Bad Bloods (34 page)

And suddenly I was burning.

Montana let me go, time rushed back into my
lungs, and I wheezed. Tears pushed at my eyes, but Ida’s hand was
on my back, and I knew her powers the second she touched me. That
moment revealed what Ida was, and I loved her for it, but I also
hated her. She had brought my identity straight to me, an identity
I didn’t completely understand.

“Go away, bad blood!” I screamed again,
knowing the words hurt them somehow.

Both women blinked at me, unsure but willing
to stay. Montana was holding my hand again, and I realized why I
had burned. Numbers—something I knew was an address, but also
something I couldn’t read—seared my skin.

“Come to us,” she said like I could
understand. “It’ll guide you.”

I stared at it.

“The decision is up to her,” Ida spoke to
Montana, but the girls lingered.

“She’s too young to make it.” Even though
Montana whispered, I heard every word. “She won’t be safe here. We
need her.”

“We’ll come back, when she’s older.”

“She won’t live that long.”

“Montana.”

“Ida.”

“I’ll come,” I interrupted.

They looked at me—rainbows and darkness—and I
forced myself to nod. “I’ll come. Just”—I sucked in a breath—“I’ll
come soon.”

Montana’s eyes sliced through me. She didn’t
believe me. I knew that much. But I held my breath, and Ida nodded,
and they were gone. In a flume of black smoke, both women
disappeared, and time rushed into me. Goose bumps flew up my arms,
and the knife fell out of the ceiling, landing on the wooden floor
with a crack. Then, my room was still—as if nothing happened—and my
clock clicked to 3:46 AM.

I screamed.

*

The memory repeated over and over again since
I told Daniel the Western Flock ambush happened because of me. He
didn’t even know the story. When I said it was my fault, he stared
at me for a full minute before he left me in a thick silence. I
hadn’t tried to chase him either. I didn’t have the right to.

I was the reason his brother had died. I was
the reason. I had always been the reason. And it was my only secret
until now.

I didn’t think I could face anyone ever
again. But knocking shook the door, and before I could tell them to
come inside—not knowing who to expect—the door creaked open, and
Ryne popped his head in. The scars on his face were from long ago,
but he had extra injuries now. I wondered if those would scar
too.

“Are you okay?” he asked, as if it was a
completely normal question to ask, as if I could fathom answering
it. When I didn’t answer, he brushed the hair out of his face, and
I saw his right eye. White. He would probably go blind if he didn’t
get medical attention. “I heard you, talking to him, I mean.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“I came up when you started screaming,” he
explained. “I know I shouldn’t have. Adam told me not to, but…” He
shrugged. “I heard. The others don’t know. Daniel hasn’t said
anything, aside from asking us not to watch the results
tonight.”

Tonight. The final results were coming out in
a few hours.

“It was silly, you two,” he continued, as I
lost my ability to speak. “It’s no one’s fault. Not yours or
Daniel’s or mine or anyone’s.”

I sat up, staring at the thirteen-year-old
who rarely spoke, who—according to Daniel—didn’t have a single
memory of his previous life, but Ryne’s dark eye said so much more.
His voice sounded older too.

“Everything is one, big, twisted mistake,” he
said, crossing his arms as if to make a point. “Understand?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Ryne.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said, his voice
dropping. “I’m only doing this to make myself feel better.”

I frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You told your secret,” he said. “I want the
same luxury. I want that sort of strength. I want—” His voice
cracked. “I told my sister about my abilities first. I was seven.
She kept my secret for three years.”

“Ryne,” I stopped him. “Daniel told me you
didn’t have any memories.”

As the story went, Maggie found him with a
homeless man. His skull had been cracked. He barely survived.

“I lied.” Ryne shrugged. “I know exactly who
my family is. My father’s a drunk, and my mother’s a whore. Big
surprise. My sister wasn’t even my sister. She was just a kid my
dad took in to clean his house. He killed her trying to kill
me.”

