Bad Bloods (8 page)

My stomach sunk. “Whose house is that?”

She glanced over her shoulder, and I knew
what she would say before she said it. “My parents live here.”

I wanted to freeze—to mask my expression—but
I knew she saw what I felt. My mouth had opened, only slightly, and
my neck had popped as I looked down the street, straight at the
fence, right where Cal had saved my life all those years ago.

“What is it?” Serena asked, and when I looked
at her, I could see we felt the same. This wasn’t a coincidence. It
couldn’t be. I just didn’t know what it all meant, other than we
lived in a small town of corruption and death but had somehow never
met one another until now.

I shoved my hands into my pockets. “We should
start walking.”

She sighed, an indicator that she heard all
of my thoughts in my four words. For once, I didn’t have any
answers for her.

I started walking, knowing she’d follow, and
she did, quickly catching up to my side. “Where are we going?”

“I’m going to show you my house.”

“I could’ve just met you there—”

“The Northern Flock’s house,” I corrected.
“Not Cal’s.”

She stumbled, almost as if she had to fight
herself from stopping right there in the middle of the street.
Automatically, I touched her arm, and my touch became a
support—something I didn’t pull away as she shakily wrapped her arm
around mine. Neither one of us moved away for a moment, and in that
moment, I swore neither of us took a breath. But the jittery
clumsiness wavered as we continued to walk together to Northern
Vendona. Even then, her grip never loosened, her fingernails
pressing against my jacket, and I waited a moment and allowed her
to collect her thoughts. I didn’t want to freak her out—not before
I even had a chance to explain the real reason I was meeting her.
That would cause enough freaking out for the evening.

“I know what you’re thinking,” I started
slowly, “but I’m not going to ask you to join my flock.” Her grip
loosened. “I just want you to see where we live so you know you can
trust me.”

“I already trust you,” she said, and I
glanced down at her, wishing she hadn’t said it right before I
would risk shattering everything we had, but all I could add was
two words.

“I know.”

***

“That’s it,” I said, pointing down the hill.
Michele had left the lights on just as I had asked, but most of our
neighbors were still awake too. Compared to the rest of Vendona,
Northern Vendona was squished together like there weren’t hundreds
of acres to build upon elsewhere. “The one in the middle.” It
looked like all the rest, a plain brown box.

“I see it,” Serena said, but when I looked at
her, she was looking at me. “What’s this about?”

Showing a flock’s house to another bad blood
was a risk—a huge risk—and I wanted her to know that when I asked
her to go with the Hendersons. I wanted her to know I was taking a
risk too. But I needed to find a better way to explain it, a way to
show how important she was, and I wasn’t going to do that by
standing on the hill overlooking my house. I knew where I had to
take her.

“Follow me?” I asked, catching her rolling
her eyes before following me again.

This time, though, it didn’t take us long to
get to our destination. It was an abandoned watchtower of some
sort—like a lighthouse without any water near it. I had never asked
Calhoun what it used to be, but it had a name etched into the side,
too scratched to read but not scratched enough to be completely
invisible. The structure didn’t have a door on it, and I
half-expected Serena to question me when I entered the building,
but she quietly climbed each stair with the same rhythm as me.
Everyone else I had brought here asked if it was safe. I was the
only one who knew the top was the most dangerous part. The view
could kill someone with envy. But Serena didn’t seem to mind where
we were going. In fact, she hummed—like we were out in a field of
flowers and not on a rickety staircase—and her song echoed around
the creaking, metal stairs. I doubted I could ever climb the stairs
again without hearing her voice surround me.

I closed my eyes, knowing the stairs well
enough to make it to the top without looking, but Serena must have
thought her humming bothered me because she stopped. She cleared
her throat like she choked on her thoughts, but she still asked,
“How’d you find Catelyn?”

“Catelyn?” As I repeated the name, I
remembered the blonde girl in the main square, the one who had
disappeared straight through the fence. She could’ve been Serena’s
twin. In fact, I thought she was Serena until I grabbed her
shoulder and she jumped. The hood of her green jacket fell off, and
I think it took everything in both of us not to start fighting
right there. Bad bloods were aggressive like that.

