Bad Bloods Read online

  By: Shannon A. Thompson

  Dedicated to those who burn bright enough to compete with the stars. Keep shining.

  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 coincidental.

  NO part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Bad Bloods: July Lightning

  Copyright ©2017 Shannon A. Thompson

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-63422-247-1

  Cover Design by: Marya Heiman

  Typography by: Courtney Knight

  Editing by: Kelly Risser

  ~Smashwords Edition~

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  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  “She tricked me.”

  Levi got three words out before I raised my hand at him. The boy flinched, understandably so—whether it be from the fear Violet’s shadows brought him or the darkness in my own eyes—but he should’ve been happy.

  Instead of hitting him, I wrapped Levi into a hug. No one would get hurt today. Too much of that happened already.

  “I knew you’d come back,” I said, backslapping him so hard he lost his breath. Then, he laughed. The first time I’d heard the sound, I had just accepted him into the herd. Mainly because he had someone to protect. His powers actually came later. Sometimes, the best gifts came from giving first. Levi was proof of that.

  “It’s not like I chose to,” Levi said, but his feigned despair was lost on his smirk. He wanted to come back. He always did. “But that ghost of yours is really something.”

  I eyed Violet over his shoulder, her expression the most unreadable out of the bunch who tagged along. Next to her stood Adam Ruthford and Daniel Wilson. I wished I was surprised, but I wasn’t. I knew she’d try to find me after she spoke to Calhoun Wilson—my biological father, whether I liked it or not. And now, her father, too.

  The revelation forced me to move the herd from our paradise. But once we settled into the Western Flock’s old home, I remembered how I told her our trade secret. Our three-move system. Levi knew the trail, and Levi scared easily. But one thing remained true.

  “Never thought you’d actually sink that low,” I said to Violet and Violet only.

  After learning how her shadows killed humans—something she could’ve killed me with accidentally—I thought she’d learned a lesson. I thought, maybe, she’d second-guess her choice to use her powers, especially to get her way. But she’d done it to Levi, too, and even now, she shrugged at my assumptions.

  I analyzed how much of her was her and how much of her personality was a result of Daniel, of Calhoun, of all the people in between I wished she never knew.

  Separating her from them was impossible.

  “Thanks for bringing Levi back,” I said, “but there’s nothing to discuss now.”

  Then, I turned and walked away. The creaking, aching floorboards followed, and though Violet normally used the shadows to walk, I listened to her footsteps echo mine. Between us, the Western Flock home swayed.

  From the first day, I hated how the house moved—how it sounded and shifted in the wind and rain—like a living thing. But that fact steered us toward it. While trekking through the side streets one afternoon, Ellen claimed she could hear it from the alleyway, but when Kat climbed the fence to check the abandoned field, she saw nothing. Still, curiosity killed the cat…or in this case, it led Kat to a death house.

  While some rumors about the Western Flock house were false—like how it no longer stood when it clearly did—other rumors were true, like how the government didn’t clean up after their mess.

  It took weeks, but the house was worth the renovation. No one suspected the location, even the government avoided it, and the quiet settled most of my nerves. Still, the smell of death always remained.

  Kuthun once confessed to seeing the strings, too—like the dead’s fates weren’t over yet—and I shuddered at the idea of my purpose continuing even after I was gone.

  I was immortal, but I wanted to be in charge of my immortality.

  That was the least death could give, right?

  “We’re not leaving,” Violet said, as restless as the very death chasing me. It was fitting, for the shadow that she was. Maybe that was why I found her so familiar.

  “What is it, Vi?” I used her shortened name on purpose. If it hurt her, she didn’t show it. She hardly showed anything at all, yet I still searched. I wished to see some slice of her soul to take with me when I was gone. But her eyes fell upon me with pity.

  We may have been standing alone in a room ten feet away from her makeshift family, but somehow, the unknown memories of those lost thirteen years ago filled the space between us. I wondered how much Daniel suffocated here. I wondered if Adam comforted him. I wondered if they knew how I missed out on it all.

  “You need to tell them,” Violet insisted.

  At first, I thought Calhoun had only told her about our relation—that my origins remained a secret—but I saw the desperation on her face.

  She wanted me to talk about the wall.

  This wasn’t even about me.

  “I told you, so you could tell them,” I said.

  “I’m not much of a talker.”

  Her introverted nature both frustrated and attracted me. How much I wished I could keep my lips sealed. How much I desired to keep to myself so I didn’t have to lose. How much I yearned to hate music so I didn’t dread the loss of sound in death. All while Violet stood content in silence and shadows, my heart broke at the idea of it.