I stared at him, really stared at him, and
continued to stare as his secret deepened. He was fifteen—not
thirteen—and he lived on the streets for a few years before he was
hit by a car. His injury hadn’t even happened because he was a bad
blood. He was only saved because of Maggie’s insecurities about
being saved herself, and he wanted to give her that as thanks for
saving him. Now that Maggie was gone, he felt as if he had to tell
someone about himself. He wished he had told her when he could. He
wished so many things. But secrets took over, and with twenty-four
hours before the final election results, we knew our time was
short. No one wanted to die with secrets in their grave.

“I think Daniel will understand why you told
him,” Ryne said. “Just like you understand why I’m telling
you.”

Had I told Daniel because of my fear of
death? Or had I told him so he wouldn’t die? Either way, everything
had to revolve around death. I hated it.

“He’s downstairs,” Ryne said.

I stood and forced myself to run downstairs
to face him. If I had twenty-four hours left, I would make the most
out of it. I would make this life mean something.

Daniel met my eyes as if he were expecting me
to appear at any moment.

My hands shook as I crossed the room and sat
on the couch next to him. The living room, for the first time in
days, was empty. Where everyone had gone was beyond me, but I
recalled what Ryne had said. No one was going to watch the results.
With the TV in the living room, Daniel probably ordered everyone
into his room and Cal’s office. But he was still here, and I
wondered if he was tempted to break his own rules.

Neither of us said anything as we watched the
empty screen, allowing all of our secrets to linger between us, but
his name left me before I knew it. “Daniel?”

“I want to know.”

I told him everything. I told him how Montana
came to me, how I met Ida, how they offered me a place in the
Western Flock. “I only said I’d consider it to get them to leave.
When they left, I screamed. My parents came in, and I told them
everything.”

Daniel stared at the wall, guessing the rest.
“Your dad.”

I nodded. “He was a cop. He reported it to
his higher up.” I swallowed. “He didn’t feel good about it. He was
sobbing that night, and my mother said something about everyone
dying, and I remembered Montana and Ida, and I was terrified.” I
forced myself to continue. “I went outside because—because—” I
didn’t know why. I think I wanted to run. I think that’s when my
running began. “Robert found me out there.”

And that’s where it all came together. Robert
took me away, Calhoun took Daniel away, and both boys created
flocks after I inadvertently destroyed their first one. And I loved
them both.

“I needed to hear your story, so I knew what
I did,” I explained why I asked him to tell me about the ambush. “I
had to know that before I confessed or it would’ve meant
nothing.”

“I should’ve told you too,” he said, “from
the beginning.”

Neither of the boys had explained their
involvement with one another, not even when they realized how the
three of us were connected.
If they had…
I shook my head.

I couldn’t help but feel as if everyone had
lied about everything. We all had secrets. We all had a dark side
to our innocent cover. I wondered what we would be like if we had
been completely honest with each other in the first place. Maybe
more people would be alive, but then again, maybe more people would
be dead.

“Are you mad?” I asked after a moment, and
Daniel continued to dwell in silence as he fixated on the wall.

I waited for him to tell me to leave, to get
out, to disappear on the streets like Robert had. But he didn’t say
a word. Instead, he reached up, and softly, he laid his warm palm
on my cheek. His thumb moved over my cheekbones, and it was only
then that I realized I had cried. I had cried all the tears I had
left.

“Are you?” I pressed, needing an answer.

He faced me—his unnatural green eyes
searching mine—but he didn’t answer. Instead, he kissed me, his
sweet lips soft and inviting. And everything around us disappeared
as he deepened it, his fingers falling to my hair, his breath
matching mine. When we parted, he stayed as close as ever, and
shook his forehead against mine. “I can’t,” he said, making my
heart leap into my throat. “You’ve taken my ability to hate away
from me.”

When he sighed, he dropped his forehead onto
my shoulder, both of his arms wrapping around me. “The world can’t
break us. Nothing can.”

I ran my fingers through his hair before I
ran my hand across his shoulders—including the scarred one—and down
his back. He held me closer, and I squeezed back, too afraid to let
go again.

A boy I met on the streets, a boy that saved
me a decade after I almost destroyed him, and all I wanted was the
freedom to live and love too, for the chance to love him in the
future, for the chance for the others to find someone they cared
about. For all of us. For all the bad bloods.

