Bad Bloods (11 page)

“I can save everyone by going,” I pressured,
latching onto his arm with both of my hands, even though I was
about to ask him to do the opposite. “You have to let me go.”

Robert’s grip tightened on the ID, and he ran
a finger over my photo—my old face, the one I had before the blood
camp sucked away twenty of my pounds and the light in my eyes. His
lips twitched into a small smile, but it disappeared. He lowered
his hand, the ID scraping the ground, and turned to look at me. A
crease appeared above his nose.

“They’ll recognize you,” he said.

“That’s why he wants me.”

The crease deepened. “Dan—” he paused.
“Daniel didn’t pick you?”

“Henderson did.”

Robert didn’t even flinch. “And how does
Daniel feel about it?”

Heat raced up my neck, and for once, I knew
it wasn’t from Robert’s powers. Just the thought of Daniel had the
same effect on me as Robert did, but Robert had to be physically
close. Daniel could be anywhere.

Robert’s gaze moved over my neck like he
could see it, and a part of me wondered if he did. He wouldn’t be
the first bad blood to witness the world in a unique way. He might
have been able to see heat waves. I didn’t know. I didn’t know a
lot. But Robert looked at my neck like he knew everything.

“You’ve met him more than once, haven’t you?”
he guessed.

“I—” I bit my lip, looked at the ground, and
nodded, a quick and small nod, like the smaller it was, the less I
betrayed my flock.

Robert was silent, but I couldn’t bring
myself to look at him. He was practically my brother. I’d known him
since I was five, and nearly every memory of mine revolved around
him in some way—the good and the bad. He was there when I lost my
last tooth. He was there when I learned how to pick pockets. He was
there when I started a fight with the wrong person. He was there to
stitch me up, and he was there to teach me how to fight better.
Robert was always there.

“Does he love you?”

Robert’s question slammed against all of my
memories—even the one where he stole a doll for Catelyn and me to
play with—and I realized I was looking up at him, even though he
had disappeared for a moment. Daniel had replaced him, standing on
top of the northern tower, saying I love you, saying he wanted a
chance to love me, the city burning behind him like an infinite
fire waiting to turn us all to ash.

“He—he can’t,” I managed, unable to use
Daniel’s name as Robert’s face slid into focus.

His eyes widened like I said the opposite,
and his hands reached out, gripping onto my shoulders like he could
never let me go. He pulled me against his chest, and either his,
mine, or both of our hearts pounded between us. “I took you,” he
said, burying his face in my neck. “I know I took you.” My neck
began to feel wet.

Robert’s shoulders bounced once, and his
breath skimmed my bones in a shivering sob. I clutched him back,
hugging him, and realized the only other time I’d seen him cry was
in this exact spot—under the eastern bridge all those years ago. My
grip tightened, barely able to wrap around him. He was so much
bigger than he used to be. He was so much older. We were kids. Just
kids.

“I took it all from you,” he said. My life.
My freedom. My family.

“I didn’t deserve it anyway.”

“You did,” he said it like it was a fact, an
inarguable thing.

But it wasn’t true. I didn’t deserve it. It
was the one secret I had. The reason I could never go back, and I
opened my mouth to tell him when he interrupted me.

“I’ll meet him again,” he said. “I’ll meet
Daniel.”

“You’re joking,”
Adam’s tone sounded like a joke itself. So did his question.

I shook my head. “She wants me to meet
Robert.”

It was Serena’s one condition. It was the
only way she’d leave with the Hendersons, and it was the one thing
I told myself I would never volunteer for again. Robert and I were
enemies. Maybe it was a strong word. Maybe it wasn’t strong enough.
I hated him, and he hated me, and hate was the only thing we had in
common—other than Serena.

“At least we have something in common,” I
muttered, rubbing my temples.

“You have more in common than her,” Adam said
it without saying why out loud. When I didn’t respond, he tapped
the table to get my attention. His black eyes looked so much like
Calhoun’s. His reaction was almost the same too. “How could she
expect you to do that?”

I muttered an explanation, but Adam didn’t
hear me. “She doesn’t know,” I repeated, louder this time.

“Doesn’t know what?” Tessa asked, crawling
onto Adam’s lap like he was a couch. He didn’t move, almost like he
was a couch, and when he did move, it was to push her braids over
her shoulders so they weren’t in his face. The two long strands
landed on the table in front of them. “What don’t she know?”

Being nine, Tessa didn’t even care if she
didn’t know what she was saying. The sound of her voice was her
favorite sound. It was probably the reason she needed saving in the
first place. She’d been mouthing off to a cop in the main square
when Adam found her. Where her parents were, I didn’t know, but the
world really wanted to kill the little girl with plant powers.

“Know what?” Tessa pressed, looking over her
shoulder at Adam, then to me, her earthy brown eyes matching her
powers and her complexion.

Adam patted her dark hair to quiet her. He
was the only one who could do that, and I knew why. Other than
being her savior, Tessa related to Adam. He could run as fast as
lightning, and she could speed up the growing process. Both moved
in their own time, and Tessa listened to Adam like he was the key
to understanding hers. He looked at me like I was the key to the
kind of time he had left.

“What do you mean, ‘she doesn’t know’?” he
asked, almost mocking my confession.

“She doesn’t.”

Adam opened his mouth, but I raised my hand,
interrupting whatever he was about to say. “She doesn’t need to
know.”

