Read Online Bad Bloods by Shannon A. Thompson - Free Book Online

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