Bad Bloods: November Rain

by Shannon A. Thompson

 

  The rain cooled the air, but that didn’t stop me from fishing. Even in November, the fish would bite, and that meant free food. As long as I didn’t take too much, it wasn’t even illegal.

  My line cast across the water before landing three yards in front of me. Ripples drifted across the once-still lake, and I let the bait sink with my thoughts. Despite Michele’s complaint, I couldn’t stay home for long. I never could. I always had someone to feed, someone to talk to, and something to buy. I was always looking for jobs I could get with my fake ID, but it wasn’t easy during winter. Summer work was simpler, more straightforward. Most indoor businesses had scanners. Caution was my only lifesaver. Fishing was my go-to meditation. But the lake wasn’t calming my nerves today. I saw Serena’s gray stare in the waves.

  She had a home, a family, people who took care of her. She was safe. But my stomach twisted when I thought about her cheekbones. They stuck out too far. Her eyes were too wild. Despite being able to heal her outer wounds, her damages on the inside would remain intact. I worried her family wouldn’t take her back when they found out. If they rejected her, I doubted I could save her again. I wouldn’t even know.

  I reeled in the bait a few feet before I paused. When the line pulled, the string shot a line through the surface, and the sun sparkled against it, but it was the footsteps I concentrated on. Someone was behind me.

  “How’d I know you’d be out here?”

  I didn’t have to look to know who it was, but when Adam sat down next to me, I gave him a sidelong glance. The black-haired teenager was eating an apple, something we didn’t have at the house, and he hummed like it was the source of his happiness. Knowing him, he had stolen it.

  “Fishing’s cheaper than grocery shopping,” I muttered, but I couldn’t focus on the bait any longer.

  “So’s stealing.” I hadn’t seen Adam in a week, but I felt like I’d seen him yesterday. His dark eyes and pale skin were identical to Calhoun’s. They were related, after all.

  Adam took one more bite out of his apple before laying the core on the ground. “You can’t feed a village with one fish.”

  “I don’t plan on feeding Vendona.”

  “Who do you plan on feeding?”

  I caught his lit up eyes, followed by a smirk. Calhoun had the same look when he was provoking me. They would’ve been twins if they weren’t separated by a generation.

  “What did Michele tell you?”

  Clearly, Adam’s joke had been directed at Serena.

  “Not a lot.” Adam placed his hands under his armpits to keep his fingers warm. He never wore appropriate clothing. “She doesn’t want to scare the kids.” Talking in front of the younger members was something we avoided. Too much crying caught the neighbors’ attention.

  “Her name’s Serena,” I drew my words out. “Ever heard of her?”

  One of Adam’s eyes squinted. “Why would you ask me that?” He was a terrible liar.

  “I know you spend time with the gangs.”

  Bad bloods weren’t the only ones discriminated against. Pockets of poor people grouped together, and many of them were teens just like us. They formed gangs and took shelter in the numerous abandoned buildings lining the edges of town. Adam had met with a few of them, and he returned enough that I realized what was happening. Why he did it when he had a flock was beyond me, but I trusted he had a reason.

  “You can hide it from Cal, but you don’t have to hide it from me.”

  He turned his squint to the water. “Do you know what it’s like to have your own uncle make someone else the leader?”

  Even though years had passed, he had never asked the question before. When I straightened up, Adam raised his hand. “Relax,” he said. “I know I’m not leadership material.” He cracked a smile. “I’m just a sidekick.”

  I didn’t like his vocabulary. Despite being the leader, I saw Calhoun as the true king and Adam as the heir, but for now, I was a face for the children, someone they could relate to and believe in.

  “You’re not a sidekick,” I said, but Adam was already speaking.

  “I like to see myself that way,” he defended. “Sidekicks are important, too.”

  “You’ve been reading too many comic books.”

  “At least I can read,” he chuckled, but his laughter died in seconds. Many bad bloods couldn’t read. Adam was one of the lucky ones who attended elementary school before he met the streets. When his parents found out he was a bad blood, they killed themselves instead of killing him. Calhoun found him two days after. We had the Northern Flock’s house later that month, and Cal lived with us until he trusted us to be on our own. That didn’t stop him from coming by every week.

  “I haven’t heard of her, though,” Adam added. “Not once.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” It meant she really did have a family. It meant she didn’t have to suffer on the streets. It meant my job was over. It meant I had to let her go, even though I refused to say goodbye.

  “Hey!” The girl’s shout caused Adam and me to jump, but we calmed when we saw her. Maggie’s curly red hair was impossible to miss, and the two kids with her were harder to ignore.

  Blake stumbled like a young colt as he crossed the grass. He was crawling into my lap in minutes. “Whatcha doing?”

  I picked him up only to adjust him. When he was still, I laid my hand on his blond head. “Hey, kiddo.”

  He leaned back to look up at me. His eyes were bluer than the lake’s water. “Can I try?” His little hands latched onto the fishing pole, too big for him.