“Her name is Catelyn,” Serena said after a
moment, and I realized—once again—I hadn’t responded. I’d been too
consumed by my own thoughts ever since I spoke to Henderson.
“Steven’s her boyfriend.”

“The one I punched?” I asked. Serena nodded,
and a half-laugh escaped me. “I’ll have to make up for that.”

She tensed like I had just invited myself
over to her house.

I sighed, but kept climbing up the stairs. “I
was looking for you,” I explained, trying not to give anything
away. Not yet. “I figured I could find you if I waited in the main
square long enough.” As the words left me, I realized I sounded
like a serial stalker, or worse, an animal hunting prey, but Serena
stayed by my side.

I glanced over, looking her up and down,
catching a glimpse of her rosy cheeks as moonlight streamed in
through the various, broken windows.

“What are the others like?” I asked to
prevent any more silence.

Serena’s gray eyes flicked over to me.
“Well”—she breathed—“we have twelve like you. Our youngest is
Melody. She’s only four.”

“She’s younger than Blake.” It only took his
name to remind me that he was back at home, sick and
recovering.

“Blake sort of reminds me of Huey,” she
mentioned another name I didn’t recognize. “He’s one of our latest
members. Briauna just joined this year. Um. We have Justan and Jake
and Ami.” She paused. “I don’t like Niki very much.”

“Who’s Niki?”

“Red eyes.” She cringed as I remembered the
girl who followed me in to Old Man Gregory’s. “Doesn’t really
matter though. She doesn’t like me that much either. I think—”

We reached the top and I pushed the final
door open. Cold wind blasted past us, and Serena shivered, but I
doubted it was from the cold. She stepped outside onto the metal
walkway and grabbed the railing separating her from a six-story
fall to the rocky ground. It was one of the only places in Vendona
where you could see the Highlands.

Skyscrapers of every shape and color draped
across the midnight horizon. The bright lights—usually seen as a
purple haze from the outskirts—clouded out all the stars, but each
building radiated like it was a star all on its own, equally as
beautiful as it was mysterious. No one was just allowed to go into
the Highlands. I had never been there myself. You generally had to
be born into it. I often wondered what it was like, walking from
giant building to giant building, but I mainly wondered what we
looked like from their perspective. From the top of their towers, I
bet we looked like brown stones, squished together in a smog of
destruction. It was this exact reason that caused me to concentrate
on Serena’s face instead of the looming city. She had never seen it
before, and her face was glowing like she had already moved there
and absorbed all the light they lived in.

“Wow,” she exhaled. “You can really see it
from up here.” Her eyebrows furrowed for a split second. “Can you
see the Western Flock’s field from here?”

“No.”

She didn’t turn around to check for herself.
She just stared at me, and I knew what she saw. I had already tried
to see it. The fact that you couldn’t see it was one of the reasons
I loved the location so much. I also loved looking at the
Highlands. As much as it made me feel sick inside, it reminded me
of all we were striving for. It reminded me of how we could break
down the gate one day. It reminded me of how close we all were.
Human or bad blood, rich or poor, we all lived under the same
Vendona sky.

I had to turn around and look back at the
sight to gain the strength I needed. If she agreed to what I was
about to ask her to do, she wouldn’t even be that far away. She
would be able to see us from her tower, and we could see her tower
from ours. She might even be able to tell me what we looked like
one day.

I gripped the railing, my left hand next to
her right one. “Did you hear about the rumor?” I asked.

She nodded, taking the time to sit down on
the landing. She even kicked her feet off the edge, like falling
was the least of her worries, and I joined her. Serena never took
her eyes off the city, and I wondered if she was looking at the
towers, guessing which one the Hendersons lived in, guessing which
one their daughter went missing from. When she shivered, I scooted
closer to her.

“Cold?” I asked.

“A little,” she admitted.

