Bad Bloods (14 page)

My eyes flicked away from the hallway to Cal.
I was right. He was staring at me. My hands curled even further.
“What happened between them?”

“You already know, Serena,” he answered
quickly as if he’d expected it from the moment we’d entered his
stuffy apartment. “You just don’t want to see it.” His dark eyes
were heavy. “Why you don’t want to see it is what I’m trying to
figure out.”

My mind didn’t race. My heart didn’t pound. I
didn’t react at all. The truth in his words mimicked the feeling in
my gut. I did know.

I opened my mouth, ready to speak, but the
sound of the shower turned off. I closed my mouth, listening, and I
knew Daniel was out. I stood up. This conversation wasn’t for
Calhoun and I; it was meant for Daniel.

As if Cal sensed it, he didn’t stop me or
speak to me as I left the room and headed down the hallway. I
remembered where Daniel’s room was. It was hard not to. Cal’s
apartment had very few rooms, and Daniel’s was one of two at the
end of the straightaway.

The door was already cracked open, but I
knocked before I pushed it the full way open. “Daniel?”

My eyes landed on him, and I almost stumbled
back into the hallway. It was the way his shoulders twitched that
stopped me from leaving at all. He sat on the edge of his
bed—shirtless—with his left hand grasping the red flesh of his
scarred right shoulder. His coarse breathing hitched in his throat
every time his shoulder shook. He looked like a dying animal in
pain. The wheezing made him sound like one too.

I slid inside his room, closing the door
quietly behind me. I’d seen enough death to know one thing. You
never approach a dying animal. But bad bloods weren’t animals—even
if the government wanted to say we were—and Daniel wasn’t dying. He
was just in pain. A lot of pain. And there was a way to approach
that. Cautiously and with care.

I barely took a breath as I sat next to him,
the bed creaking as the mattress bent under my weight. When I
lifted my hand, he twitched, still struggling to breathe, and I
froze, leaving my hand in his vision so he could see. I slowly
dropped it on his thigh, and he shook his head. Water dripped off
his wet hair and landed on his sweatpants. I would’ve thought he
was crying if it weren’t for his eyes being closed.

“You okay?” I whispered, careful not to move
too much. I recognized his pain as my own. It was psychological.
Something that came back from the past to haunt him—and tonight had
triggered it. My one condition was at fault.

The hand grasping his shoulder fell into his
lap, and his breathing slowed. His eyes even cracked open. “I’m—”
he sighed, moving his hand over to my thigh. “I’m better.” The
silence between us was as thick as the steam coming into the
bedroom from the bathroom. The mist curled against the ceiling, and
I focused on it, wondering what to say when Daniel cleared his
throat. “Do you—you’ve seen it already.”

It started as a question and turned into
something else. I faced him only to realize he had turned his torso
so I could see it—really see it. The scar. It was huge, stretching
from his collarbone to his chest. The bumpy patch of skin looked
like an explosion. His shoulder must have nearly been torn off. How
it healed at all was beyond me.

My breath caught in my throat.

He reached up and his thumb moved across my
cheek. “It’s not what you think—” he started, but I
interrupted.

“It was Robert, wasn’t it?”

His lips snapped shut, and his green eyes
went cold.

“I’ve seen him do it to people. Blow them
up,” I rambled, forcing out my memories at the same time. The
family we killed. The fellow homeless we killed. The police
officers we killed. The animals we killed. I’d lost count a long
time ago. And yet, Robert’s powers were one of the only ones I
never used. I’d seen the damage it could do. And now I was seeing
it on Daniel. “He got your shoulder, didn’t he?”

“Serena—”

“That’s why you hate him, isn’t it?” I asked,
unable to stop. No matter how many scenarios I ran through my head,
I could not—for the little life of me I had left—picture Robert
hurting Daniel. “He must have been a kid. He hasn’t done it in
years. Not to a person anyway. He’s a good person now—”

“Serena, stop.” Daniel’s words came out in a
whisper, but I heard him. I heard him more than I ever heard him
before. His tone chipped away at my heart. I didn’t want to hear
what he’d say.

