During the ending hours of the day, Shadow Alley became an echo of scattering people—bad bloods, gang members, the homeless, and cats—but we, somehow, learned to avoid one another as much as we avoided the police. Even though we lived on the streets, we lived under a silent code of honor. We respected one another’s privacy, but I doubted any of us would help one another if Vendona met bloodshed again. We only had the streets in common. Everything else was lost in between the alleyways and the abandoned homes and government-issued fences.
As I looked at Serena, I wanted to doubt we had anything in common, but her words urged me to forget the line I normally drew between strangers and myself. Her gray eyes forced me to forget even more.
Her lips had to form Robert’s name before his face snuck into my suspicions. I knew I was being followed, but I had only seen a girl with dreads. I didn’t even know she was a bad blood until her eyes caught the fluorescent lights of Old Man Gregory’s. Red irises. I would’ve thought she was scouting for a flock if it weren’t for the risk she had taken by entering the store. Most bad bloods approached shyly. She stalked me like prey. I slipped out the janitor’s door to escape her. When I saw the three silhouettes in Shadow Alley, I assumed she was one of them. Serena was the last person I expected, but the fact that two other people were with her made it much, much worse. Her mentioning of Robert concluded it all. She had to be in the Southern Flock, and her leader had people following me.
It had been five years since my eyes had landed on Robert, and before that moment, I had presumed he was dead. Robert was a ghost to me—a person who always had a way of coming back to life at the most inconvenient times. Considering the election’s approach, I should’ve expected his arrival again, but I let his memory slip away every winter. Cal called it a coping mechanism. I called it hate. But I wouldn’t allow hate to blind me. If Robert were watching me, I would watch him right back, and if I had to do it through Serena, then that was what I would do.
My gaze slid down to the ground and over to her black boots. Every time we passed an alleyway, a strain of light flickered across her shoes, and I took note of them. They were made of leather, practical and strong. No buckles to echo or strings to get caught on anything. Just a single zipper up the side. Maggie had a pair just like it, but the toes were worn out. Serena’s must have been at one point, too, because a darker patch peeked out from the side. Someone had fixed it, and someone had fixed it well.
In the Northern Flock, Kally was the repairman. She was only fourteen, but she spent the first ten years of her life helping her carpenter father. Her skills varied from sewing clothes to fixing a leaking sink, and anything she didn’t know, she learned. I couldn’t help but wonder who the Southern Flock had as a repairman. Whoever they were, they were better with shoes than Kally was. The two people I had seen with Serena were possibilities.
The girl had obviously been blooded. She went straight through the fence, but when I thought of them, the boy’s face appeared first. His hazel eyes were too bright, and his cheekbones were set too high—almost as if his facial features had been moved through surgery—but he was much too slow for a powerful blood. He had only attacked for the other girl. He hadn’t even tried to stay behind for Serena, but Serena hadn’t been fazed at all. Whoever she was in the flock, she was higher up than he was and from what I knew, she was more powerful. And quieter. She hadn’t spoken in ten minutes, and I needed information.
“I didn’t mean to hurt your friends,” I said, hoping she would volunteer what I needed to know.
My hope was useless. Always was. She didn’t respond at all, not even a flinch.
“I hope that girl is okay,” I pressed, waiting for anything, even a huff of air. “That must have hurt, going through the fence—”
“That’s my sister,” Serena interrupted as if she were afraid someone else was listening. When the three words left her, she finally looked at me from the corner of her eye. “And her boyfriend.”
“Relax.” I exhaled my own big breath. It fogged out in front of me, and chills went up my spine. It was cold for Vendona. Too cold. “I’m not about to tell on either of you.” I tried to keep my mind off the weather, but my words died out the more I concentrated on not concentrating on it.
The girl I had pushed through the fence was blonde—delicate hair like Serena’s—but her eyes were as navy blue as my bedroom at Calhoun’s apartment. Her face was sharper, too, especially against her cropped hair. It was the scar on her cheek I remembered the most. I could pick Serena’s sister out from Vendona’s main square if I had to, and Serena had to have known that. But my focus was elsewhere.
“You have siblings?” I asked, not sure if I believed her or not. They definitely looked alike.
Her walk slowed down, and for a second, I thought she would stop walking altogether, but her steps never came to a halt and neither did her answers. “I guess so.” When she turned to look at me, I already knew what to expect to hear, but I didn’t want to hear it. “Do you?”
She was searching for information, too, and every second of silence that passed between us condemned me. I was fighting my own shadow.
“I did.” My eyes locked on the fence as I mustered up the words. “Two brothers.”
“Did they—”
“They died.”
Her silence wasn’t expected. I had only told a handful of people about my brothers, and every single one of them had pressed for more information, but Serena didn’t. She didn’t say anything at all, not an apology, not a condolence, not an ounce of fake sympathy or anything. She just listened—and I had to lock my jaw to prevent myself from telling her more.
