Bad Bloods (20 page)

Catelyn’s blue eyes moved up to Robert, then
over to me, then over to Robert. “She wouldn’t want us to
fight.”

“That’s not an option,” Floyd snapped.

“Then she’d pick Daniel.”

Catelyn’s words choked the room. It was the
last thing I expected. Robert, too. He almost fell out of his chair
like he’d lost a throne.

“And if she didn’t,” Catelyn continued, but
Steven grabbed her arm, melding his hand with her skin. I’d never
seen him use his powers before, and now, he was using them to try
to stop her, but suddenly, his arm went straight through her. From
my standpoint, it looked like Catelyn was impaled with her
boyfriend’s limb, but neither was in pain. “I would pick Daniel
too.”

The heat in the house grew instantly, and I
realized why Steven had tried to stop her. Robert’s powers were
stifling. His anger. Catelyn met his eyes without reverence. “I’m
sorry. I am.” She sounded like she meant it. “But Daniel has been
honest and open and—” Her hand found Maggie’s free hand. “You
threatened Daniel for no reason.” Maggie’s nod confirmed they had
spoken, and she held Adam’s hand with her free one. The two
couples. They had bonded. A true alliance.

“I second Catelyn,” Steven surrendered, but
grabbed Catelyn’s free hand, no melding involved. The four
connected like a barrier.

No one moved. Floyd didn’t even speak, and
Niki followed his silence. Someone started to cry. One of the
younger kids. But I wasn’t sure if it was from the heat or the
conversation. I couldn’t check because Robert was glaring at
me.

“I guess I have more votes,” I said,
monotone.

Robert stood up slowly, even taking time to
brush invisible dirt off his shirt, and then, he did the
unthinkable. He grabbed a knife off the table

Adam appeared in front of me like he would
gladly take the blade in his chest, but Robert never tried to stab
me. He offered it instead.

“We can’t be led by someone who can’t control
their own powers,” he said, revealing one of my only secrets I kept
from my own flock.

A row of gasps flowed through the room.

“He’s healed all of us,” Tessa argued, her
high-pitched voice sounding more like a yipping puppy than a young
girl. “He’s taught me how to heal things too. He’s—”

Ron grabbed her, despite being deaf, and
Kally joined. Each Northern Flock kid lined up with one another,
with Vi standing in front of them.

“Let’s see it,” Robert said, ignoring
everyone else. “Cut yourself and don’t heal.”

Michele stepped into my vision. “You can’t
control it?” It was the first time I heard her doubt me.

Adam, too. “But you taught me how to.”

A chorus of kids seconded what everyone else
was saying. I had taught them. I had taught every last one of them.
And I had taught them a lesson I didn’t even know myself.

I took the knife and stared at it, so I could
avoid looking my flock in the eyes. My twelve years of leadership
was coming down to a knife, a knife that oddly looked like the one
Serena planned to use against me the night after I saved her from
Shadow Alley. At the thought, a smile escaped me.

“Go ahead,” Robert pressed.

“This is ridiculous—”

“You can’t even heal a sick child.” His words
sliced through me like he’d cut me himself. Blake. Luke. Of course,
Robert would bring up Luke.

No one dared to take a breath as I lifted it
to my palm and sliced deep into my skin. Blood seeped up, and
everyone’s attention was on me until Michele stepped up and grabbed
my hand, hiding the cut from everyone. I felt my blood wet her
palm.

“I’ve seen gunshots and blood in the future,”
she screamed at Robert. Actually screamed. “I doubt you want to see
it again.”

Gunshots. The single word caught me. She told
me one gunshot before, and now, there were more.

Adam closed in on her and stepped back in
front of me. Maggie joined, dragging Catelyn with her, and Steven
made his way over too. Vi even popped up from the shadows, as if to
show off her abilities, and soon, a barricade of people stood
between Robert and I—all of them but Niki and Floyd on my side.

His dark eyes flicked across the faces of his
flock, but the rest of his expression never budged. His body moved
instead.

He rushed to the front door like a better
life awaited him on the other end. No one moved but me. When he
opened the door and disappeared into the night, I chased after him.
I’d seen that look on his face before.

“Where—”

Robert spun around, and the November cold hit
me, hard. I lost my voice in my throat. Robert smiled because the
cold never affected him. “Again?” His caring tone was lost on me.
“I thought you would’ve learned.”

It occurred to me we had run far enough away
from the house so that no one could hear us. The entire chase
hadn’t even lasted a few seconds, and yet, we were enveloped in the
shadows of Vendona’s streets, the grassy hill leading up to the
western side behind us. It was quiet enough that I swore I could
hear the grass behind him swaying, urging him to run further, to
run on the same streets we’d run on before.

“Don’t do this.” I couldn’t believe I was
saying it.

“They’re yours.”

Robert was leaving the flocks.

I stepped back, unsure of what to do: hit
him, kill him, or let him leave.

Robert’s gaze drifted from my right shoulder
to above it, and I had to force myself to keep my eyes on him
instead of turning around. Surely the flock was waiting on the
front porch, searching the darkness for where their leaders had
run. All their faces. All their lives. Robert could leave it all
behind.

“If I don’t—” he started, dragging his eyes
back to me. They twitched. “You should’ve been the first to
leave.”

The past. Serena. I would’ve found her
instead of him. Or she would’ve found me. I wouldn’t have taken her
and none of this would’ve happened. The two flocks would’ve never
been connected at all. We could’ve lived all of our lives
separately.

“We can’t lead together.” He said it like it
was a fact. “And we won’t live if we fight.”

