Now that the truth was out, I wished to share the day with someone.
“I have something for you,” Serah said as she pushed herself up with her arms. Although she shook less than before, she sighed as she dropped herself into her newly acquired wheelchair.
Though Daniel managed to save her life, the damage done to her spine hadn’t been reversed by his touch. She was paralyzed from the waist down.
“Catelyn…er…Stephanie brought it,” she said, then struggled to get her backpack slung over the handles.
“Do you need…”
“No,” Serah cut me off. “No help.”
With a final push, she lifted herself up, grasped her backpack, and pulled it into her lap. Little tears pushed at the sides of her eyes, but she smiled wider than I’d seen her smile before. “This,” she breathed, “is for you.”
When she reached into her backpack, the last thing I thought she’d pull out was a book, but I accepted it anyway.
In elegant gold script, the words Lord Alfred Tennyson blinked back at me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Serah explained. “Catelyn showed Violet a library in the Highlands—one with all the books in the entire world—and Violet only wanted this one. For a friend.”
My vision blurred.
“I imagine she meant you,” Serah said. In a whisper, she continued. “Catelyn also said she’s collecting Chinese tales, too. Something you’ll be able to see soon. And…well, I’ll keep you updated.”
There was only one thing to say.
“Thank you, Serah.”
I’d wanted to read more Chinese tales my entire life. I even wanted to travel to China one day. For now, Vendona closed us out and I had few reading options. But at least my book was back.
Tennyson was one of many poets I wanted to read to Violet, but when she had stolen a page out of his collection, I wondered if I’d ever see it again.
I flipped to that missing piece, reading it out loud to Serah.
“I would be a mermaid fair; I would sing to myself the whole of the day; With a comb of pearl I would comb my hair; And still as I comb’d I would sing and say, ‘Who is it loves me? who loves not me?’”
Afterward, I laughed a hollow laugh. “It’s really about vanity.”
But Violet saw beauty in it—a loveliness to being a monster in the sea—and I really, really wished she would’ve stayed, so I could’ve asked if she understood.
Serah, though, had her own interpretation.
“That writer talks funny,” she said, scrunching her nose.
“I bet someone might say that about your stories.”
She sat up straighter. “I’ll still be an actress one day.”
“I bet you will,” I agreed, but I stood as the clock struck three. “Do you want to come with me?”
Though I had planned this day for a week now, I didn’t feel fully prepared. Not even with The Mermaid in my hands and against my heart.
“I wish,” Serah admitted. “I have to stay here for a little while longer, though.”
Her therapy would be the best of the best, or so I had heard.
Since the wall was taken down, medical doctors had gained new and innovative jobs in the outskirts. Serah had her own physician, and so would many others for the first time in decades. Bad bloods would soon be studied in mass, but Alec Henderson made a request to start something else before then.
Stilts testing.
It would be the first collaborative project between the Highlands and the outskirts, and Calhoun was the first test subject.
His results were negative, and we celebrated at home together.
I’d now been living under his roof, with him, for a month.
Though I missed the herd living together, it was the right thing to split up and go our own ways.
Plato went into adoption, but he had yet to find a home. Skeleton, though, kept track of the boy, and the two seemed oddly inseparable. Where Plato had lost an older sibling, Skeleton had lost a younger one, and the two filled those blank spaces for one another. I only made them promise to never go back to the Pits, whenever—if ever—the Pits drained out.
So far, that part of Vendona stayed underwater. So did small sections of the western outskirts.
Because of the way the wall fell, the western part was hit the hardest. Strangely enough, the flood brought more than destruction. It also revealed secrets.
After the surge drowned the western front, the graves around us began to float.
Worst of all was the invisible field where the Western Flock was buried. Once the house was exposed, Alec Henderson turned the field over to Daniel. After much deliberation and with Adam’s support, the guys hired an evacuation team to fix the property and the graves of those lost twelve years ago. The newest grave, though, remained a mystery until it was dug up.
Robert.
He was dead. Shot in the back of the head and buried in an unmarked grave with no note. But at least Daniel knew now.
This time, he buried Robert in a marked graved next to their shared brother, Luke.
At my desperate request, Daniel added an additional, albeit empty, grave for Levi.
Now, with the emotional support of Daniel and the financial support of Alec Henderson himself, Nuo, Ellen, and Britney lived in the Western Flock House. The three girls wanted to renovate and watch over it. Hopefully, one day, they could restore it enough to share it with the public as safe-keepers of history. For now though, they lived in peace, and I visited all three of them every three days. Sometimes, we played music together. Other times, we painted.
It was during our first day of painting that other paintings began.
On the only remaining part of the inner wall—the western one—murals of familiar faces began to take shape. The first one showed off a girl with long, red hair and a cross dangling from her neck. Hanna nearly cried at the sight, mainly because it showed her with Yasir in the Highlands next to Catelyn.
That was her dream—to go beyond the outskirts to help the political family—and she went the next day.
As far as I heard, Yasir designed jewelry for Catelyn while Hanna styled her hair.
