Bad Bloods
Authors: Shannon A. Thompson
Tags: #fantasy science fiction blood death loss discrimination, #heroine politics violence innocence, #rebellion revolt rich vs poor full moon, #stars snow rain horror psychic fate family future november, #superhuman election rights new adult, #teen love action adventure futuristic, #young adult dystopian starcrossed love
By: Shannon A. Thompson
To my father—the sky is gray… and blue.
THIS book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely
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Bad Bloods: November Snow
Copyright ©2016 Shannon A. Thompson
All rights reserved.
ISBN:
978-1-63422-192-4
Cover Design by: Marya Heiman
Typography by: Courtney Knight
Editing by: Kelly Risser
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I ran. I always ran. It was the only way to
survive as a bad blood in Vendona, and yet, I seemed to be the only
one who could put one fast foot in front of the other.
My arms pumped back and forth, my calves
burning with a furious ache. Even with my breath in my throat, I
sprinted, struggling to hold back a scream. Every bit of me was
already screaming—silently, inside of my caged soul that never
escaped. As I kept running, Shadow Alley blurred past me with a
whiny wind of its own. It only shattered when my name reached me
through the darkness.
“Serena!” A bad blood never shouted.
“Serena!” It went against all of our rules. “Serena, wait!” Our
names, too, were threats to our safety. “Stop!” Relationships were
forbidden for a reason. Too much emotion destroyed us.
He grabbed my arm, but it wasn’t over. I
swung around and prepared to strike him, but he ducked, ready to
avoid my violence. His green eyes were stronger handcuffs than his
hold. When they met mine, my muscles melted, my toes gluing
themselves to the cement ground. In my ears, our rushing footsteps
echoed around us, still running away, even though I knew the sound
was actually my beating heart. A very alive beating heart.
Daniel’s grip loosened, as if he could sense
I wasn’t going to run anymore, and he hung his head to take a deep
breath. When he exhaled, a misty fog enveloped the space between
us. It only took a few blinks for me to realize my breath was
mixing with his—our breathing bounced around the confining walls of
Shadow Alley like the flicking lights swinging in the cold gale.
Some of the iron lights squeaked.
My eyes moved from window to window,
searching for witnesses who might call the police, but Daniel
caught my attention with a wave of his hand.
“That’s an abandoned building,” he managed as
he caught his breath. “Unless you count gangs—”
“You’re in the Northern Flock.”
His mouth remained open from my interruption,
but his lips quickly shut, only to crack open again. “See that tree
over there?”
I didn’t look. I kept staring at him. But he
was looking over my shoulder. His irises moved in a way that
allowed me to picture what he was seeing, a stretched-out, bare
tree leaned against the fence.
“When I was eleven, I climbed that tree,” he
continued. “Cal always told me not to, but I didn’t listen. I
wanted to see—” He cleared his throat, and his eyes dropped back to
me. “Anyway, when I got halfway up, I froze. I couldn’t move,
couldn’t bring myself to shout out, couldn’t get down. I just
froze.” A half-smile appeared. “I don’t know how much time passed,
but eventually, everyone has to fall, and I did.” As if to mimic
his story, he sat down on the fractured curb. “I fell straight to
the gravel, and I was sure my neck was going to break when I hit
the ground.”
Daniel broke eye contact to stare at the road
beneath our feet. Even with his healing powers, he believed he
could die, and I knew why. I had seen the photo, the one of his
injury when Cal had saved him. He could.
“Of course I didn’t die,” he said after a
moment. “I landed on top of a girl instead. Her white hair was the
first thing I saw.”
“Snow Angel?”
He looked up and blinked. “What?” Right as he
asked, my nickname must have registered, because he chuckled. “Oh,
her name’s Michele, but yeah, that’s how I met her.”
I tried to picture the Snow Angel as a child,
squished beneath Daniel, but nothing came. I only saw Daniel’s
injured self, sitting on Calhoun’s lap.
“Earlier that day, she had a premonition of
my falling, and she saved me,” he explained her bad-blooded powers.
“She denies it. Says her premonition only showed me falling, not if
I hit the ground or not. It’s impossible to know if she saved me,
but she did. Without her, who knows what would’ve happened? But I
knew what I wanted after.” Daniel shrugged. “There were four of us
by the end of the year.”
I stared at him, waiting for him to continue,
but when he didn’t, I repeated myself, “You’re in the Northern
Flock.”
“Oh, come on.” He hit his knees as he stood
up. “You knew that,” he said. “You knew that since the second time
you saw me. I didn’t keep it a secret.”
He wasn’t wrong. I always suspected it, and
eventually, I had known, but this was different. Now, it was a
fact. An undeniable fact. And I had never wanted it to become a
fact. I had only wanted to know about Robert, about my origins,
and—somehow—Daniel had slipped in along the way, and so had the
Northern Flock.
“You never actually told me,” I managed.
“That’s keeping a secret.”
“You never told me about the Southern
Flock.”
“And I was never going to!” There was no
point in hiding it anymore.
“You’re the one who stayed in the alleyway
and asked about Robert,” he pointed out. “I tried to leave. You
insisted on talking.”
I folded my arms. “And you wanted to walk me
home when I tried to leave.”
We were glaring at each other—an achingly
silent glare, much louder than our words.
A current of cold air cut between us, and his
bangs waved across his scrunched brow before it relaxed. He sighed,
more voluminous than his shout, and rubbed his temples like he
could massage the tension of the past few days away. I watched
every bit of him move—a careful collection of soundless gestures
made habit from living on the streets—but tonight, his fingers
shook. I wondered when he had last opened up about his past—how
much it affected him to talk about it to a strange girl who ran
away after seeing the faces of his flock, his family. That’s why I
made a decision.
I planted my feet and sat down on the curb.
“So that’s how long you knew? Since the second time?”
