Bad Bloods (28 page)

“They took one girl as a hostage.” One. “And
there are rumors of escapees. More than a few.”

My vision blurred with tears, and I wiped
furiously at my cheeks, only for my bracelet to catch my stare.
Daniel. For a moment, I saw him, standing in the rain outside
Cal’s, his green eyes peering through the darkness, right up at me,
right as he smiled. He told me I’d be okay. I told him to be safe.
We didn’t say goodbye. We never said goodbye. Not to anyone.

“The news.” I found the strength to stand. “I
need to see the news.”

“It’s on Channel Four,” Alec confirmed
without a single argument, and he directed me to the next room
where a few workers watched the scene unfold on the big screen.

When I entered, everyone looked at me, but I
saw past them. Daniel’s home. It was on fire. At least, what was
left of it was on fire. Most of it was gone, and remnants of a
front-porch entrance singed through the smoke. The front door was
obsolete, as was the large bay window, and the second-story roof
had caved in. Firefighters and officers walked in and out of the
camera’s viewpoint as a newscaster rambled on and on about the
red-light curfew, about reporting any suspicious activity to the
police, but his voice was dull, dragging on as if he didn’t want to
say a single word. The Highlands, I realized, didn’t have red
lights, orange lights, or yellow lights at all. Only snowflakes,
windy streets, and a gate to keep the outskirts out.

Flock Massacre
scrolled at the bottom
of the screen.

“They’re calling it a massacre, Serena,” Alec
whispered the words, the only way I knew what it said, but I didn’t
understand the connotation. “They didn’t call it an ambush this
time.” His vernacular disappeared beneath distress. “The mass
majority saw this as a crime—”

“Is that all this is to you?” I cried, almost
screaming at him. “A political gain?”

The man silenced, but only for a moment.
“No,” he said and sounded like he meant it. “I’m sorry. I truly
am.”

My eyes flicked back to the screen. Jane
grabbed my hand before I realized why. Michele. Her white hair was
impossible to miss on the dark TV screen. She was sitting on the
curb, hardly being watched, her eyes on the pavement as the camera
moved past her. Had she seen the dream too?

I finally listened to the report.

“One blood was taken into custody.” Blood.
They called her a blood. Not a bad blood. “She appears to be
unharmed with hair as white as tonight’s snow.” The news mixed a
massacre with the weather report. “We don’t know her name, or even
if she has one, but she looks to be about sixteen.”

“Seventeen.”

Jane looked at me. “What?”

“Michele,” I told Jane her name. “She’s
seventeen.”

And she was alive. The next part was even
more unbelievable.

“If you believe this is your daughter, please
contact the Northern Precincts Office at…”

I had to sit down again, and Jane joined me,
never leaving my side, even though the leather couch could easily
fit six. She never let go of my hand either.

“They called us bloods,” I repeated, finally
understanding why Alec had focused on the words, the same word
Daniel had always used. “They—” Daniel would’ve loved to see the
day.

I shook my thoughts apart, trying to focus my
mind where it needed to be, but Jane squeezed. “It’ll be okay,
dear,” she whispered, and I believed her. “I’m sure more made it
out…”

“What happens to Michele?” I asked, jerking
my face up to meet Alec’s eyes. “Why the pre-sicks office? What is
that?”

I couldn’t stand to see her put in a blood
camp.

“Precincts,” he corrected, slowly. “They’re
taking her to the Northern Precincts Office, not a jail cell,” he
said. Apparently, right below the regional councils—ours being the
Southern Council—each Cardinal Direction had a precincts office for
management of security. “As far as my committee has been told, no
one official permitted this act.”

My focus trailed over Alec for the first time
since entering the room. He was dressed in a suit—all black—and
Jane matched him. The only difference was a see-through blusher
veil covering one of her eyes. The couple was dressed for a
funeral.

“We’re going there now,” he confirmed, Alec’s
lips bending down. “Her fate most likely depends on the election
results, but I will fight for momentary federal protection from the
Council of the States.” He never broke eye contact. “They won’t
place her in an institution now. Not after this.” He waved toward
the screen but didn’t look at it.

“Miss Serena.”

Our eyes moved over to one worker, a worker I
had never seen before, and she held the hands of two others. How
they knew my name…I actually knew. Everyone knew. “We’re praying
for you.”

Praying. For me. For the girl damned to hell
on earth since the day she was born. There was a time in my life I
would’ve laughed at the sentiment, mocked it even, but now I could
see it for what it was. Hope in a cruel world. Hope for all the
souls I had taken to the Highlands—souls that might no longer
exist—just like Daniel had foreseen. It didn’t matter if I believed
in the hope or not. It was humanity’s hope, their belief in us that
would allow us to live in the future. Without their acceptance and
our faith in that acceptance, we would continue to die. Our blood
would fill the streets. Again. And again. Our voices would never be
heard.

“Please,” I choked out. “Pray for us
all.”

We
ran for hours. On a normal night, it took forty-five minutes to get
to Cal’s, but this was not a normal night. The red lights
surrounded us and so did the search parties. One second, we were
pushed back, then pushed right, and then pushed left. They even
pushed us too far, only minutes away from the south side, but we
fought our way to the west, stopping every four feet to listen to
the city that wanted to kill us. During our trek back, I stopped
when I realized I couldn’t hear gunshots anymore.

