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I’m not super keen on having Booker here either. His aura-sight hasn’t developed into any kind of talent useful for self-defense. But he and the other two shadowblood kids we rescued insisted on coming along.
They know the rogue shadowbloods better than we do—a lot better, in the case of the other kids. After some arguing, Rollick put his foot down and pointed out that we should give them the same kind of choices we wanted for ourselves.
I still don’t like it.
One of the kids has ended up playing a crucial role in the ambush. As I shift restlessly on my feet, a quiet voice forms inside my head.
Griffin says the nearest ones are just a minute or two away,Ajax says.We should put our earplugs in now.
Once we’ve sealed our ears, he’ll be the one passing on all communications between us using his telepathic talent. If any of us needs to say anything, we’ll think it at him first, and he’ll relay the message on.
I know he’s said the same thing to Booker, because the teen next to me reaches to his pocket for his plugs. His face looks yellowed in the dim light, and I don’t think it’s only because of the jaundiced security lamps.
His girlfriend is on her way, and he can’t be any more sure than I can that we’ll save her this time. Or that she won’t do something horrifying while we attempt to.
As I pull out my own earplugs, distant, raucous laughter reaches my ears from somewhere behind me. I freeze, tracking the sound as it filters through the walls.
One risk of an ambush on a college campus: drunken partiers roaming around.
One of the patrolling shadowkind must redirect the wanderers. The sound fades away. I take a few slow, steadying breaths and shove the plugs into my ears.
The industrial-strength brand we found is incredibly effective, but they don’t give me total silence. Shutting out all external sound only heightens my awareness of what’s going on inside me.
My breaths woosh in and out. The thud of my pulse quickens.
I curl my fingers around the device we picked up following Toni’s specifications. With one jab of a button, it’ll flood the street with a piercing wail that should shatter the focus of anyone who can hear it.
We got three of the devices, just in case one fails or one of us is attacked before we can activate it. Sorsha holds hers where she’s waiting as backup by an unfinished window on the third floor of another partly-constructed townhouse. Crag the gargoyle carries a third where he’ll be perched on one of the nearby rooftops.
Backups upon backups. We can’t let this confrontation go wrong.
I move to the doorway where we’ve left the door ajar and scan the street through the gap. Maybe I’d be able to make out approaching motors by now if I could hear any sound outside my body.
It should be an increasingly urgent approach as the rogues chase the illusion of monster hunters. Andreas watched all the video footage he could find of the vigilante groups so that he could project accurate images from those memories into the rampaging shadowbloods’ minds.
If it all worked out, they’ll have caught glimpses of their prey ducking out of view up ahead here and there, leading them on toward this construction zone. Confirming the story that the hunters thought the site was ideal grounds for an extermination.
Ajax’s voice peals into my head again, sounding louder amid the outer silence.We can see the first of them now. They’re just coming into the cul-de-sac. There’s a minivan… A big pickup truck with a bunch of them sitting in the cargo area… A little delivery truck it looks like they stole from a flower shop.
As he rattles off that list, the first of the vehicles creeps into view. The black minivan looks like a shadow itself on the darkened street.
It rolls to a halt by the curb only a couple of buildings into the dead-end area. Of course, the rogue shadowbloods still think they’re hunting the hunters. They’ll need to be on foot for their main attack.
Which also works in our favor. We don’t want them close enough to their vehicles to make a run for it like last time.
Of course, it won’t be long before they can’t get anywhere on those wheels anyway. As soon as they’ve left the vehicles behind, Jacob will be applying his ability to the engines, snapping and cracking vital components so the motors won’t run.
I suspect he’s looking forward to breaking a few things, even if none of them will be skulls.
The figures gather around the vehicles before prowling forward as one large mass. I make out facial features here and there as they pass the pools of lamp-glow.
It looks like the criminal shadowbloods are still using the kids as a sort of shield. Nadia, Devon, and Tegan walk on the edges of the group alongside other teens and preteens.
I catch sight of the skull-and-snake tattoo emblazoned on the scalp of the group’s apparent leader, who we now know is named Cutler. The hazy light glances off the scarred brow of the man Griffin spoke to briefly, who he said another of the shadowbloods called Omar.
There’s a lamppost with neon orange caution tape wrapped around its middle, about two thirds of the way down the cul-de-sac. That’s our tipping point—when the last of the shadowbloods is past it, we launch our attack.
Most of them are staring into the shadows at the dead end of the street. They pick up their pace, maybe seeing another projected memory that suggests the hunters are in the buildings down there.
