Bad Bloods (27 page)

My feet pounded against the gravel, weaving
in and out of the tightly packed houses until I met slick grass. We
stumbled onto the hill, and I continued to stumble my way up it.
When I accidentally dropped Tessa, she let out a squeal, but I
dragged her back to her feet, not caring which wrist was hurt. It
wouldn’t matter if we were dead. We had to run. She didn’t cry
again, not even when we reached the top and saw Adam and the
others.

Floyd stood next to Justan, both relatively
unharmed, but they were covered in soot. Adam’s nose was bleeding,
and he had a boy thrown over his shoulder. Huey.

“Is he—?”

“Alive,” Adam confirmed. “For now.”

I leaned over to skim his injuries. His
forehead was cracked open, his eyes swollen shut. I’d seen him with
Kally last. Now she was nowhere in sight.

I started to turn around to search the
darkness, but Adam stopped me with his free hand. “Don’t.”

This time, I didn’t listen. I looked and I
saw. My home was burning to the ground, an orange glare against the
purple one of the Highlands, a mixture of ash against cloudy
starlight. My eyes burned with it. I told myself it was from the
smoke and poison.

“Who else survived?” I asked, monotone.

“We need to get to Cal’s,” Adam said, half
ignoring my question. Any survivors would meet us there. That had
always been the plan. For now, it was just us: Adam, Floyd, Justan,
Huey, Tessa, and me. A flock of twenty-four dwindled down to six.
“We need to go now,” Adam emphasized as sirens filled the air. This
ambush would officially be publicized.

I leaned down to pick up Tessa, but Floyd
blocked me. “You can’t be serious,” he growled, jutting his finger
toward the never-ending disaster. “You can’t leave everyone in
there.”

“There’s no one left,” I said, but Floyd was
already marching backward, down the hill and toward the house.

“I’ll show you,” he screamed. “I’ll show you
I’m a better leader—”

“If you go, you’ll die,” I said, but he
turned around and ran like my words didn’t matter.

I watched him, knowing it was probably the
last time I’d see Floyd alive, and considered our numbers changed.
We were down to five.

“Want me to stop him?” Adam asked.

“Could you do it without dying yourself?”

Adam didn’t respond, but Tessa did. “What
about the others?”

I looked down at her blood-crusted braids.
Little bells were attached to the ends, like Niki’s dreads, and I
wondered how the girl with sensitive hearing hadn’t heard the
officer’s approaching, how Michele hadn’t seen them in time, how
none of us suspected anything. The election speeches. They had
distracted us. They had blinded us. And the officers knew it.

How long had they planned this?

It had to be before Robert left, before
Robert disappeared, before—

“Daniel.” Tessa jostled my blue-and-white
jacket, her voice shaking as much as the clothes. “What about the
others?”

“They’re waiting at Cal’s,” I said, hoping it
was true, but my tone wasn’t convincing, even to me.

Tessa released her desperate grip only to
wrap her arms around herself. She shivered, and her bells rang out
with the gale. “What about Blake?”

A gunshot went off in the distance, and my
bad blood ran through my veins as cold as the November wind. An icy
wetness hit my cheek, and when I looked up at the sky, hundreds
came pouring down.

For the first time in twelve years, snow was
falling in Vendona.

“Stephanie! Stephanie, over here.”

Jane shouted my name, and I found her in a
grove of sweet-smelling trees and rose bushes. Her blonde hair
cascaded to her shoulders, and the little girl that passed me
looked the same.

“Jane!” She even had a sweet voice, but
everything about their embrace caused me to step back into the
shade, into the shadows where I belonged. I was not Stephanie; I
was Serena.

“Jane?” I tried to catch the woman’s
attention, but the girl found me instead. Her blue eyes were muddy,
like water in a lake, and her smile was unnaturally large for her
face.

She pulled on Jane’s skirt. “Who’s that?”

