My powers had one flaw. One, major flaw. If I absorbed a bad blood’s abilities, and they were powerful enough, the bad blood could control if and when I used them again. I didn’t have a choice. They were just as much a part of me as I had become a part of them. My theory about how my powers worked was a weak one, but at least I had one. If bad bloods had souls, our powers were connected with them, and I absorbed both. They were inseparable. It was the very reason I was sure scientists hadn’t found a cure. Removing our abilities only resulted in our deaths. Lucky for Logan II, that was all the candidate running against Henderson wanted. But Logan wasn’t the only one who wanted something. Robert did, too. He wanted me home, and I was headed there—through Huey’s powers.
I knew Huey was controlling me the second the vortex appeared and took hold. Daniel was the last thing I saw before my molecules squished into nothing. At least, it felt like nothing, and nothing did have a feeling. The first time the sensation took me I was twelve.
The year Ami arrived I caught pneumonia. Since I was a bad blood, I couldn’t go to a hospital. My illness was threatening the rest of the Southern Flock. There were only five of us, and I could barely keep my consciousness. Niki was the first to suggest putting me out of my misery. Robert left then. When I closed my eyes, I had already accepted that I would never open them again. That’s when I floated.
I floated for three days, and on the fourth day, I woke up. Robert was still gone, but Catelyn had stayed by my side the entire time he was absent. She had only been with us for one year, but she had risked her own health to stop Niki from killing me. Robert returned one week later with a black eye and a horrible limp. I never asked him what happened, but I was sure Niki blamed me for it. Even worse, she acted like his black eye was worse than my near-death experience. We argued ever since, but I only experienced the floating feeling again when I met Huey.
In the one year I had known the boy, the blond had opened up a world of transportation to me. The vortex was the worst part of transporting. Once inside, everything was empty. The colorless, soundless space held nothing but the smell of smoke and the tickle of feathers. Once he showed it to me, I never wanted to go back. Huey was shocked. He thought it was heaven. When I asked him why, he said, “Heaven isn’t a sad place.”
To me, the vortex was sad, but Huey argued that it held nothing. No happiness. No anger. No sadness. Nothing. “For happiness to exist, sadness has to exist,” he spoke like an adult would, as if he were repeating a phrase he learned from his parents. “And I don’t want to be sad.” He almost started to cry. “I don’t mind sacrificing happiness for that.”
He was seven years old then, and from that day on, I knew he counted his years as years of sadness. It wasn’t rare for the eight-year-old to go missing into his vortex for days, but it was rare for him to pull me in forcibly. In fact, this was the first time he succeeded. The only other time he had attempted the feat was when I disappeared. As long as he had an idea of where I was, he could try to force me to transport, but he had failed before. This time, he hadn’t.
The familiar pinch of my molecules scraping back together forced air out of my lungs as they reformed. When I solidified, a curse escaped me, and pain shot through my limbs, trailing up and down the length of my veins. I had to lock my jaw to keep myself from screaming out, and when the smoke finally cleared, I was grateful for my sealed lips.
Robert stood directly in front of me, straightened up, shoulders out. Huey stood next to him. His mouth was ajar, revealing the gap in his teeth that looked like an extra opened mouth.
“You.” I blinked at Robert as my words constructed in my dizzy mind. “You used Huey? He could’ve been hurt.”
Robert’s eyebrows slid, inch by inch, to the bridge of his nose. “There you go again.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“Start worrying about yourself getting hurt,” Robert said as his shoulders slumped. “Huey needs practice. He volunteered.”
My eyes met Huey’s only for his gaze to fall to his feet. Even though his blond hair slid over his forehead, the tips of his cheeks were visible. His skin was bright red.
I tore my eyes away. “He’s eight, Robert,” I said. “He did not volunteer.”
“Can I go now?” Huey’s voice was a squeak.
“Yes,” I said at the same time Robert said, “No.”
Our glares fixed on each other, and I didn’t avert my eyes until Ami called Huey’s name. Her long braid caught my attention as she waved him away from us. He practically sprinted to get behind Ami, and Ami’s hand wrapped around herself to touch him as she stared at us. “Try not to wake the kids up,” she snapped.
I had never heard Ami use that tone before. The teenager was usually quiet, and she reverted to her silent nature as she took Huey into the basement where most of the kids slept. Once the door was shut, I surveyed the rest of the house. It was empty—too empty—even though it was just after midnight. If I got caught, Steven and Catelyn must have been caught too. But they weren’t waiting for me. I was getting a special lecture, one meant only for me.
Robert leaned against the column in our living room as his eyes closed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Where—” he sighed the word. “Why?” He didn’t have to clarify. He knew I followed him to intervene with Daniel.
“No one needs to die.”
When he squeezed his nose harder, his knuckles turned white. “No one died.”
“Not by your choice.”
His eyelids inched open, and his brown irises peeked out from his sliced gaze. “Where’s the jacket?”
I had to glance at my clothes to remember what had happened. Huey’s vortex muddled my memories, but returning Daniel’s jacket cracked through the gaps. “I gave it back.”