As his green eyes searched my face, all I
could see was the knowledge I wanted but didn’t have the strength
to take. His fingers drifted down my leg to my knee, and he pulled
my legs up on the bed so we were both fully facing one another. His
hands were on my knees. His forehead was practically pressed
against mine, and I couldn’t breathe. I could never breathe
again.

“It wasn’t Robert,” he said.

I didn’t understand.

“Then—but—then—” I couldn’t even find the
question in my heart. “Wh-Why do you hate him so much?”

“I don’t hate him.” He stumbled over his
words trying to convince himself that they were the truth. His sigh
said he was about to give me the real, honest answer. “Sometimes
broken things can’t be repaired.” He touched his shoulder again as
if to point out how it’d never heal. Even the master healer had
injuries, dents, imperfections, scars. A past. But those reminded
us of reality. Broken things may not be repaired, but Robert and
Daniel weren’t things. They were people.

“I don’t understand,” I admitted.

“I don’t want you to,” Daniel said, raising
his head to look at me. “But I need to ask you something.”

My heart lunged in my throat. “Yes?”

“Five years ago,” he paused, briefly glancing
at his desk where all of his photos aligned. I wondered which one
he was looking at. Blake? Adam? The group of kids? Cal and him and
his horrible injury? “Five years ago, you were sick.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to remember if I had
told him that or not.

“And Robert. He left. And when he came back,
he was hurt.”

I definitely didn’t tell him that.

“Right?” he pressed.

I scooted away. “How’d you know—?”

“I’m the one who hurt him.”

I stared. It was the only thing I could do. I
stared and stared and stared, and Daniel finally stared back. I
searched his face, trying to imagine what Daniel must have looked
like when he was thirteen. I knew what Robert looked like at
fifteen. He was thin back then, but he obsessed over becoming more
physically fit after that time. I knew why now. Daniel had beaten
him. Those bruises. That limp. Robert’s blood. It was all from
Daniel’s hands.

“He didn’t do this,” Daniel continued,
reaching up to touch his shoulder. “But you should know what I did
to him.”

I swallowed, trying to understand why Robert
never told me. I would’ve stayed away then. All Robert would’ve had
to do was tell me Daniel caused it and I would’ve stayed home. But
Robert didn’t do that. Robert let me see him.

Daniel nudged me with his fingertips, like he
were afraid to touch me. “Serena?”

I blinked. “Why’d you do it?”

“I had to,” he said, but then he went quiet.
“No,” he choked. “I wanted to,” he paused, “and I still don’t
regret it.”

With every beat of my heart, a memory pounded
in my head. The fever. The sickness. The coughing. Niki wanting to
put me out of my misery. Robert leaving, Catelyn at my side, Robert
returning in pain. He went to Daniel to heal me. But even I knew
Daniel didn’t heal sickness. How did Robert not know that? Even
then, what would cause Daniel to beat Robert over a question? Every
time I got an answer, I had more questions, and I had one main
one—one about how Daniel didn’t regret hurting Robert. Not at
all.

“If you don’t hate him, then how do you
feel?” I asked, wondering what else could possibly fill in for such
violence.

Daniel’s expression became unreadable. “I
don’t feel anything toward him.” His tone was neutral too. “I try
not to anyway,” he added, monotone. “Or I’d kill him.”

Wasn’t that hate? I wanted to ask him, but
Daniel squeezed my knee. “I need to know,” he started, already
shaking his head as he tried to form the words. “How do you feel
about him?”

I looked at Daniel. Really looked at him. His
cheeks were red, and he let go of me just to rake his fingers
through his hair. When he looked back at me, his green eyes moved
back and forth so rapidly it was as if he were desperate not to
miss anything in my expression.

