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Riva
Idon’t realize that I seem to have forgotten how to blink until a burn spreads across my eyes. I shake myself, but my gaze veers right back to the computer screen.
I’d thought watching the destruction Balthazar orchestrated was awful. Somehow the scenes playing before us now are even worse.
We started with the official news broadcasts on the TV. Like with Balthazar, those images showed only the aftermath of the attacks.
The footage veered across a squad of soldiers reduced to a jumble of bodies, silver-and-iron helmets streaked burgundy with dried blood. More corpses, wearing civilian clothes, sprawled in a haphazard ring with weapons intended for shadowkind—crossbows with iron bolts, blades formed out of silver—jabbed into their bodies at odd angles like some kind of horrific modern art installation.
It was after the third scene like the latter when Sorsha made a rough sound where she’d been scrolling through less-formal news sources on the laptop at a nearby table. All of us—Firsts, our few rescued younger shadowbloods, Rollick, Billy, and a dozen materialized shadowkind with who knew how many more peering from the shadows—turned toward that.
As the first shaky video recording from the cellphone of a nervous witness played across the screen, I found myself flanked by Andreas on one side and Griffin on the other. Jacob’s outrage vibrated from his rigid frame where he’d positioned himself behind me.
Drey’s arm is still tucked around mine, Griffin’s hand on the small of my back. Maybe to steady me; maybe just to remind me that they’re here with me.
But it’s not me I’m worried about.
The cellphone footage might be crude, but it shows the story of the attacks well enough. We can hear the panic in the rasped breaths as one near-victim huddles in the hasty shelter they found, their chest hitching as the shadowbloods who’ve descended on the amateur militia snap bones and stomp flesh. We watch the video tremble with another’s muffled sobs.
There’s no mistaking who the attackers are. They appear to have started their attacks yesterday in what was the early evening in the United States—past midnight for us here in Spain. But even as the dusk darkened into night for the later assaults, the glow of security lamps or fallen flashlights catch off the faces.
I catch glimpses of the thug with the skull-and-snake tattoo, the one with the scarred brow, and a couple of the others who formed Balthazar’s human shield. I spot Tegan’s pale face, and other kids whose names I never learned.
Then Nadia’s statuesque frame rushes by, flares of searing light yellowing her brown skin. Devon’s teeth flash somewhere off to the side as he lets out a vengeful cry.
We don’t even need to ask why they’re doing it. The criminal shadowbloods bellow their accusations between bursts of violence.
“You thought you could destroy the monsters, huh? You never met monsters like us.”
“You wanted this fight—now you’re getting it.”
“This fucking country belongs to us as much as it does to you!”
“I’m done with getting shot at.”
A few steps away from me, Zian shakes his head in hopeless confusion. “But… all those people were huntingshadowkind, not shadowbloods. And Balthazar told them to do it!”
Dominic’s mouth has flattened into a stiff line. “Who knows what he told the shadowbloods to encourage them to launch the first attacks? And technically those squadsdidwant to kill the shadowbloods—they wanted to destroy the ‘monsters’ that bashed up their cities.”
An ache has clogged my throat. My voice rasps before I can force any of it out. “If the shadowbloods had just stayed hidden for a while—if there hadn’t been any more attacks with Balthazar gone, the hostility would have died down. Everyone would have dismissed the idea of monsters again.”
Rollick is leaning against the back of the sofa in a typically disaffected pose, but his tone holds none of its usual nonchalance. “I don’t think your counterparts wanted the violence to die down. They’re reveling in the excuse to deal out punishment.”
I swallow hard, the images of the younger shadowbloods flashing through my mind. The hatred and the fury showing in every expression, every motion…
I know how much anger a person can bottle after a life full of imprisonment and torture. I remember how easy it was for me to extend that anger beyond my immediate captors to all the regular people who turned a blind eye to Balthazar’s machinations, to the spectators who came to watch me forced into cage fights.
We’ve been treated like monsters since we were born. Like slaves only worthy of fighting other monsters. We haven’t been taught to do a whole lototherthan fight.
When we were on Clancy’s island, I tried to give the kids visions of a different future to reach for. A dream of freedom and peace. But I failed to get us there, over and over.
Then Balthazar swept in and fueled their rage. Enhanced their abilities so they could fight and win against anyone. Didn’t give a shit when his gift frayed their tempers and messed with their sense of reality.
He lit a different flame of hope for them, yes—a hope that they could conquer anyone who’d ever want to hurt them. And now that fire is burning out of control.
As queasy as it makes me to see the results, I can’t claim I’d have been immune. There was a time in the villa when I felt so helpless and enraged that even my guys were scared of me.
Ididslaughter an entire audience of cage-fight fans, most of whom had never done anything at all to me other than show up to watch that night’s battle.