  “Sure.” I wrapped my hands around his and reeled the line in. “But be careful,” I said, casting it out. “This pole is expensive.”

  “Okay.” Blake’s face scrunched as he turned his focus to the water. His hand rotated the handle only to freeze. I felt my mind spin as he asked, “What’s an election?”

  Blake, despite his young age, could read minds, but he had yet to understand anything. He could only repeat what he saw, and I couldn’t remove my touch before he saw more, “Oh,” he exclaimed as he looked back up. “I dress up and talk, too.”

  Laughter escaped Adam. “You’re one smart kid.”

  “Thanks,” Blake chirped, remarkably serious, as the other child sat next to us.

  Ron was indefinitely silent, in the same way he was drawn to Blake. He was deaf, but he didn’t have to talk for Blake to hear him. He only had to think. It was the way I had insight on Blake’s abilities. He didn’t only hear thoughts; he saw images, too. His age made it dangerous. Blake didn’t know how to keep others’ thoughts to himself.

  When Maggie approached, she plopped down next to Adam. “Any luck?”

  “Not a single bite.”

  Maggie’s face turned as red as her hair. “Maybe I’m a good luck charm.”

  “Not with that hair,” Adam mumbled as he grabbed the back of her hood and yanked it over her curls. He wasn’t wrong. Any trait that stuck out was a danger to us all. Maggie always kept her fire-red hair covered in public, but she had obviously forgotten.

  She muttered an apology. Her freckles reappeared as her blush died down, but she scooted closer to Adam when she could. Somehow, in the seven years she had been with us, her flirting had actually gotten worse.

  I stood up to catch the girl’s attention. “Can you watch them?”

  She blinked. “Sure.”

  I gestured to Adam, but when he stood up, I spoke to Blake, “We’ll be right back.”

  He nodded without looking away from the water. This time, Adam was the one to pull me away.

  “Have you talked to her?” I asked Adam as we walked out of earshot.

  Adam leaned against the only tree near us. “Talked to who?”

  “Maggie likes you.” It was a conversation we’d had a dozen times.

  He frowned, but his eyes were on her. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “Who has time for girls right now?�
�� Adam cocked a grin like it proved how much it didn’t matter, but I couldn’t mirror his image.

  In a way, he was right. There was no room for love in our world, but I found a way in the Northern Flock. When Blake was dropped off as a baby, when Maggie saved Ryne, when Tessa snuck her way into our hearts. We risked everything for everyone. That was love. It was the same desperate emotion I felt when I saw Serena near Shadow Alley.

  My stomach twisted.

  “Did that chick really screw you up that bad?” Adam’s question sliced through me.

  “Huh?”

  Adam cocked one brow. “You were thinkin’ about her again, weren’t you?” He didn’t have to say her name.

  “She told Calhoun something,” I fumbled over the confession. “It stays between us. No Michele. No Maggie. No one. Not even the gangs. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Logan’s technology already exists.” When Adam didn’t respond, I clarified what I meant, “They can test our blood. They found the gene.”

  Adam’s bottom lip hung open, snapped shut, and fell open again. “That only matters if Henderson loses.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Adam didn’t speak.

  “If Henderson—” I didn’t have to finish my sentence. Adam watched the elections as much as I had. Vendona was already questioning his reasoning, and some had accused him of being a bad blood himself. The accusation was fine until it could be proven.

  “Henderson is too old,” Adam concluded.

  “They discovered the first one twenty years ago.”

  “She was a child—”

  “She would be thirty if she was alive today,” I pointed out. “Henderson is in his fifties. That’s not far off.”

  Adam’s jaw locked, and he rubbed it.

  “Genetics don’t change in one generation,” I spilled out. “They changed over time.”

  We were silent as Blake shouted, “I got one!”

  Adam and I glanced his way as Maggie fell over, grabbed the rod, and reeled the fish in with Blake. They squealed as the fish flipped and flopped onto the shore.

  Adam brought his hands up to his mouth and breathed warm air on them. “You really think he’s one of us?”

  I thought of Alec Henderson, the balding veteran I listened to speak countless times. His powerful voice resonated his speeches, and I clung onto his every word, just like I had done to Calhoun when I was young. Henderson was everything I wanted to be and everything I couldn’t be at the same time. Human. But if he weren’t, it would shatter his façade I believed in. The façade Vendona believed in.

  “Why else would he fight for us?” I mustered the words. “If the news comes out—” We were dead. I didn’t have to say it. “They’ll find a way to test him before the polls open.”

  “We should run while we can.” Adam straightened up onto his tiptoes like he would take off at any moment. With his speed, he really could get away, but he stayed by the Northern Flock’s side. “We’ll leave Vendona, start somewhere new.”

  I looked over at Blake, thinking of how impossible it would be to cross the borders with a child, let alone a dozen of them. Plus, no one knew what lay beyond the gates. “We can’t escape.”