“I’ll get rid of Floyd—”

“For what reason? For me?” He shook his head.
“No. It’s for her, isn’t it?” When he smiled, it didn’t reach his
eyes. “She loves me. I know. But she cares for you too, and—” His
voice cracked, and it reminded me of how he sounded when he came to
me five years ago to heal Serena. “You told her, right?”

“No.”

Robert, for the first time, seemed to
hesitate. He didn’t even move.

“Henderson will,” I finally found a way to
tell him. “I gave him the picture.”

The whole world would know.

“You kept it?” His voice was barely audible,
and only got worse when he grabbed his face, shaking his head back
and forth. For the first time in my life, I wanted to grab him and
shake him. Even worse, I wanted to tell him every last thing that
had happened. “Of course you kept it,” he finally decided, like he
knew me, like he had always known me. His eyes peered at me between
his fingers. “What do you think will happen if we’re in the same
room with them?”

The flocks. They would watch the speeches,
and Henderson would explain how we all came to be. Robert and I
would be exposed. It would be nothing new to us, but it would be
chaos to the world, a burden we’d carried on our own, separate and
severed.

“You always have left me to face the worst,”
I said, emotionless.

Robert nodded, not even ashamed of who he
was. It was why I hated him. It was why I knew he had died
somewhere in the past too. “You’ll always be dead to me, Daniel,
but the others—” He took a step backward, up the hill. His brown
hair caught the wind, spiking up like little horns against the
blackness, and yet, he gave me the most sincere smile I’d ever
seen. “Take care of them, and for God’s sake—”

He never finished his words. His face
twisted, and I leaned forward like I could snatch the words out of
his lungs, as if the wind could steal the words I’d always wanted
him to say. But he turned around instead.

When he took a step, he took another, and
then, he broke out into a run, sprinting up the hill like he’d done
it a hundred times, and he found the darkest shadows to melt into.
A bad blood’s skills could be used even against another bad blood.
Even I knew I couldn’t follow him now. I had tried once before, and
I found Cal instead. He found Serena. This time, I wondered if he’d
ever find anyone. I tried anyway. I started up the hill and only
stopped when the wind hit me. It brought his voice to my ears.

“Don’t follow me again.”

He knew I’d try.

My knees hit the ground, my fingers digging
into the cold dirt, and I didn’t move until someone laid a hand on
my shoulder. Adam. He knelt next to me. I wondered how long he had
been there.

“He’s gone,” I choked out. “For good.”

Adam’s eyes trailed up the hill. “What are we
going to do?”

Even though Robert hadn’t been the one to
challenge me, Robert’s departure was a threat. It was the
situation. His entire flock followed him. They listened to him.
They would never listen to me. They might even blame me for his
abandonment. Serena, too.

“I should’ve been the one—”

Adam smacked the back of my head before I
could finish my thought. “You aren’t leaving,” he said. “You are
staying, and you will be the leader, and you will get us through
this.”

“You’re the one giving orders.”

He yanked me up again, this time by the
collar of my jacket. “Daniel.” His voice was calmer this time, like
Calhoun’s. “They fought for you. Not me. You need to tell us what
to do.”

“I don’t know,” I said, looking down at my
hand where I had cut myself. The slice had healed, just like Robert
knew it would, and I realized why Michele had jumped in front of
me. A distraction. She knew Robert was right, but Robert was the
one who allowed her to protect me. He left the flocks and let me
keep my power, my identity, my life. He was gone. Again. And it was
only then that I realized how much it was crushing me. The past.
The present. The future. All of it. I couldn’t control it just like
I couldn’t control my powers. “I really don’t know.”

Watching
Jane drained the energy out of me. She walked back and forth from
room to room as she shouted orders, somehow finding a way to sound
delicately feminine even though she yelled. On top of that, she did
it all in ruby red heels.

All morning, she directed and called,
scheduled and smiled. A single strand of her white-blonde hair
never fell out of its pinned-up place, and she always kept her
focused demeanor neutral. Between her errands and orders, she found
the time to tutor me on the government system I lived under—a
system, I was beginning to realize, I knew little to nothing
about.

“We live in the Council of States, and that’s
the same name as our main branch of government.” She found a way to
explain without sounding condescending.

“The most powerful one?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “It’s made up of all
the city-state presidents, and below that, are the Regional
Councils.” I’d never even heard of it. “Vendona is a section of the
South Council, the 167
^th
city-state to be exact.” I
actually knew which number we were. “And then, of course, Vendona
is separated into the Highlands and the outskirts.” Only one
deserved a capital letter. “The outskirts were naturally divided
into four parts, all labeled by a Cardinal Direction.” She smiled.
“It’s not so complicated when you break it down.”

But it was complicated. “Where does Alec
stand in all this?”

“He’s a councilman in the South Council,” she
answered calmly, even though I felt like she was repeating herself.
“If elected, he’ll move up to the Council of States.”

“What does that have to do with bad
bloods?”

Mrs. Henderson couldn’t quite answer that
question. She didn’t have time to. After some initial tutoring, she
was drawn back to her political duties dictating where and when and
what Mr. Alec Henderson needed to be doing. It seemed to me, Mrs.
Jane Henderson was the one running for president, not her
husband.

“How are you doing, dear?” She slid into
Stephanie’s bedroom—my bedroom—with ease.

I could barely keep myself standing. My
ankles shook as I tried to stand on two-inch heels, but Jane
remained calm. “We’ll get you flats and put you in a long dress to
cover them up.”

I nodded too enthusiastically, and my blonde
bun sunk to my neck. Jane laughed as I scrambled to get it. One of
her workers had fixed my hair only a few minutes ago. For the
fourth time that day. When I failed to hold it together, my hands
crumbled to my sides, along with my ego.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, but she waved my
worries away with one flick of her hand.