flock’s home but rather a safe house, something the Southern Flock
did not have. Apparently, we did have our differences, and while I
knew Robert was opposed to my chasing Daniel all around Vendona, I
wondered how the Northern Flock would react to one of their members
following me. The closer we got, the more I wanted to know.

“Why’d you chase me?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Daniel clearly didn’t
understand where I was going with my new interrogation, but his
foggy gaze implied his mind lingered on our curbed moment.

“I’m in the Southern Flock.” The confession
came out of my still-tingling lips. I hadn’t forgotten our kiss
either, but we had problems to sort out before I returned to my
Cardinal Direction.

Daniel kept facing the north. “You don’t have
to be.”

I stopped walking. He took two more steps
before he stopped too, taking longer than I wished to turn around
and face me. His hands found his pockets, and his eyes found
me.

“They’re my family,” I said.

Daniel stared at the fence but not before I
saw him flinch at my description. “And Robert?”

“He doesn’t have to know.” My leader’s brown
eyes flashed in my memory like a heat wave. “Neither of our leaders
has to know—”

Daniel’s laughter broke my words apart. He
even pulled his hands out of his pockets to cover up his chuckles.
I watched, waiting for him to get through a joke I hadn’t heard,
but he kept laughing.

“What’s so funny?” I snapped, unable to hold
onto patience any longer.

His hands were on his knees as he let out a
few more chuckles. “Serena.” His wide grin caused a dimple to
appear on his right cheek. “I am the leader.”

My stomach lurched. “You can’t be.”

He straightened up, only to shrug. He didn’t
take the words back.

I stared. “You.” I jutted a finger at him.
“Robert said the leader of the Northern Flock was cruel. Heartless,
even.”

Daniel’s smile faded a bit. “I’d say the same
about him.” The sincerity in his words cut through me.

“He’s not,” I managed, even though my mind
was clouded with unanswered questions, with possibilities and
theories and guesses. “Is that why then? Because you lead different
flocks?”

“More or less,” Daniel responded too quickly,
too concisely, and his left hand rose to touch his right shoulder.
It was subconscious and everything I needed. My memory recalled
Daniel’s scar—the only scar he seemed to have—the mark of seared
flesh. I had seen one like it before.

“Why did he do that to you?” I asked.

Daniel’s hand dropped to his side faster than
his eyes widened, but only a squeak escaped his throat, almost as
helpless as a child’s. He cleared his throat, ready to recover, but
I spoke up first.

“I’ve seen it before. Your shoulder.”

He had to know I had also seen the photos in
his room, but his demeanor locked up like he was prepared to argue
it, to deny the world of the truth, but instead, he turned around.
“It’s not a big deal.” He even continued to walk.

I followed him, keeping an eye on his
expression. “If it wasn’t a big deal, you would talk to him,” I
said. “When was the last time you spoke?”

“Serena—”

“When?”

His eyes flicked over. “Five…”

“Five months?”

“Years,” he corrected.

The confession was the last thing I expected.
Depending on the time of the year, Robert would’ve only been
fifteen. I would’ve been twelve, and I suspected Daniel was in
between our ages. Back in those days, the Southern Flock was made
up of Robert, Catelyn, Niki, Ami, and me. So much had changed since
that year, but there was one thing in particular I remembered about
that time. An illness had almost killed me.

“Stop trying to figure it out.” Daniel spoke
like he could hear me drawing lines between everyone’s lives.
“Seeing Robert was a rare moment, and it’s best if it stays that
way.”

“It doesn’t have to.”

“It does.”

I bit my lip to prevent myself from speaking,
and I bit hard enough to taste blood. The bitter tang twisted my
insides with nerves, nerves I had to ignore. “You know I can’t
leave them.”

I started to come to a stop again, thinking
our relationship was finally over, but Daniel grabbed my hand and
drew me into his stride, close enough to feel his warmth. “I know,”
he said, and laid another kiss on my forehead.

Pleasant shivers shot down my arms. I fought
the urge to get closer to him and failed. “So, now what?”

This time, he did stop. We were close to
Calhoun’s house, only a walk away from my parents’ house, and as
far as I could sense, the honest hour of midnight was approaching
with velocity.

He placed one of his hands on each of my
shoulders, and suddenly, I was very aware of his height and
strength. “What are you thinking?” His voice, on the other hand,
was gentle.

“I can’t join your flock.” I found my voice,
even though a part of me—a very small part of me—didn’t want to.
“Wasn’t that the only reason you were talking to me?”