“You think,” I paused, pointing at myself.
“You think I
like
him?”

He threw his hands into the air. “I don’t
know what to think.” His calm voice didn’t match his movements.
“That’s why I’m asking you.”

“I—uh—” I fumbled over my memories. “There
was a time. When I younger. I thought I liked him.” It was right
after Steven arrived, and Catelyn had begun to hang out with him
more often than with me. “But I was just thirteen and lonely.
Nothing happened. Robert doesn’t even know.”

Daniel nodded, moving his head to the side to
hide his frown, but it didn’t work. Why he was frowning was beyond
me.

“He’s like a brother to me,” I added, hoping
that would help, but Daniel went rigid. Maybe that was too much
love. “Really, nothing romantic,” I promised.

“Serena.” Something about his tone told me to
stop. “I think we both need rest.”

I nodded automatically and stood to leave,
but Daniel grabbed my hand before I could move away. I turned
around, but he only stared up at me, his green eyes overshadowed by
his wet, darkened hair. His grip tightened.

“Daniel?”

“You can stay here if you want,” he said, so
quick and quiet I almost missed it.

I couldn’t fight a smile as I sat back down.
Without another word, he scooted to the left side of his blue bed
and yanked the covers back. I got under before he did, but he
turned off the light and met me in the middle, wrapping his arms
around me like he’d never let go. He was warm, like the sun I was
barely allowed to go out in, and he smelled like the sea in Eastern
Vendona—all fresh and clean.

“Have you ever seen the ocean?” I asked
against his sternum, and he nodded once, taking the time to kiss me
on the forehead. “We should see it together when I come back.”

He didn’t nod again, but when I peeked up, he
was already asleep—so fast he was almost like a child—and his face
lost a few years. He looked younger. Relaxed. And I wondered if I’d
actually see the expression on his face while he was awake. I
doubted it. I doubted a lot. But I didn’t doubt one thing. I wished
I could heal him. I wished I could know about Robert. I wished I
could save them and stay with them at the same time. I wished I
didn’t have to leave them to help them, but I was at a loss. I was
a person full of wishes but without a star. And the sky and the
moon and the ocean and all of Vendona knew it. In the morning, I
would leave, I would be alone, and none of us would be free. Not
yet and maybe never.

I woke
up early and borrowed money from Cal to do the one last thing I
needed—and wanted—to do. When I returned, the sun was up and Serena
was seated at the island, shoveling eggs and toast into her mouth.
She didn’t even blush from me catching her in the food act. She
grinned like she was proud.

“Cal is an awesome cook,” she said, and Cal
beamed, waving his spatula through the air.

“Now why don’t you ever praise me like that?”
he asked me as he used his spatula to push another full plate
toward me.

“I tell you that all the time,” I said as I
grabbed my plate and sat next to Serena. I left my jacket on.
Overnight, the cold had returned, fiercer than before. It got to my
bones. Cal placed a coffee on the counter as if he sensed I needed
warming up, and then he set a diet soda in front of me as if he
could sense I needed more energy too.

I grabbed the soda first and took a swig.

“When will they be here?” Serena asked.

I almost choked.

The Hendersons. They were coming today. Alec
Henderson would be right in front of me, and Serena would leave
with him. The one other thing he asked me for was in my right
pocket. The only thing I wanted to give away was in my left pocket.
I had to grip the soda with both hands to prevent myself from
checking my pockets to see if the objects were still there.

“Any minute,” Cal answered calmly, like we’d
exchanged identities with politicians a hundred times before.

We were committing a council offence—a crime
punishable by death—and that wasn’t even the only one. Protecting a
bad blood was one too. And I had to stop there. I was sure we were
all committing more than one, and we couldn’t stop ourselves
now.

Someone knocked on the door.

Serena and I met eyes. Her gray ones. My
green ones. I grabbed her hand, or she grabbed mine, but we both
squeezed.