I had seen death, even more death than the average bad blood, but death was too common to feel victimized over it. I had caused death myself. I didn’t have the right to mourn it at all. One person’s death was another person’s survival. But talking about it promised us all a horrible one. It was called the street curse.
I kept my mouth shut, knowing I would jinx myself if I didn’t, until Serena took a wrong turn. Her torso twisted toward an alleyway, her right arm swaying out from her side, and for a flash, my memory of the day we met filled my vision.
I grabbed her wrist before I knew what I had done.
She whipped around like the same thing had happened to her. The wildness in her eyes returned for a fleeting moment, and my breath caught. Her gray irises filled with a fog—like a morning mist—and I knew the only alive part of her was the wild part. This part was only half-awake.
As she pried my grip off her wrist, slowly at first, her fingers shook. “Why’d you do that?” A curse muttered under her breath. “Are you trying to make me scream?”
My jaw fell open, unlatching itself, and then, it closed again. She watched me as I rubbed my chin, and I dropped all eye contact as I pointed over my shoulder. “Your house is that way.”
“Cal told you the address.” Her voice was emotionless.
He hadn’t told me the address, but she had told me it was in the southern part of town, and she was trying to go east. Even then, I shrugged like Cal had told me everything. “Cal told me lots of things.”
A rumble escaped Serena’s throat as she marched past me, walking the correct way this time. I had to run to keep up with her, and I watched her blonde ponytail like it was a flashlight leading the way. When I got to her side, I fought the urge to grab her hood and pull it over her hair. It was too bright for walking around at night, but she didn’t seem to care.
“The technology,” she started. “It’s real.”
I hadn’t forgotten about the blood testing, but hearing it from Serena myself brought on more emotions than Calhoun telling me did. The blood camp had tested her, and they had almost killed her because of it. The government would do it to us all if they got the chance.
“It’s best if you stay with Cal.” Serena didn’t hesitate to share her opinion, but she didn’t look at me. Her gaze remained locked ahead on nothing in particular. “H
e’ll keep you safe.”
Her idea would’ve been great if I weren’t the leader of the Northern Flock. “That’s not an option,” I said, but she didn’t seem to hear.
“Henderson might win anyway.” She kept talking, but all I heard was her opinion of Alec Henderson, the man fighting for bad bloods’ rights.
“Not if he gets tested.” I practically spat my argument out, desperate for her to hear me again.
Serena stopped walking, and by the time I stood in front of her, she had perfected her snarl. “You think he’s one of us.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“He has to be.” I fought the urge to stick my hands in my pockets. I needed to be able to fight if she attacked, and the anger radiating off her suggested she might. Most bad bloods would if someone spoke against the only man in history to fight for them. I couldn’t blame her. I even had to take a breath. “Humans don’t stand up for us.”
“If you separate yourself now, how do you expect us to be accepted by them?”
Her question came out fast, like her powers revolved around talking quickly, but the starkness of her words struck me. I had taken the “bad” out of “bad blood,” but I had still kept us apart. Serena hadn’t, even though she used the whole phrase.
She blew her bangs out of her face, and her shoulders slumped as she glanced at the sky. “Besides,” she spoke like a child who spoke only to the stars, “I know of two humans who do.”
Even though my blue-and-white plaid jacket was too large for her, she straightened up as if she were in armor. “My parents do,” she explained.
Her confession stabbed me like a knife. “You said you didn’t have parents.”
“Not anymore.” When she hesitated, the powerful fighter she had appeared to be melted against the black backdrop of a dirty alleyway. “They live on the western side of town. That’s where I got caught.” Her rosy cheeks drained of color. I hated to see it happen. It was like a bright afternoon being washed away by a sudden rainstorm.
I had to walk past her to prevent myself from touching her again. “If they stood up for bloods, they wouldn’t have left you on the streets.”
Only wind followed me as I marched toward the southern part of Vendona, but soon, her voice called out, “They didn’t leave me.”
I stopped, and she made her way to my side. It only took her four steps. I hadn’t gotten very far without her.
When she leaned over, she caught my eyes. “I left them.” Her cheeks burned as she said it, but she never dropped eye contact. “They love me. Still do. But I can’t make myself go back.”
Her words didn’t make sense. “You left?” I repeated, positive I had misheard her. “On your own?”
She nodded. “I know it sounds crazy. Trust me. I know.” She half-laughed, the same sound of a last gust of wind sneaking in through a closing window. “But the Western Flock was massacred, and everything was so chaotic—”
As her voice faded away, her back faced the very fence that separated us from the field where the massacre had happened twelve years prior. She seemed too young to remember it herself. Then again, so did I.
When I stared at her face—her thin lips, petite nose, and thick eyebrows—I tried to dissect what she must have looked like as a kid, running away to live on the streets, but all I could see was the grown girl in front of me, a borderline adult. A girl with wild eyes and shaking hands and a voice as still as the cold.
