Bad Bloods by Shannon A. Thompson Read Free Book Online

already feeling her tears on my shoulder. “I’ll find
you a home. I’ll find you somewhere to live.”
    She sniffled, slowly calming down. “What
about Steven?”
    “Steven, too,” I promised. “And Melody and
Timmy and Jake and everyone else.”
    Her arms squeezed me before she slowly pushed
me back to look at me. Her tears caused the scar on her face to
burn redder. “This is why everyone loves you, Serena.”
    “What?”
    “It’s not because of your powers,” she said
before an awkward smile broke her tear-stained face. “I know you
think that. You always have. I can tell.” Her blue eyes filled with
tears. “But it’s because of you. You’re always so kind, no matter
what, and you’ve probably been through more than the rest of
us.”
    “No I haven’t—”
    “You have secrets,” she interrupted, “and
that’s okay.” My heart pounded. “We all do.” Her right shoulder
rose in a half-shrug. “I let my cat eat table scraps sometimes, and
I even saw a mouse the other day.” A broken laugh escaped her. “But
you already forgive me, don’t you?”
    I blinked, thinking of the tabby cat that
followed her around, the one that Robert disliked, the one I
secretly cuddled with once or twice. “I was never even mad,” I
admitted when I found my voice.
    “And that’s why everyone loves you,” she
said, squeezing my arm. “That’s why I love you.”
    “Catelyn—” My voice went quiet.
    “Go home, Serena,” she said. “Go back to your
family.”
    I shook my head. “You are my family.”
    “Then go home where you’re safe.”
    “I’m safe right here,” I argued, “and you are
too.”
    Catelyn leaned forward and pulled me into a
hug that felt like it would never end. She was shaking like the
first time I met her—when she was ten years old and homeless. We’d
become sisters almost instantly, and Robert joked that we were
long-separated twins who’d finally reunited, but she never seemed
complete until Steven arrived. It was one of the happiest days of
my life because it was one of the happiest days of her life.
Imagining life without her seemed impossible. She would always be
my sister—even above my biological one I had never met. I squeezed
her back, wondering if I was naïve to believe in my own words.
    “I’m safe right here,” I repeated, feeling
the words one more time, not expecting Catelyn to respond when she
did.
    “Then why do you keep leaving?” she asked,
revealing the one question I couldn’t even begin to answer.
    I already wanted to leave again.

 
     

    A few days had
passed since the first phone call, and my mind hadn’t stopped
racing. Calhoun Wilson—the stranger who saved my life—knew Alec
Henderson. They had met as teens, as soldiers in the Separation
Movement, and now, Calhoun was convinced his friend could beat the
rumor about his missing—and possibly bad-blooded—daughter. That was
all I knew. Despite being in the Northern Flock home, Cal kept me
at a distance as he waited for the next phone call. It was probably
for the better anyway. Blake was sick, really sick, and I knew he
had undoubtedly contracted the cold from me. I replaced the wet rag
on top of his forehead before leaving him to sleep in our shared
room.
    With my back pressed against the door, I
lingered in the hallway, wondering if I got Serena sick too, but so
far, out of my entire flock, the only one who caught it was Blake.
I was glad Adam had stocked up on supplies but worried about his
uncle, one floor below, creating a plan that was already twisting
my gut. My instincts were hardly ever wrong, and my instincts were
demanding that I worry. Cal had a plan. But he wasn’t involving me
for a reason.
    “How is he?” Her voice drifted out of the
wall before she solidified from the stretched out shadows. I
wondered if Vi felt more normal as a shadow or as a human, but I
decided not to ask when she repeated her question, her black eyes
searching the door of my room. She loved Blake as