The heat in the air rose, a sign of Robert’s abilities. If he wanted to, he could make a person explode simply by looking at them. “You know where he lives?” His tone was calmer than I thought it would be.
“No.” For once, I spoke the truth. “I ran into him while following you. You barely missed him.”
Robert’s hand dropped from his face. I turned my back to him so I didn’t have to see his expression, but I hadn’t taken two steps before he called after me. “Where are you going?”
“To bed.”
Robert’s footsteps followed me to the stairs. “We need to talk.”
I stopped on the third stair. “Why?”
The railing shook when he grabbed it. “You know why.”
I turned around, raised my hands, and clapped them as hard as I could. Niki’s curses filled the room.
Robert’s eyes followed the cursing, landing on the nearest door—to a coat closet. Then, he looked back at me. “Why’d you do that?”
“She hates me, and you know it,” I said and sat on the steps. “If we’re talking, she’s not a part of it.”
Robert never looked away from me, but he spoke Niki’s name. The closet door creaked open, and she stumbled out. “I heard. I heard,” she said as she threw her dreads over her shoulder. Right before she disappeared into the kitchen, her red eyes glared in my direction, and then Robert and I were alone. Even he couldn’t deny what she had done, but he sighed as if he were trying to find a way.
“She doesn’t hate you,” he finally said. “She’s worried about you, like the rest of us.”
I blew air out.
“I’m not mad at you.” Robert’s words affected my anger the same way his powers affected people. It disintegrated. He collapsed in the space next to me, and his legs stretched down the stairs. When his arm pressed against mine, I pressed mine back. It was like we were children all over again, and it occurred to me that I was—in fact—still a child by legal standards. But my existence was illegal, so I didn’t feel like a child. I didn’t even feel alive.
His hand landed on my head, and he shuffled my hair around like he could break my thoughts up. “You need to stay home right now.”
I ducked away from hi
s touch. “You were going to kill him.”
Robert’s mouth opened like he was going to argue but only a rumble escaped his throat. He stared at the wall as he coughed, and the stairs groaned as he shifted an inch away from me. “I wasn’t going to kill him.”
I didn’t know what to say. If he wasn’t going to kill Daniel, then I didn’t know what else could’ve happened. Killing was the only possibility bad bloods faced.
“And I won’t,” Robert promised, shooting over a sidelong glance. “But you shouldn’t have left.”
“I had to.” My words came out faster than he could finish his. “I can’t stay here all the time. I need to breathe. I need to move around—” I couldn’t be in a cage again. Not now. But my throat trapped my voice.
My eyes burned, and I squeezed my eyelids shut to keep them from catching on fire. It wasn’t Robert at all. His powers were under control. It was me. It was always me.
“Serena.” His voice was calm as he repeated my name once more. Too calm. Too unlike him.
My eyes sprang open. “You wouldn’t talk to me like this before.”
“Before what?”
“You know what I’m talking about.” I kept snapping, like a taut thread cracking under pressure.
“Then, why didn’t you just say it?” Robert looked at me like it was his job to unwind me.
“I—I—”
“You were tortured, Serena.” I didn’t want to hear him speak, but his voice was all I heard. “You were starved and beaten and damn near killed.” His fingers grazed my back as if he wanted to touch me but knew it was best not to. “Right now is not the time to be running around in more chaos.” He dropped his forehead on my shoulder and sighed. “You need to relax.”
“I’m not capable of relaxing,” I whispered into his hair. “Logan already did it. Vendona has the technology to test us all.” It was the third time I had spoken about it but the first time I had said anything to him.
He tensed, but he didn’t move away. “You’re not thinking clearly.”
I moved back, and he almost fell over. He had to catch himself on the stairs, but I was too focused. I almost growled when I repeated myself. “They can test our blood, Robert.”
In the reflection of his irises, I could see myself as I was a week ago—the wild eyes, the frayed bangs, the frostbitten nose—how skinny my cheekbones still were.
I jumped to my feet so we wouldn’t be face-to-face, and I grabbed the handrail as I leapt up two steps. “I meant to tell you earlier.”
When I turned around, he didn’t even stand. Instead, he rotated his torso so his back was against the wall and his toes were against the handrail, causing his knees to bend up. He was too tall for the little space. He was almost in the fetal position. “Did you already tell him?”
My hands curled at the question. “Are you seriously that focused on Daniel?”
“I don’t want you to make a mistake.”
I searched his face, all the way from his long eyelashes to his round chin. I wanted to see the answers to all the questions I had, but like Daniel, there were no hints in his expression. Just focused concern—so focused that neither of them seemed to see my returned concern. It was a leader’s focus.
“I’m going to bed,” I said as calmly as my emotions would allow. It came out too monotone, too obvious toward my intentions, and I blew the bangs out of my face to kill my adrenaline. “I’m sorry.” I meant it, too.
Robert nodded, but he didn’t look at me. He only looked at the living room, and I glanced over the stair rail—half-expecting to see someone standing there—but the room was empty. Robert was staring at a memory.