“Whoa!” Adam’s voice echoed through the small
room, Daniel fell backwards, almost shoving me away, and I did the
same to him. Mini Cal had already erupted into laughter, a deep
laughter I never thought I’d hear again. “I didn’t mean to
interrupt.” He even managed a wink.

Daniel’s cheeks turned red beneath his tan.
“Shut up,” he said, but his voice was light. “Shut up right
now.”

Adam continued to chuckle, wiggling his
eyebrows in my direction. “You two have fun,” he said, slowly
backing out of the room.

“Wait,” I stopped him.

Adam paused, suddenly turning serious and
looking more like his uncle at every moment.

“The results,” I said.

“The kids won’t see it,” Adam started
explaining how he was obeying Daniel’s order.

I turned to Daniel, not afraid to look him in
the eyes anymore. “I want them to,” I said. “I want to watch the
results.”

Daniel paled. “What?”

“We should watch it together,” I repeated
myself, only looking over at Adam when Daniel did.

Adam’s thick eyebrows furrowed in the middle,
just like Cal’s did. “You sure?”

I nodded, but Daniel didn’t. “I don’t think
it’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“Because if we lose—”

“We’ve already lost,” I cut him off, “but we
don’t have to accept that. We don’t have to cower from it.” The
words tumbled out of me before I could stop myself. “Even if we do
lose, I already told Alec we won, no matter what happens.” We could
win in our hearts. “We don’t have to hide anymore. We should face
it, head-on. For everyone.”

“Maggie would’ve loved that,” Adam said,
almost too quietly to hear.

Daniel looked at him, then at me, then at his
hands. “I’ll get them,” he decided, leaping up only to disappear
down the hallway. We had a few hours left, and Adam was looking at
me like I’d just bought him extra time.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I don’t deserve that.”

He shook his head, and his black hair moved
side-to-side with him. “You do. You came back, and you brought
Daniel back to us,” he said. “Even though we’re broken, I think we
can be whole again. Thanks to you.” He smiled and revealed he was
missing a few teeth from the ambush. “Just don’t take the sidekick
spot. That’s mine.” He chuckled again. He hadn’t lost his ability
to laugh. He was still alive, and so was I.

No one could take that away from us. That was
our soul.

***

Cal loaded everyone up on anything sugary he
could find. At first, I questioned my decision to sway Daniel into
allowing everyone to watch. After all, if we lost, it would be easy
for the kids to panic.
But if we won…

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of
jinxing our future, but Daniel squeezed my hand as if I said it out
loud. The TV was on, and even though my eyes were fixed on
Henderson and Logan II as they appeared, all I could think about
was the kids in front of me, of Daniel next to me, of all the
people who I affected by existing. I understood if Daniel couldn’t
love me after this. I understood everything. But until then, I had
a few more things I had to say.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know,” he said. “Me, too.” He shot me a
small smile, much like the one I saw when we first met eyes in his
kitchen. “I’m not mad. I already told you that. We all have
mistakes in our past and in our future. It’s a fact of life.” He
stared at the screen like it would reveal exactly how many mistakes
we would make in the upcoming moments—and perhaps our last ones.
Right as I was about to speak, the announcer did.

“For the safety of the public and the
candidates, this is being broadcast from our studio.” It was only
then that I realized Henderson had a cut on his brow, poorly
covered up by studio makeup.

“What happened to him?” Adam asked.

Calhoun muttered a few words, but the only
ones I made out were “precincts” and “protest.” Someone had hurt
him. It wasn’t a good sign.

Daniel leaned forward, as if he’d turn it
off, but then he turned the volume up.

“This election has been forthcoming and
honest. Despite these past few days, the amount of votes we
received doubled our last election, so Vendona thanks you.” As the
man spoke, the camera whisked over Alec Henderson with Jane beside
him. She clutched his arm, and I wondered if she’d received my
message, if she’d watched Stephanie’s recording. Then, the camera
was on Logan II and his wife, and I tried not to recall the
repulsion I felt toward a man I barely knew. I had to remind myself
of what I learned about him. Logan II wasn’t the enemy; Vendona
was—and Vendona could become our ally.