  Adam’s heels hit the ground with a soft thud. “Why not?”

  “The Eastern Flock tried that, and look what happened to them.” After the Western Flock massacre, the Eastern Flock ran, and they were killed. All fifteen of them. I was sure of it.

  “That’s a rumor.” Adam wasn’t wrong. The story never made the public news stations, but it was whispered on the streets. I found street news more accurate.

  “They don’t exist,” I said. “How’s it a rumor?”

  He folded his arms, and for a moment, I wondered if Calhoun did that before he lost his arm during the Separation Movement. “I’ve never met someone in the Southern Flock, but you insist they’re real.”

  I scowled at the ground because Adam didn’t deserve it. “I’ve met one.”

  I didn’t have to tell Adam which one. Robert. The leader. Even though Adam said what he did, he knew as well as I how real the Southern Flock was. He also knew why Robert and I didn’t get along. Only three people did, including him. Michele and Calhoun were the other two. It was the one thing I refused to discuss with my flock.

  Adam cleared his throat. “Do you know where they are?”

  I shook my head. “But I know they’re alive for the same reasons we are.” Robert and I had the same training, after all. “We don’t run. We stay, and we fight if we lose.”

  Adam scratched his temple, but didn’t argue.

  A current of cold air passed between us as I changed the subject. “How bad is it when I’m gone?”

  “Floyd.” He didn’t bother hiding the annoyance in his tone. “We should consider kicking him out.” At that, he smiled. Being serious was not his forte.

  “We can’t.”

  “He’ll be fine on his own,” he said, but the words held faint conviction. “He was fine for eighteen years.”

  “Until he showed.” Floyd’s limbs didn’t start stretching until he was older. Not all bad bloods developed abilities during adolescence. Logan used that fact to convince citizens of standardized testing. Giving up rights meant nothing if it guaranteed life. Unfortunately, in my case, it guaranteed my death.

  “He could hide it,” Adam continued his absurd daydream. Floyd couldn’t conceal anything; he couldn’t even control his ego. “I don’t see why he left his family in the first place. He had money, a job—”

  “Don’t focus on what others have,” I repeated one of Cal’s tough love lessons. Jealousy only destroyed.

  “Do you think others can hide?” Adam missed my point. “Like wives and teachers and kids?”

  I looked away without really looking at anything at all. I didn’t repeat what little we knew about genetics through Calhoun’s teachings. Many had died in the Separation Movement, a war that took place on our very streets, the same war that demolished the outskirts to our rusty ruins. Bullet holes still rested in the brick walls. Supposedly, the amount of blood staining the streets was how we obtained our name—bad bloods—but proof of that had long since washed away. Anyone who had money and power lived in the Highlands, which remained gated off. The excuse? It was a private community, a luxurious neighborhood for the elite. The truth? It was larger than all the outskirts combined. Still, I doubted any amount of money could protect them from their secrets.

  “There has to be older ones,” I decided. And rich ones.

  “Floyd is the oldest one I know,” Adam said.

  I agreed, even though Floyd was the same age as Robert. Twenty years old, and two years older than me.

  “Floyd only causes trouble,” Adam pressed, and for a sly second, I considered taking Adam’s proposition seriously, but the tension ebbed away.

  “He might cause more if we abandon him,” I said, knowing Floyd could report us as easily as anyone else could. Betrayal was the reason copycat flocks were often caught, the same reason we were vigilant about the kids we accepted. Since Floyd, we hadn’t taken anyone in.

  “You don’t think he’d tell, do you?” Adam asked. “He isn’t that kind of guy.”

  My opinion of someone generally came down to the moment we met. I didn’t consider myself a judgmental character, but it had kept me alive. When I first saw Floyd, he was drinking in Old Man Gregory’s, not even bothering to hide his elongated fingers. A wedding ring sat on the countertop, but the metal reminded me of a bullet. His dead stare paired well with it. His life was my call, and I dragged him out. He left the ring behind, and we never talked about it again.

  Even then, I had to acknowledge how helpful Floyd had been before the election neared. He cherished the kids as much as Michele did, but the responsibility devoured him.

  “I don’t know what kind of guy he is,” I said, “but I won’t gamble all of our lives to find out.”

>   “Daniel.” Blake’s voice was closer than I hoped. He stood by my side, close enough to hear my thoughts, and I studied his expression with ease. When his cheeks flushed against his grin, I knew he hadn’t heard a thing. “I got one.”

  As soon as he held the fish up, he dropped it, leaving it to flop on the wet ground by his feet. Mud caked his pants all the way to his knees.

  “Good job.” I laid one hand on his head—the only clean part of the boy I could see—and I bent down to pick up our only catch of the day.

  “I can make dinner?” Blake said it like it was more of a question than a statement.

  “You can,” I agreed, but I didn’t dare look at Adam as I finished both of my conversations. “Let’s go home and tell Michele.”