“I was a kid,” she continued, but this time, she fiddled with the buttons on my jacket she had borrowed. Blake did the same thing when he wore it. “I didn’t really know what I was doing—”
“Go home.”
Her lips snapped shut, but her eyes narrowed as she registered my words. “I am.”
“To your parents,” I corrected, not even bothering to hide my rushed tone. If I could convince her to return to her parents before Vendona fell, I could save one bad blood, and it might all be worth it. “Go home, and be safe and happy—”
“I am happy.” Her usually soft features hardened as though she had aged in seconds. “I have a new home.”
“With Robert?” His name tasted horrible in my mouth. It might as well have been poison or vomit from poison—either would’ve been suitable—but her eyes flicked over me like she didn’t mind watching me drown.
“Why does he hate you?”
My muscles tensed, threatening to twist into knots I would never be able to untie on my own. Serena didn’t believe what I told her before. She knew I was aware of Robert, and she had let me walk with her anyway. She let me believe I had tricked her when I hadn’t. Not at all. This time, I was the one questioning who was in front of me, but at least—when she had questioned me in Calhoun’s kitchen—she had a knife. I had nothing.
Serena eyed me, up and down. “I know it was you,” she said slowly, like how I had spoken when I convinced her she didn’t need a weapon. “He followed you to that store.”
My stomach dropped. I had never seen Robert. I had only seen the girl with red eyes. The realization that Robert had been there made my entire body ache. I didn’t even know what Robert would look like now. Five years ago, he was fifteen, a young teenager. His face must have changed by now. He must have grown in height or stature. He could’ve grown a beard or had long hair. Maybe he even walked right past me. Maybe we looked at each other and I hadn’t seen him.
“What did he tell you?” My whisper came out in a growl.
“Not much,” Serena responded like my tone was casual. “He recognized your jacket.”
Robert had been following me for longer than I thought. Cal had given me the jacket two years ago. That very day, I had saved Ron from an officer. It was risky, and the sleeve had two slits in it from where the officer had stabbed me. By the time I had snapped his neck, my injuries had disappeared, but Michele never could get the blood to wash out. I didn’t mind much. It reminded me of Ron. If Robert knew the jacket, he had been watching me—closely—within the past year.
My attention broke as Serena shook the jacket off, revealing the all-black ensemble she wore underneath. With one hand, she pulled her black hood over her hair, and with her free hand, she held my jacket toward me.
I didn’t take it. “Won’t he know you saw me again?”
“Maybe that’s the point.” She winked. Actually winked. “He told me to stay away from you.”
I laughed. “How unoriginal.”
“Why’d he say that?” There was no hint of laughter on her part.
I took my jacket from her and studied the slits on the sleeve, still there, still red on the edges. “We don’t get along.” There was no reason to hide our connection anymore.
“I got that part.” Serena’s lips pushed to the side. “I want to know why.”
The expression was a humorous one. Her cheeks were too round, too rosy in the cold, for me to take her determination seriously. While I couldn’t see it before, I could now see her as a child. It was a shame she had left on her own, but it was a bigger shame that Robert was allowing her to stay on the streets. It must have been for her powers. Her abilities were strong. He wouldn’t want to waste it. He was too selfish to feel otherwise.
I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth. “You’re not going to get what you want from me, Serena.”
Her eyes twitched, but they didn’t budge again after that. The girl had perfected a long, hard stare. “I’m used to that,” she finally said. Even though she barely moved a foot away from me, her black clothes blended with the shadows of the alleyway. She was nearly as invisible as Vi.
“I should go,” she muttered, almost as if she were speaking to the darkness instead of me. “Thanks for walking me this far.”
I didn’t nod.
She nodded at me like I had before turning her back to me. “Bye,” she spoke so that the wind carried her voice to me. It was a gamble, but I had heard her. She must not have thought I did, though, because she spun around and said it again. When I didn’
t respond, she cocked her hip out. “You’re still not going to say it back?”
“I don’t say goodbye unless I think it’s final,” I repeated the very thing I had said to her the first time I left her. This time, she was leaving me, and I wondered if she felt the way I did. I wanted her to stay. I wanted to know more about her. I wanted to know why she ran away, how she met Robert, and if she would run away one more time. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you again, Serena.”
Her bottom lip dropped slightly before she closed her lips, and they formed a half-smile. “Say hi to Cal for me.”
Before I could respond, a cloud of dirty smoke burst out of nowhere. It fogged out, swirling and twisting like a tornado made of power, then it zoomed into itself, and it disappeared. Feathers filled the alleyway.
She was gone, and she had used a power I had never seen before—an ability that I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t witnessed it. My hand landed on the fence to keep myself standing. Serena was powerful. Too powerful. And she wanted me to know exactly who I had freed.