As I turned away, I attempted to search my own for which one he lost himself in, but I couldn’t think about it for long. I had something more important to do. I burst into my bedroom, knowing they would be waiting for me.
Catelyn was already sitting up, staring at me as if she had been waiting at my door ever since we had separated in Shadow Alley, but Steven was curled up next to her, his hand wrapped around hers. Even in his sleep, he couldn’t let her go. Melody was resting on a giant pillow on the window seat, her thumb shoved in her mouth.
I shut my door behind me, locked it, and shoved a sweater into the crack on the floor. I wasn’t risking Niki’s super hearing, and Catelyn understood my actions.
“I was worried you got caught again,” she whispered as she pried her hand out of Steven’s sleep grip. “Him, too. You know him, sleeps anytime he’s stressed out.”
“I’m awake,” he muttered, barely moving.
Catelyn never looked away from me. “You okay?”
I took a breath. “It was Daniel.”
Catelyn didn’t react, almost as if she had suspected it all along, but Steven’s eyes cracked open. By the time he sat straight up, his eyes were orbs.
I sat down on the carpet and pulled my knees against my chest. My clothes were still cold in some places, where the outside world had seeped into the black threads. “Robert was following him, but I think he only saw Niki.”
Catelyn gasped but threw a hand over her mouth like she could take it back. She only removed her hand to crawl to the edge of my bed to get closer to me. “You talked to him?”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
Steven buried his face against the blankets, but we still heard him mutter, “This is bad.”
“I know.”
Catelyn’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you think—?”
She didn’t have to finish her thought. It had occurred to me the moment I spoke to Robert. Daniel was like us. Too like us. Even for a bad blood.
“Northern Flock,” I guessed.
Steven’s face lifted, only for him to rest his chin on his hands. “He could be in the Eastern Flock.”
Catelyn rolled her eyes. “They’re dead.”
“You don’t know that,” Steven grumbled.
Catelyn turned to face Steven. “They. Are. Dead.”
Everyone knew they were dead, but Steven was the hopeful type. Too hopeful. It was the one thing Catelyn feared about him; he hadn’t spent enough time on the streets to understand how horrible everything could be. Steven was a pretender and an avoider, but he balanced out Catelyn’s stark reality and emotional distress.
Steven pretended she wasn’t looking at him. “He could be in a new flock.”
His second suggestion was worse. There were only two flocks—the Northern Flock and the Southern Flock—and they weren’t even the original ones. The Western Flock and the Eastern Flock claimed history, one of them by being killed, the other one by disappearing overnight. Other groups couldn’t claim a flock name. They were normally destroyed within the year. But Catelyn didn’t argue Steven’s logic. I did.
“It has to be the Northern Flock,” I said. “Those are the only people Robert hates.” I had seen it in his eyes, the glint of heat that filled his gaze anytime the Northern Flock was brought up. A similar darkness consumed him when Daniel’s name was spoken. That glint—although I wasn’t positive of the origin—was the same light Robert used to ignite his fire. His powers couldn’t exist without it, and his control stemmed from it. That control was why we chose him to be the leader instead of me, and I was satisfied until now. After twelve years, I wanted to know what that glint was. Whatever it was separated us from them. Whatever it was fueled the rumor of how much the two flocks hated one another. Despite the fact that I had never met a bad blood from the Northern Flock myself, we stayed away from one another’s territory like it was an expected thing. We stayed away like it was a survival tactic. But Daniel had saved me.
“Does he know?” Catelyn’s question floated past me, but when I looked up, I understood what she meant by her expression.
I buried my nose against my kneecaps. “He probably does,” I whispered. Daniel had to know I was in a flock just as much as I suspected he was.
“You can’t—” Catelyn started, but I stopped her.
“I won
’t,” I promised, knowing what I had to do.
I couldn’t see Daniel again. Goodbyes or not, I was risking my family, and so was he, and bad bloods couldn’t risk anything right now. He had already troubled himself by saving me—probably out of the hopes of recruiting me—and I had already troubled myself by attempting to save him from Robert. As far as street rules went, we were even, and I had to be finished.
I squeezed my legs as I tried to tell myself it was time for bed, but Steven was the one to speak. “If he’s in the Northern Flock,” he started, “why would he be on the western side? Twice?”
I shook my head like I didn’t know—like it didn’t make sense—because I didn’t want them to know about Calhoun, the man who’d saved Daniel, the very man who’d walked me back and seen our home.
Cal was human, yet Daniel didn’t believe humans helped bad bloods. He was willing to take “bad” out of “bad blood,” but he still didn’t believe Henderson would win. His biological family was obviously dead, a family that had kicked him to the streets for a power as wonderful as healing, but he wanted me to go back to mine when my power stole souls.
Daniel didn’t make sense, but I wouldn’t lose Robert over trying to make sense of it. I had a family. I had a flock. And if I had to say goodbye to anyone, it would be Daniel. All the moments between us could fade beneath the November cold. I wouldn’t even shiver over it.