“I don’t trust it,” Adam whispered, adjusting
Huey on his back. At some point, the blond had woken up and crawled
into a piggyback position. Now, he was unconscious again, drooling
on Adam’s shoulder next to his blood. He needed medical attention.
Now. I wouldn’t be able to heal anyone, not until my own strength
returned. I had to be careful about even touching them. I would be
worthless dead.

My eyes darted across the alleyway as I
oriented myself in the most familiar places of them all. Shadow
Alley. I leaned against the fence, partially to catch my breath,
partially to buy time. Vi should’ve been with us. She should’ve
been able to save us too, but the darkness was as still as the
city.

Adam was right. I didn’t trust it either.

Justan flinched as a substance shot out of
his wrist. I leapt forward, thinking someone had shot him with a
spike of some sort, but quickly remembered it was his abilities.
Mixed with bone and wood, Justan pulled the weapon out of his skin
and grasped it, his knuckles white. The look in his eyes was much,
much worse. Thirteen years old, this boy was prepping to kill.

“That isn’t necessary.” I started to stop
him, but Justan ignored me, walking down the street as if I hadn’t
said a word. I followed him, ready to grab him when he suddenly
sprang forward and shot down the conjoining street.

I barely had time to turn the corner before I
heard the struggle, the squeal, the slice. Justan wiped the
bloodied spike off on his pants and then turned to face me,
expressionless. “Got them.”

Two officers, too mauled to tell if they were
women or men, lay on the ground, their magnolia flower badge
catching the streetlight.

I reached out and pulled Justan to me, unsure
how to react when he didn’t hug me back. “How’d you know?”

“Jake taught me everything.”

The boy, his friend, probably his best
friend, had taken a part of Justan’s soul with him.

When he leaned back, I already knew what he
was going to say, but it was still difficult to hear it. “There’s
more,” he said it like a fact, not a possibility. “Let me go ahead
of everyone, and—”

“Justan,” I said his name, half wondering if
I had remembered wrong when he didn’t react, but I shoved the
thought away. “You are not doing this. I will. Okay?”

“You need to carry Tessa,” he defied me.
“She’s freezing.”

I glanced back and realized the nine-year-old
was wearing shorts. Even from a distance, I saw her shiver.

“I can do this,” Justan said.

“No.” And that was my final word. I grabbed
the boy, feeling the hot blood on his shirtsleeve as I dragged him
back to Adam. “Watch him,” I said, explaining what happened, and
going on to explain that I would finish the streets leading to
Cal’s apartment. We were only two away. “If I’m not back in ten
minutes—”

“I’ll see you in ten,” Adam said.

I nodded and turned my back to him. I heard
Justan struggle, but Adam was too fast to let the boy escape and
follow me. They disappeared as I focused on what I had to do. I
found one by Old Man Gregory’s and another by the main square. The
last one was two blocks over from Cal’s, and he was dead before I
remembered where I was. Debary’s Lane.

My eyes found Serena’s parents’ home, but the
lights were off, the curtains drawn—as expected from any Vendona
citizen during a red light—though it wasn’t expected from them.
Wasn’t her father a cop? Hadn’t she told me that?

I stepped back, surveying my last kill to see
if I could see Serena in his face, but he was too young. Much too
young. Maybe even as young as me.

My thoughts were pushed away as I crossed
back down the streets to Shadow Alley. In five minutes, I was
signaling for the others to come, and they did. Everyone was still
alive, and my heart started to pound when I saw Calhoun’s door.

His lights were off too.

Adam knocked first, as quietly as he could
muster, and when the door opened, a small whimper escaped his
throat. Cal grabbed Huey from Adam’s shoulders and gestured for us
all to come inside. No one said a word as we stumbled up the icy
steps and into the dark apartment. The too dark apartment. Vi. She
was here. She was alive.

“It’s on the news,” Cal mumbled, sounding as
if he had vomited recently too. “Vi’s hurt,” he said to no one in
particular. “But she came out of the shadows long enough to tell me
she has Ron.”

Both of them were okay. Vi was simply healing
herself.

Cal wrapped his only arm around his nephew,
and Adam began mumbling incoherently. He started to cry.

I collapsed onto the couch by the wall and
closed my eyes, trying to disappear by listening to Cal. He wanted
Adam to calm down, to sob quieter, to hide even longer. Just a
little bit longer.

My hands curled against my knees. “Did anyone
come?”

The room stilled, so I opened my eyes to
watch Adam wipe his tears away. Cal’s grim gaze told me everything
I needed to know. Other than Vi and Ron, no one else had shown up
yet. We were up to seven, but Cal added one more.

“They have Michele.”

“Have her?” Adam croaked. “What do you
mean?”

“The captain of the Northern Precincts Office
took her in. He’s denying involvement. That’s all I know,” he
said.

“The cops were definitely there,” I said, but
Cal shook his head like he didn’t know what to believe.

“Well, they’re protecting Michele,” he said.
“I saw her on the news. She’s definitely alive.”

“For now,” Justan huffed.

I didn’t even have the energy to glare at
him, and the kid already punished himself. As soon as the words
left his mouth, he sank to the floor and stared at his hands. The
blood. We all saw it, and it snapped us back into reality.

“Who’s hurt the worst?” Cal asked, and Adam
directed him to Huey. While they started bandaging his head, I
stood up and went to work on Tessa’s arm. Justan washed his
hands.

Dirty, bloody, and pale, we must have looked
like walking ghosts. Or zombies. Or other monsters that should have
been in stories instead of bad bloods.

We bled the same as humans, but there was one
difference.

We bled too much.