The nights had gotten chillier. It was
probably the coldest and earliest winter in years, but I doubted it
would snow. Vendona hadn’t seen snow in twelve years. Still, I
draped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her into my chest
like I had the ability to keep her warm. She leaned against me,
even placing her hand on my leg, and shivered once more.

“I’m sure his daughter…” She lost her words.
“Stephanie will make an appearance and clear everything up.” She
gazed at the city like she could see it happening.

“She might,” I agreed, trying to find my own
words, but every approach seemed wrong. I could practically feel my
opportunity to ask her blowing away in the wind. “What’s your flock
planning?”

Serena bit her lip, and I followed her eyes
past Northern Vendona, past the gate, the border, and the fields
stretching beyond our vision. Southern Vendona—her home—was on the
other side. “I don’t know what we’re doing,” she admitted, and I
tried to picture all the kids she’d mentioned only moments before,
but they were silhouettes, outlines of people I didn’t know but
might have passed on the street.

“What’s your flock doing?” she asked me when
I didn’t respond.

This was my chance. This was what Calhoun
wanted me to do. This was how we saved Vendona, and all I could do
was kiss her.

She squeaked, as if I surprised her, but then
her hand wrapped around my shirt, and she slowly inched away from
me. Her breath fogged out in front of her, and her cheeks burned,
rosier than before. “Daniel?” Her gray eyes even looked blue—like
Stephanie Henderson’s—and I reached into my front pocket for the
fake ID I had stolen from Calhoun. He hadn’t even noticed I
snatched it when I left.

“We have a plan,” I started, hearing my own
words as if someone else was saying them. My voice sounded deeper
than I remembered it being.

“Are you running?” Serena asked, reading the
concern on my face, but I shook my head.

“No.” I shoved the ID in her hands. “Our plan
involves you.”

She gripped it before looking. “What—” As her
eyes traveled down, her words stopped. She stared at the photo of
herself—her past self—and her grip turned white. For a moment, I
had forgotten she couldn’t read. She had no way of knowing her new
name was Stephanie Mackenzie Henderson. So I told her.

I began with Michele’s premonition, how she
thought something bad would happen to Henderson, how we believed it
was a gunshot, but how it turned out to be a rumor. I continued
with Cal’s office, his history. I told her about his talking to
Alec Henderson—the real Alec Henderson—over the phone, not once but
twice, and I ended it with their plan. She was going to take
Stephanie’s place. Even though most would see Stephanie, many would
realize it was Serena and enough would suspect it. Serena’s
presence would break them all by reminding them of their cruelty
and their inability to get rid of bad bloods. Serena could save us.
She just had to agree to it.

This is why you survived,
Alec
Henderson’s words repeated in my head, too loud to continue
speaking, but it was something I wanted to say to Serena too. Maybe
we both survived for a reason, but it sounded childish and naïve to
say we could make a change when such a large city sat right in
front of us, when we were so small and invisible against it, but
Serena looked right at me—ignoring the Highlands like it was the
one that was invisible, and it was only invisible because I sat in
front of her.

“Say something,” I managed, practically
gasping, and her bottom lip trembled, only for her to bite it. I
scooted away from her, hoping she’d look away from me and back at
the city—the place she now belonged—but her eyes followed me like
she’d never look away. “Serena—”

“The gunshot,” she interrupted, focusing on
the one part I tried to disregard. “Is it still going to happen?”
When I didn’t respond immediately, she nodded, but her nod took her
gaze to the city. Her mouth opened, closed again, and opened once
more. “What if something bad happens to our flocks?”

Serena never thought of herself. As little as
I knew her, I knew she wasn’t worried about something bad happening
to her. All the bad things had already happened to her. She was
thinking of the others—all the others—even my flock. That question
alone confirmed she needed to be the one to go.

“Don’t you remember what I said?” I asked,
drawing out the question slowly, delicately. “About you taking our
stories into the future?”

“Why are you saying that like you’re not
going to be in it?” Her misty eyes were slits.

“Michele’s premonition—”