They became steadfast friends.
Then, a portrait of a cat appeared. Beside it, a girl with similar eyes.
Kat scoffed at it, but that was how she approved of art. That was how she wanted to live life, too.
In the weeks after the hurricane, Kat took to roaming the streets again. This time, Frankie wanted to go with her. First, Frankie was doing me a favor.
I left the hospital, hoping to see Serah again soon, and made my way down to the wall I’d avoided for days.
I wasn’t the only one either.
In fact, when the paintings first began, most of the city voted to tear the rest of the remains down. Some cited a curse. Others declared it vandalism. But, in the end, a portrait of a ghost stopped them all.
Violet.
It couldn’t have been. Not after the sea ran black with her shadowy blood. But Frankie insisted I come, and so I did.
“Don’t you want to see the truth?” she asked, and though she wore normal clothes now instead of Kuthun’s colorful silk, Frankie still looked as strange and as beautiful as ever.
“The truth’s never been easy with you,” I said, but I took Frankie’s hand.
She nodded at me, encouraged me to look even. For a moment, I still doubted I could.
What was painted on the wall could’ve destroyed any hope I had left, but it could also save the little sliver I managed to cling onto.
I sucked in a breath, then lost it at the sight before me.
Violet.
As young as she ever was. As strong. As determined.
She held one brush between her teeth, while she stroked the wall with the other.
Today, she painted with the color green—and murals of seaweed and fish and stone sprang to life. Above it, a ship on a pitch-black sea. I stood at the helm, alone, older, chasing a dream in a land far away but ne
stled safely in my blood. China.
You’re tied to darkness and she’s tied to the sea, Kuthun had said.
Now I saw how Violet interpreted our destinies—with me traveling and her protecting the way.
I’ll protect you when you go, she had said, and, sure enough, she stuck to her word.
Violet was alive, and she was painting, but she couldn’t hear or interact with us. According to Frankie, it was rare to even see her in a complete form. Sometimes, her arm was missing, or a foot never appeared. Perhaps it depended on the ocean that day—on how much the sea wished to let her go—but Frankie claimed she became more solid every day. Still, one thing didn’t make sense.
“I thought you showed me the truth,” I deadpanned.
“I am.”
“But Violet’s sixty-four.”
Frankie nodded. “I suppose her age actually did freeze in time.”
Violet truly was immortal in the shadows. She hadn’t aged at all, whereas I appeared older when Frankie showed me to others.
“Does that mean I…” I couldn’t finish.
“Will die from old age one day?” Frankie guessed anyway. She never had problems stating the truth. “I suppose so. But that’s a question better suited for Kuthun, don’t you think?”
I eyed the long-haired boy sitting on the shore, waiting for me. He had waited for me all along. But I looked at Violet one last time before letting go of Frankie’s hand. “Thank you,” I said, “and stay in touch.”
“Oh, I will, sweetheart,” Frankie promised with a kiss on the cheek. “Until then…”
She would explore the streets with Kat, Hanna would fix hair with Yasir, and Nuo would live peacefully with the other girls by her side. And I—
I walked over to Kuthun and sat down next to him. Though he had chased me to the very beach where I saw what Violet had done, we hadn’t talked much since. It was hard, especially when secrets still lingered between us. But today, I had promised to do more than face Violet’s paintings. I wanted Kuthun to face them, too.
“Have you seen it? Her latest piece?” I asked.
He nodded. “You’re tied to darkness and she’s tied to the sea.” Kuthun sighed as if half the prophecy had already come true, and it was only a matter of time before the second half followed. “I see no other way this works out.”
“I don’t care how it works out,” I argued. “Just that we enjoy everything as much as we can until then.”
Kuthun tensed, uncertain but patient, and I sat down next to him.
“I have something to show you,” I said, then reached into my jacket where I’d kept her portrait ever since. When I unfolded it and let Kuthun look over the kiss, he didn’t seem surprised at all.
“This happened, didn’t it?” I guessed.
With delicate hands, Kuthun took the painting from me and smiled. “I should’ve asked. I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Two words I wanted to hear. Two words I needed to hear. It was the start of all the other secrets we had to hash out.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, though I was unable to clarify it.
“That I love you?” Kuthun guessed what went unsaid anyway. “Didn’t I show you?”
“By leaving?” I asked, but all the anger I thought I would have melted away. I knew exactly why he refused to love me back. Why he feared to love me back. “I heard you talk to her once. When you said we weren’t meant to be.”
In the Highlands, I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. But now that I could, I wished to argue.
“Who is to say we aren’t?” I asked.
“We’re not.” Kuthun dangled his fingers in front of him as if to remind me of his strings.
“I thought you didn’t have a fate.”
“I don’t,” he agreed, “but I don’t have to know mine to know I’ll die one day, Caleb.”
And I would live. And so would Violet.
“All love is immortal,” Kuthun continued, “but I am not.”
He did not fear loving me back while he was alive. He feared loving me in the afterlife, knowing I would never join, but his fears were lost on me.
