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Dom grabs his light jacket and shrugs it on over his tentacles. “Just have to wait until I can tuck these things totally away.”
The lumps still show through the fabric, but less prominently than they used to. Over the past several months, Dominic has discovered that he can retract the extra appendages back into his body, like I can with my claws, Jacob with his spines, or Zian with his wolf-man features.
It’s been a gradual process, requiring a lot of concentration to pull them in even an inch. But once he’s managed that, he can extend them again when he needs to and return them to their shorter length without a problem. At this point, their baseline is a few inches above his waist, easily concealed without him even needing to coil them around.
Jacob emerges from the bathroom, raking his fingers through his damp hair to slick it back in his usual style. Andreas types out a couple more sentences and then shuts his computer and stands up to join us. Zian jogs over from his workshop, and we all head out together.
Ever since we got the apartment in San Francisco—with the help of Rollick’s real estate expertise and Toni’s contributions from her former boss’s bank accounts—we’ve been jetting back and forth between the city and the “shadow academy” the demon has set up in remote New Mexico. We spend one week living our increasingly regular lives, and then one both guiding the younger shadowbloods and being guided ourselves in all the areas of human existence we haven’t had much direct experience with.
Rollick’s only on hand at the school during about a third of our visits, but Pearl comes bounding out to meet us as soon as the car that brought us from the airfield drops us off. I think the succubus is the academy’s most enthusiastic teacherandstudent.
“Hey!” she says, slinging her arm around me. “Nadia just got back from her other school. She’s got big news.”
“Where’s everyone hanging out?” Andreas asks as we head toward the big adobe building with its smoothly curved edges.
“I think most of the shadowbloods are in the central courtyard.” Pearl backs up with a little wave. “I’ll let Toni know you’re here!”
All of the younger shadowbloods and the two former inmates are still living at the school. But when we pass through the cool halls to the courtyard of clay tiles and fragrant bushes in the middle of the building, we find the kids clustered across the picnic style tables and a few even sprawled on the ground, looking like happy, everyday teens.
Omar is sitting out there too. As a few of the others scramble up to offer hugs of greeting, he tips his head to us in acknowledgment. He’s got a textbook propped open on the table in front of him—for one of the courses he’s taking online, presumably. He’s been dabbling in a lot of different subjects while he gets his bearings.
Ajax shoots me a smile from where he’s sitting with Devon and Keith. His inner voice travels into my head.Everyone’s a little restless. It was too hot to spend much time outside the past few days.
An idea begins to form in my mind.I’ll see what I can do about that.
Andreas immediately gets roped into settling a disagreement between two of the older teens about how exactly one of them got a stain on the other’s favorite shirt, which he should be able to determine by reading their memories. Zian gathers a couple of the more athletic kids to come with him to the gym for a workout, and Jacob ambles after them.
I meander over to where Nadia’s sitting with a couple of the younger girls. She’s grown her pixie cut out to almost shoulder length, but her love of bright colors hasn’t changed. Today she’s got on a vibrant red blouse and jeans with matching patches.
She gets up to meet me before I’ve quite reached her, her smile just the slightest bit tight. My stomach knots with automatic worry.
I give her shoulder an affectionate squeeze. As we drift over to a quieter corner, I study Nadia’s expression. “Pearl said you have news.”
The succubus had made it sound likegoodnews, but it’s hard to know how well to trust her judgment. She’s still getting the hang of human norms.
“Yeah.” Nadia twists her hands together in front of her. “I—there’s a boy at the other school—he’sreallycute, and nice and funny… He asked me to go out on a date with him!”
Her voice hitches with excitement on those last words, and my worries subside. She’s not upset, just nervous.
And I’ve got to say, it’s good to know she can make that kind of connection again, even if she doesn’t know she’s had it before.
I grin back at her. “That’s awesome! Where are you going?”
“We haven’t figured that out yet. I…” Nadia bites her lip and looks at the ground before meeting my eyes again. “Are you sure Ishouldgo?”
I cock my head. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“I just…” She sighs. “I mean, I’m not like him. I’ve got powers he’d think are crazy. How could I ever tell him about that, or this?” She swings her arm to encompass the entire school.
That is a problem we haven’t really needed to deal with yet. After they got settled into regular life and we were sure they had control over their talents, Nadia and a few of the older teens wanted to try out a typical high school. We arranged for them to attend the nearest one, about an hour’s drive away, for the second half of what we’re saying is their senior year. But they’ve avoided revealing much about their life outside of school.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “But I think that’s something you’d have to take as it comes. Maybe it would be okay once you get to know him better, if it seems like he wouldn’t freak out. And if he’s the kind of person who would freak out, then you’ll figure that out and stop hanging out with him. But you can give it a shot.”
As soon as the shadowblood rampage stopped, the groups of vigilante monster hunters and the military patrols some countries had started up quickly dissolved. The official story now is that the destruction was caused by a terrorist group that must have imploded internally.
Like Rollick said once, humans have a large capacity for explaining away anything they have trouble accepting is real. But we’re still being very cautious about using our abilities anywhere someone not in the know might see them.
Nadia lowers her gaze again. “You don’t think it might be dangerous? Forhim? I know I haven’t hurt anyone again, but everyone always says it’s harder if you’re feeling more emotional.”