“Who are you trying to convince of that?”
Adam asked. “You or me?”

My hand dropped. “She just needs to go with
the Hendersons.”

His mouth snapped shut, and he leaned back,
only dropping his eyes to Tessa’s braids. She hummed, playing with
a coin on the table I hadn’t noticed before now. Adam must have
left it there, and now, he was watching her from over her shoulder.
A nine-year-old singing to a coin like it was a toy.

He half-chuckled, running his hand through
his black hair. “You really don’t want her around when Michele’s
premonition happens, do you?”

I looked back at my best friend, and saw the
unsaid words in his expression. Serena might not come back. We
might never see her again. And I set that up. Not intentionally at
first, but I hadn’t tried to fight it much either.

I drew in a breath. “She’ll be better off. We
all will.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I believe that,” I corrected.

I didn’t even want to begin to guess why
Michele had seen a gun go off. For all I knew, she saw Serena
getting shot. Sending her away didn’t prove anything, but it put me
at ease, and I knew why. A part of me—no matter how small—wanted
Serena in the Highlands just because she was Serena. It would
increase her chances at survival no matter what. It had nothing to
do with her powers. It was just her. Everything else was
convenient. I probably would’ve picked her if Cal hadn’t, but Cal
knew I needed him to do it first. Adam did, too.

I shoved my head in my hands. “It’s not even
guaranteed,” I muttered. “If—” I stopped at Robert’s name. “If he
doesn’t agree to meet me, Serena won’t go.”

Adam’s eyes flicked over to the clock hanging
above the black lamp Cal gifted us, the one by the stairs, the one
Michele never got rid of. “She only has an hour left.”

As if on cue, the door burst open, and Adam
and I leapt up. Tessa fell to the ground, landing on her feet as if
she were prepared for it. She didn’t even complain. She stared
wide-eyed at Cal taking up nearly the entire doorway with his broad
shoulders and single arm.

In his one hand, he held up a note. “You
won’t believe this.”

I crossed the room and snatched it before he
could ruin the surprise.

I’ll meet you. My house. Tomorrow night.

It was signed by Robert, the guy I knew could
read, the same guy Serena didn’t know could read. She thought he’d
be sending a checkmark if he agreed…and he had. It lingered beneath
the words he wrote.

Serena would take Stephanie’s place—my wish
had come true—and Serena’s wish had come true too. I would meet
Robert, and I knew what had happened without having to look at the
sky to confirm.

It was a full moon.

Calhoun and
I walked in silence. Even the sounds of our footsteps were drowned
out by my heart thundering in my ears. In ten minutes, Robert and I
would be face to face. All for Serena.
No.
All for the
election and our rights.

I sucked in a deep breath and caught Cal
eyeing me in my peripheral vision. He knew, Adam knew, all of us
knew what we were about to lose, but Serena didn’t. We might even
have to say goodbye, and I never said goodbye. Not after Nicholas
told me not to say it.

He was fifteen, if I remembered correctly,
but nothing about my childhood was easy to remember. After my
parents had died, I was lucky to find anyone to talk to other than
my brothers. Now, they were all gone. But Nicholas’ memory
remained.

His tough, blond and brown curls were
difficult to forget, and I wondered how he hadn’t been caught
earlier. Aside from his memorable curls, his teeth were spikes. He
filed them down at night only for them to grow back, but he still
smiled when he talked to me. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me,
but Nicholas knew that, and he knew the perfect thing to say to
me.

“I may be a homeless old man, but that
doesn’t mean I’m worthless.” He grinned because we were both kids,
and I grinned because he gave me hope. “You’re a good kid,
Daniel.”

It was a few days later that everything else
happened. While I was listening to him and Abigail—another now-dead
bad blood—he had screamed. And cried. And fell to the floor. And I
had never seen an older guy do that. I hid in the closet as she
kissed his tears away, and when he asked her to leave, she did.

“I know you’re there.” His voice was higher
than most, and when I opened the door, Nicholas gave me a shaky
smile. “She died,” he said. “She said goodbye and she died.”

His twin sister. I knew of her, but I didn’t
know her. I had seen her in passing, but I hadn’t been around long
enough to hear her voice or see a smile on her face. From a
distance, she always looked serious, like the world had taken the
laughter out of her lungs. Nicholas laughed like he had been
holding onto some of it for her when she wanted it back, but it
didn’t matter anymore. She was gone.

“Don’t ever say goodbye,” he said, reaching
out to grab my arm. I let him, and he held me—six-year-old me—like
I was a sack of flour. “The world hears goodbye. The world makes it
final. Don’t ever say it. Don’t ever say goodbye unless it’s
final.”

“I won’t,” I promised without understanding
what I had promised. I understood a few days later when he said
goodbye and died.

“I’d die for you too,” Cal spoke through my
memories like he knew what I was thinking. It was quite possible
too. I’d run these streets with Nicholas, and Calhoun was one of
the only people who knew Nicholas ever lived. But when I looked at
Cal, he frowned. “You didn’t hear a word I said, did yah?”

I shook my head. I was so immersed in my
thoughts I had missed whatever speech Calhoun had concocted to
prepare me for Robert. I hated to anticipate the reunion. The last
time I’d seen Robert, I’d left him in a puddle of his own blood. We
were even. As far as I was concerned, that’s where our relationship
had ended, but Vendona had other plans. Those plans awaited me
behind a brown front door, so clean I figured it was brand new.