Jane glanced up, but never discovered me.
“Who?”

“That girl.”

“Jane,” I said, this time stepping out, but
the woman laughed at Stephanie.

“You’re being silly,” she said, pulling a
small orb out of her purse. “Look what I got you.”

Stephanie beamed, forgetting I existed. “For
me?”

Jane nodded, leaned over, and twisted it. A
hologram of her appeared, singing a light tune. Stephanie hummed it
back. I’d heard it before. “Can I record something?”

Jane touched Stephanie’s blonde hair. “That’s
what it’s for.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Stephanie leaned up, kissed
her mother on the cheek, and ran toward me. I stumbled back,
thinking she’d go through me—through this dream I was having and
couldn’t escape—but Stephanie stopped right at my feet, a near
replica of a younger me.

“It’s in my desk,” she said, somehow sounding
different, strained and wavering. “It’s in the back.” Her eyes
flicked past me. “Tell her, Michele. Tell her where it is.”

I spun around, and sure enough, Snow Angel
was there—but she was young, as young as Stephanie, and I
remembered how Daniel had met her as a child.

Michele smiled like she did now, small but
warm, and her yellow eyes dissipated to gray as soon as she
appeared. “Who are you?”

I stepped back. “What?”

“Stephanie.” Michele stood on her tiptoes and
reached for my face. As she stretched, she grew up into her older
self. “That’s why you looked so familiar this whole time.” There
was blood on her face. “She found you too.” When she touched my
cheek, I turned to ice, and she screamed.

***

I woke up, gasping for air, and panicked when
my breath fogged out in front me. I clawed at myself, wondering if
I had actually turned to ice, and hit the ground hard enough I knew
I hadn’t. I hadn’t broken.

I was dreaming. It was just a dream.

My heart pounded in my chest as I stared up
at the ceiling, one arm draped over my clammy forehead. A chilly
wind blew over me, and I remembered Robert, how I had woken up to
him on my first night home, how he drew me out of my nightmares
with the cold.

Wait.

I sprung up, searching the room for the
source of temperature, and found the open entrance to my room. The
balcony doors swung in, creaking against the wind, and the dark
curtains fluttered in the freezing gale. How they opened, I didn’t
know. I kept them locked the entire time. But something else
demanded my attention.

My hands and feet moved on their own. I
grasped my blankets, yanked myself up, and ran out onto the ledge.
When I saw I wasn’t imagining them, I grasped the railing to keep
myself standing.

Snowflakes. Millions of them.

Across the town, thin white blankets began to
build on the streets and buildings. Between each bright light was a
glittering stream of silver, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from
them. It looked like a thousand stars had broken up over the sky
and drifted down to be with us.

I leaned out one last time and caught a
snowflake on my tongue. They tasted so good, so pure and so divine,
like nothing I had ever tasted from the sky. The cold jolted me
awake only to dissipate as fast it fell, warming up as if it never
existed at all. It was unbelievable yet addicting.

It was snowing, and I could’ve watched it
forever.

When a snowflake hit my cheek, I remembered
Michele’s touch, and I brought my hand up to my own face as I
turned around. There, in Stephanie’s room, was a single desk.

I accepted my insanity long ago, and I
crossed the room to grab the furthest drawer. I had to yank it
open, but nothing came out. Only pens and paper. I opened the next
one to the photo and the bottom drawer to miscellaneous toys. I
searched through them, but I didn’t see the ball.

My eyes landed on the middle drawer, the main
one, and I took a breath before I pulled it open. Unlike the
others, this one was large, deep and empty. It also didn’t make
sense.

I stuck my hand in and felt around the back.
When my fingers met it, the back panel popped. I couldn’t breathe
as a ball rolled out, just like the one I had seen in my dream.

As I held it, wondering how it weighed so
little, I studied the long line striking through the middle. I’d
seen these toys in the main square before, and I knew exactly how
they functioned. I grabbed either end and twisted.

