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Maybe because I’ve already taken in so much all at once, it’s easier than I expected to detach. As the sparking kid’s knees buckle in a faint, I flick my tentacle free.
Omar sags next, stumbling into the wall and then sliding down it. He jerks his arm against my hold a few times, conjured spurts of ice nipping at my skin, but he’s already so weakened between the drug and the energy I’ve stolen that he doesn’t come close to dislodging me.
I can taste his pulse growing sluggish. I whip the tentacle that gripped him away and whirl toward the spot where a few more of the rogues are still on their feet.
With one last tug at the pulsing thrum inside them, two of them crumple. The last, the remaining man, lunges at me and nearly trips over his feet in his dizziness.
“You,” he snarls out at whatever he can make out of me in the haze. I curl the tip of one tentacle toward his face to drain just a tiny bit more, and then he’s tumbling over on his ass.
I can make out Drey and Griffin vaguely, human-shaped gaps of what looks like empty air in the midst of the clouds. Drey bends over Devon, a hand against the boy’s forehead, performing either his first or his second memory wipe depending on how quickly he’s been able to work.
Griffin has remained in his corner near the cardboard boxes. His voice comes out muffled by his gas mask. “Do the adults next. Once the drug started taking effect, I could calm down the kids a little, but those two stayed pretty angry.”
Andreas nods, sending the haze rippling around the space where his head moved. “Are they all down?”
“I got the ones who resisted the gas,” I say. “I don’t know how long they’ll stay unconscious, but I can drain them a little more if I need to.”
My skin is humming, my pulse twitching with the immense stores of energy I’ve taken into myself. I have the bizarre impression that if I pushed off the floor, I could glide right to the ceiling and float there.
But that’s okay. I only took the energy I had to, nothing more.
I made it possible for us to offer some of the shadowbloods driven out of control by Balthazar’s treatment a fresh start.
Which is a lot better than the murders Riva and Sorsha are having to carry out in the room next to ours.
That thought brings me back to earth with a flip of my stomach. Even if the rogues have gone off the rails, even if it’s clear there’s nothing else we can do for some of them—nothing that would save the peopletheywere intent on murdering… we shouldn’t forget them.
They didn’t deserve to end up this way. It wasn’t really their choice.
All we can do is set things as right as we can. Maybe there was never going to be any perfect solution, even if we’d destroyed Balthazar before he could start building his private shadowblood army.
A faint sense of soothing wraps around me, and my gaze darts toward Griffin’s form in the haze. He must be picking up on my conflicted feelings. But the offered calm doesn’t come across as an imposition, only an offer of sympathy and reassurance, as if he’s squeezed my shoulder or offered me a quick hug.
But the building itself isn’t feeling particularly settled. Even as my chest loosens a bit, the floor shudders beneath my feet.
All of our heads jerk toward the door. I can sense Riva’s presence in the gymnasium behind it—I know she’s still inside that vast room, moving around.
What the hell is going on over there?
We can’t let ourselves get distracted. We have to focus on getting our part of this mission done.
Andreas moves from Devon to the man I toppled last. As he leans over the former inmate, the man jerks upright, aiming a wobbly but swift fist at Drey’s invisible head.
Shit! I leap forward, my mind scrambling—he must have only pretended to completely faint.
As Drey reels backward through the clouds of gas, I wrench both of my tentacles forward and catch hold of the man’s life force across the short distance. With a yank, I drain a gulp of his energy straight from his spirit.
The man mumbles a swear word, but he’s already slumping. My nerves jitter with the urge to drain even more. To add to the heady power coursing through me.
No. That’s not what I’m here for.
But I am going to siphon off just alittlemore, until his pulse is clearly sluggish. I don’t want to take any chances after he’s already fooled us once.
Andreas lets out a rough chuckle. “Thanks, Dom. Fuck, he almost broke my mask.”
His invisible form pushes through the gas to lean over the newly unconscious man. As he reaches for the guy’s forehead, a tremor passes through the haze around him.
My pulse hiccups. “Are you sure you’re okay, Drey?”