“You will sail alone,” he finished.
“So what if I do?” I countered. “Even if I travel with her help for a few years, I can’t live forever. Britney will die one day, and then what?”
“She painted you older.”
Violet believed stilts would be cured.
“I’ll get old one day then, but that doesn’t change the fact that I can’t go into the shadows.” Only Violet could, and only bad bloods could join her. But she had taken me before, and I hadn’t died. Not yet. “The shadows aren’t for me,” I corrected, “and Violet doesn’t want me there.”
As much as she had kissed me, I remembered what she said in the hallway to Kuthun. How she never felt that way about anyone. Not ever. Not even me.
Her kiss was a good-bye and a promise and a dream.
“She wants to protect us, you and me,” I said, “and I want that, too.”
Kuthun’s eyes softened. “And when I die?”
“You’ll live on,” I said. “In your own form of immortality.”
“Like?”
“Memories,” I answered. “Don’t you already know that? I could never forget you.”
Kuthun kissed me then.
During our first kiss, I had closed my eyes so tight that I hadn’t seen the world around me. I only cared to feel it. Today, Kuthun caught me by surprise and exposed a secret I never thought possible.
Fate’s strings—thousands of them—encircled us like a spider’s web. One ripped right out of my heart and shot straight for the sea where darkness waited. All the while, Kuthun’s chest remained empty.
I understood how he felt now. It was the same way I felt the first time.
That kiss told me living forever would be worth it, but then he rejected me, and I welcomed death. Now, our relationship had turned around, but one truth remained.
If Kuthun meant life for me, Violet meant death, and both of them were as vital as the beginning and ending of a song. By myself, I was only a chorus, and with only a chorus to listen to, a song would be monotonous and mundane. Now that I found them both, I felt complete. Like we wrote all the notes for our song, but still needed one another to string them together.
Kuthun’s kiss was a part of that. And though Kuthun’s kiss was strange—a bit surreal even—it was as beautiful as it had always been. He was beautiful, too.
“I want you to live forever with me,” I said, but Kuthun laid his hand on my heart, where he always saw my string.
“I will live on,” he promised, then stared at the murals on the western wall. “Art lives on as well, along with so many other things.”
“Like?”
“Love,” he agreed, “and little ghosts.” He kissed me again. “And the sea.” Another kiss with every list. “And the rain. And the sand. And the sky and the air.”
Finally, when we leaned away, he pulled apart his hands and revealed a dozen silver strings—an instrument only he could make and I could play.
“Music,” I guessed with a smile, and Kuthun nodded.
“Now,” he said, “why don’t we play her a song?”
July Thunder, the fourth book in the Bad Bloods series, is available now! Get your copy today!
From best-selling author Shannon A. Thompson comes an exciting new duology in the Bad Bloods universe.
Fourteen-year-old Violet has been called many things: a bad blood, a survivor, an immortal…now she has a new name—citizen. But adjusting to a lawful life is not easy, especially when she must live under the rule of the same officers who justified the killings of her flock only eight months earlier.
Segregation of bad bloods and humans is still in effect, and rebellious Violet steps into a school where she is not allowed. When the police get involved, things deteriorate quickly, sparking a new revolution at the wall separating the Highlands from the outskirts.
That's when Caleb steps in. He might appear to be an average sixteen-year-old bad blood, but he has secrets, and Violet is determined to figure them out. Caleb knows who's attacking the wall and why, but his true identity remains a mystery—and how he relates to Violet could shake the threatened city to its very core.
Together or not, a storm will form, a rally will start, and shocking truths will be revealed.
Available now!
About the Author
Shannon A. Thompson is a young adult author, avid reader, and a habitual chatterbox.
As a novelist, poet, and blogger, Thompson spends her free time writing and sharing ideas with her black cat, Bogart, named after her favorite actor, Humphrey Bogart. Her other two cats bring her coffee. Between writing and befriending cats, Thompson graduated from the University of Kansas with a bachelor’s degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing, and her work has appeared in numerous poetry collections and anthologies. Represented by Clean Teen Publishing, Thompson is the best-selling author of The Timely Death Trilogy and the Bad Bloods duology. When she is not writing, she is climbing rooftops, baking cookies, or watching murder shows in the middle of the night, often done with her cats by her side.
Visit her blog for writers and readers at www.ShannonAThompson.com.
Acknowledgements
Much of July Thunder and July Lightning is based off of the events surrounding the Berlin Wall. When I set out to write this book, I thought I knew everything necessary to write it, but, of course, research quickly proved me wrong. For that reason alone, I encourage anyone interested in history (or the events of this book) to read about the Berlin Wall beyond what you learned in school. It’s fascinating, heartbreaking, and important that we understand our past, especially during such a tumultuous time. For every wall that is built—whether it is physical or emotional or metaphorical—we can tear it down together. Do not be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. Do not fear following your dreams.
That being said, thank you to everyone who has helped me follow my dreams. This writing journey has been absolutely insane and wonderful and unpredictable and lovely. I couldn’t have done it without you.
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