It worked.

An image fluttered to life, a hologram broken
up by static, and then, her face appeared. Stephanie stood in her
room—our room—and she squinted as if she were looking for a camera.
Her balcony was open behind her, just as it was now, and chills
went up my spine, knowing this was recorded years ago.

“Mom.” Her voice was even the same one from
my dream. “Dad.”

The recording screeched, and it must have in
real life too, because Stephanie covered her ears and cringed. “Oh,
shoot.” She tapped the machine, and it flickered on and off
again.

This time, a boy stood behind her. A girl,
too.

“—which is why Tom and Jasmine want to help
me,” Stephanie continued speaking as if a part of her message had
been cut off, lost in the void of technology. “You see”—even in the
dark, Stephanie’s tears were visible, too bright to be human,
almost shimmering like ice—“I’m one of them. I’m a…” She swallowed.
“I can live in dreams. Manipulate them. Find people in them. And
time is different there, and I…that’s how I found Tom, and—”

“We have to go.” It was Jasmine, the girl who
couldn’t be much older than Stephanie herself.

Stephanie nodded, as if she expected this.
“The Eastern Flock knows what they’re doing. We’re leaving
Vendona,” she choked, “but you’ll see me again. In your dreams.”
When she smiled, it didn’t reach her eyes. “I love you, Mom.
Dad.”

The message ended with the image of Stephanie
reaching toward the screen, but even more bizarre was the
background. Tom, the silver-haired boy, was flying, his feet
hovering above the ground. It explained how the three got in and
out.

I wondered what Jasmine did before I realized
I wasn’t thinking about her at all. The dream. What Stephanie said
about her powers. Was my dream real?

My stomach twisted as I gripped the orb. What
mattered didn’t revolve around me. Jane never knew what happened to
her daughter, and now she could. The Eastern Flock. Did they
actually escape?

I scrambled to my feet and rushed out of my
room, catching the stairs just as the clock struck midnight. One
day after the speeches, one day before the vote, and three days
before the final count came in.

No matter what, the Hendersons had to know
about their daughter.

“Jane!” I shouted, not even caring how late
the hour was. She would want to wake up for this. But, to my
surprise, they were already awake—fully dressed in coats and pants,
their faces grim.

I stopped in the doorway leading to a hundred
rooms I had never explored. Neither Jane nor Alec looked me in the
eyes.

I came to a halt. “What happened?” If Alec’s
speech had been too much—if we had already lost everything we
wanted to win—I wasn’t sure what I’d do next. But it was so much
worse than that. I knew it when Alec told me to sit down.

My hands shook so much I shoved them into my
pockets, hiding the orb with my fear. “What happened?” My question
was louder this time.

“Stephanie,” Alec started, kneeling next to
me, but then he shook his head. “No. Serena.” This was bad, and I
gripped the chair as he laid his hand on my shoulder. “This is
going to be difficult to hear, but you must remain calm. It’ll be
okay. You’re okay.”

I knew it then. I think everyone knows it.
The moment before someone puts a tragedy in words, the truth has
already formed in your mind, a moment the reality meets you before
it gets a chance to be confirmed, and everything breaks before
you’re fully broken.

“The flocks were attacked,” he said.
“Everyone’s—”

Alec’s voice faded out beneath my screaming
mind. Every face, every person, every moment on the street. Every
handhold, hug, and tearful, cheek kiss. Every loss and gain. Every
breath and death, even the ones we brought upon ourselves.

Ami smelled like lilacs, Melody wanted to be
a flower, and Catelyn would cut hair forever. And Robert. And
Daniel. Their faces were already melting away, dissipating like the
snow, appearing and disappearing as fast as they fell.

“Serena.”

Jane’s face was a few inches away from mine,
and the smell of baby powder filled my nose. “Some are still
alive.”

“Some?” I croaked out. That meant some had
died. But Jane nodded like her sentence was a good thing.