Free Bad Bloods by Shannon A. Thompson Page B

against his orders, after all. I expected him. I
always did. But I hadn’t expected the entire flock to be waiting.
Quite the welcome home party.
    Robert stood at the front of the pack. “Close
the door.”
    I pressed my back against the cool wood, and
it slowly creaked shut. I snaked my hand behind me, locking the
front door and sliding the ID into my jeans pocket. My eyes studied
the room with quick precision. Huey with Timmy. Jake with Justan.
Briauna on the couch with the cat. Ami hovering near her, clutching
an invisible Melody. Steven sat on the stairs, one hand on
Catelyn’s shoulders, and when I looked at Catelyn, her cheeks
flushed.
    “You told?” I guessed.
    “I’m sorry—” She tried to stand up, but
Steven held her down. He never wanted her to get involved. Part of
him denied she already was.
    Robert stomped his right foot to get my
attention. “I trusted you not to leave right now.” His voice
rumbled like he was preventing himself from screaming. His brown
hair stuck up like he already had.
    I took a breath before choosing my words. “I
had to.”
    “You had to return to your
parents?”
    My brow furrowed, and I realized my mistake.
Catelyn had lied—saying I left to see my parents instead of
Daniel—but Robert knew me better than anyone did. I twitched. That
was all it took.
    Robert looked between Catelyn and me, his
narrowed eyes widening and his brow loosening. His intense demeanor
shifted as his shoulders fell, and when he looked at me, he leaned
back as if he suddenly lost his vision and couldn’t see me clearly.
“Who’d you go meet?” His deep voice was calm, too calm. I knew him
well enough to know what calm meant. It only happened when
he thought he’d lose control of his powers.
    I swallowed. “I went to see my family.”
    His gaze searched mine, and even though I
knew he could hear my lies, he sighed. Maybe he wanted to believe
me. Either way, I wanted to speak with him alone.
    He pressed the space on either side of his
nose and shut his eyes. “Being your parents barely constitutes a
family,” he muttered as some of the kids inched toward the basement
door. “We’re your family; they abandoned you.”
    It was the way he said it—so confident, so
practiced and scripted. It was the line we told every one of our
bad bloods whenever they tried to leave, and we said it because it
was true. Normally. It wasn’t true for me. Robert said it to me to
unite us, but I couldn’t be united anymore. We wouldn’t survive
that way.
    “I ran away.” The words slipped out of me
with ease, and Robert straightened up, partially raising his hand
as if he were close enough to slap it over my mouth to silence me.
But he wasn’t. “I only ran away because I met you, remember?”
    His face flushed, and the room began to warm
up. “You came on your own freewill.”
    “I was five, Robert.” I spread my fingers out
so he could see them. “Five,” I repeated. “I didn’t have
freewill.”
    The room grew hotter. One kid whined, but
Robert’s glare was on me. “So now I kidnapped you, too?”
    I didn’t yell back. He didn’t kidnap me. I
knew that. I would’ve run away another day if I hadn’t met him that
night. But he did take me, and he never acknowledged it and I
hadn’t either. The conversation was a long time coming.
    “What do you think your family would’ve done
once they found out you were a bad blood?” he snapped under the
years of silence. “Your father was a cop.”
    He was the only person I had told other than
Daniel, but I had told Daniel another detail I had never told
Robert. “They already knew.” As I said it, he stepped back like I
had hit him. I stepped after him. “And they leave me presents on
their doorstep. And I have a sister. And I would know her name if I
could read their letters.”
    “Letters?”
    I yanked it out of my pocket, the one that
didn’t hold my fake ID, and I shook it in front of me. “Letters,” I
confirmed, hearing my voice scratch