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Dominic kneels beside me, his other tentacle extended toward Jacob’s sprawled form, a bush he must have uprooted clutched in his hands. With a surge of tingling energy, the pain in my lungs recedes.
The second Jacob’s bones have melded back into a regular arm shape, Dominic reaches toward Zian and Sorsha. His mouth tightens, and the shrub in his hands withers even more.
Jacob rolls into a sitting position, swiping at the blood left on his face from the healed cuts. “Fucking hell.” Then his gaze fixes on something across the clearing from us, and his stance goes rigid.
Booker hurries over, his eyes wide. He motions to a girl who looks to be about fifteen, who’s hugging her skinny frame tightly.
The teens hesitate several steps from our cluster. Booker’s gaze darts between us. “We—we can come with you, right? I didn’t want— I don’t know what they think they’re going to do— Those guys scare me.”
From the way he talked to Nadia, I suspect even she scares him right now.
I swallow against the dryness of my throat. “Of course. That’s what we wanted fromallof you.”
My gaze travels around the concrete yard, taking in the corpses of the guardians and Balthazar, the streaks of blood and ash, and the aching absence of all the shadowbloods we meant to save. A wave of despair crashes down on my spirits.
The battle was supposed to be over. We destroyed all our enemies. So why does it feel like we only created more?
I wet my lips, the flavor of cinders filling my mouth. “And now we have to figure out where we go from here.”
Eighteen
Zian
The door for the cell Riva directs me to is locked. But the dim building in the middle of nowhere, northern China, has looked abandoned from the moment we showed up. Griffin confirmed that he couldn’t sense any human emotions inside other than the boy we’re here to save.
So I aim my searing vision at the door without any concern about triggering an alarm. Really, after walking through the silent hallways where the air is almost as still and icy as outside the grim gray walls, I’dwelcomea chance to actually fight.
Riva’s apparently been talking to Ajax since well before we arrived, in her head. He directed us to his cell.
He must be able to see my progress, but he doesn’t risk breaking my concentration until the narrow slab I’ve carved out of the steel door topples out into our waiting hands. The light catches on his dark brown face amid the thicker darkness beyond, and his voice slips into my mind without any movement of his lips.
You made it. Thank you.
Even his inner voice sounds exhausted. Bags have formed under his eyes.
As Riva extends her hand to help him ease his slim form through the opening, Andreas peers in over the boy’s head. “They didn’t even leave you any food?”
Ajax shrugs and opens his mouth. I guess it’s been a long time since he spoke the regular way, because his regular voice comes out all creaky. “I don’t think they saw much point. Balthazar never got much use out of me anyway. I ate yesterday.”
“That’s not enough,” Dominic says with a strained note, and beckons Ajax over. “Here, let me give you a quick energy boost—and I’ve got some protein bars. There are a bunch of snacks on the jet once we get there.”
While we tramp back through the dreary halls, the fourteen-year-old chomps through three protein bars and uses his telepathy to give all of us the account he already passed on to Riva.Balthazar only had a couple of staff people here. They found out he died last night. Right away, they took off. They might have forgotten I was even here. Balthazar came to round up the shadowbloods he actually wanted to use the day before.
Jacob scowls, his hands flexing like he’d welcome a fight or two himself. “That’s no excuse. That fucking psychopath. And the other shadowbloods talking like—like—”
He cuts himself off with a growl of indignation. I can’t tell whether he stopped there because he can’t bear to put the praise we heard from the shadowbloods in the forest into words… or because he’s worriedAjaxwon’t be able to bear it.
But if the kid’s been able to tap into the minds of everyone in the building with him, if he’s noticed his fellow shadowbloods getting unhinged, then I’m pretty sure he’ll have picked up on their shifting attitudes toward their captor too.
We pass a gymnasium obviously used for training and a few other rooms that jolt me back to images from our time in the guardians’ facilities. Balthazar didn’t leave the basics behind when he abandoned the Guardianship.
At one smaller room where a desk is visible, Riva pauses. She waves the rest of us onward. “Get Ajax to the helicopter so he can rest. I want to take a quick look in here.”
Griffin dips his head. “I’ll help him relax.”
Though the whole building has been nothing but empty gloom other than Ajax’s cell, I hang back automatically. I’m not leaving Riva alone, not on our greatest enemy’s turf.
Even if just yesterday I pummeled that enemy’s head into a pulp.