  When I turned to leave again though, she appeared right in front of me. “You can’t outrun a shadow,” she teased.

  I sank into a nearby chair. When it croaked, I did too. “What do you want, Violet?”

  I tried to use her shortened name again, but couldn’t. It didn’t bother her anyway, and in all truthfulness, I didn’t want to hurt her. I doubted she wanted to hurt me either—but her presence did just that. So did Adam’s. So did Daniel’s. I had never wanted this day to come. “Why are you doing this?”

  She kneeled in front of me. “Because I never left the shadows until someone forced me out.”


  “Nice metaphor,” I joked, but as I dragged my eyes up to her, she met my stare defiantly. She ignored everything I couldn’t. “We’re brother and sister,” I said instead.

  She smirked. “Calhoun adopted me.” Hearing my first name on her lips unsettled my nerves. “We’re hardly blood related.”

  I balled up my fists. “He’s my dad.”

  “And mine’s dead.”

  My heart pounded, caught somewhere between sorrow for her and my own self-pity. “You don’t know that—”

  “I do,” she said matter-of-factly, and finally, she pulled up another chair to sit next to me. “Everyone thinks I don’t know where I came from, but I do.” Another secret I had yet to know. “I saw the wheat.”

  “Wheat?”

  She smiled like it was a fond memory. “Yeah, I remembered it, too. My home, my family.” Then, her reminiscent smile faded to a frown. “All that was left was graves.”

  Rumors about Shadow Alley spoke of a shadow who lived for a hundred years, maybe longer. The oldest recorded bad blood of all time, in fact. But I had written those rumors off as well—especially when I found out Violet had been that shadow.

  She was fourteen, not one hundred, and I assumed she’d lost her family the way many bad bloods did—by surviving the streets after being kicked out. Now, I heard differently. Now, she told me the truth.

  “Sure, I let Cal adopt me.” She stretched her arms out in front of her and cracked her knuckles, as if preparing for the fight she never had. “But if I were completely honest, I just liked his last name—your last name, I guess.”

  My heart thumped against my ribs.

  She giggled but quickly silenced, an instrument toning itself. “Wilson is close to my real name.” To her dead family’s. “I’m a Welborn,” she said. “Violet Welborn, and the world already thinks I’m dead.” Her arms collapsed until she rested her elbows on her knees and her head on her hands. “I even had a grave.”

  I tried to picture it, but my imagination refused to build such a thing.

  “I was born on Independence Day,” she added. “Well, Separation Day,” she corrected. “Only Serah knows.”

  “Who’s Serah?”

  “Serena’s little sister. Her actual sister. Biological, I mean,” she clarified. “I don’t think I have any biological siblings, not really, and that includes you.” And Adam and Daniel and anyone else she was related to by law. “If I have any biological family, they’re long dead.”

  Then, Vendona took her flock away, too.

  “I told you I followed you because I was a shadow,” she said, “but I think it was more than that.” Her hand dropped to her shattered knee, the same one I had touched, and her fingers made circles around the broken bone. “I noticed your limp…” When she couldn’t walk either. “And then, Frankie touched me.”

  Of course she knew. Of course she saw me for how I was. Much too old to even be talking to her. But she grinned like she had another secret.

  “That’s when I realized you were more like me than I wanted you to be,” she said.

  “What’s that mean?”

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Twenty.”

  “I’m sixty-four,” she said, and my world spun. “I was six for sixty years. Whenever I’m in the shadows, time stops.” She explained all the rumors I heard about Shadow Alley. “I imagine you know what that feels like.”

  “Does Daniel know this?” I asked.

  “Daniel saved me from it.”

  “Saved you?”

  “From eternity,” she said. “I don’t want to live forever. But back then, I hardly wanted to live at all.” As she bent over, she curled up the bottom of her pants leg. “Recently, I felt the same way as I used to.” Another inch of her skin shone in the golden kitchen light. “Lost.” Then, she showed me her knee, the one that used to be destroyed, the one that now looked perfect.

  Daniel had healed her.

  “I yelled at him over it,” she confessed.

  “What?” If only my illness could heal, too. “Why?”

  “Because he acted like nothing changed,” she said. “He was my leader. I followed him everywhere.” Her pause drowned me. “Now that it’s done, I’m making my own decisions.” Then, a smile. A bright one, too. “So, I’m here because I want your help. And I think you want mine, too.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s why I told you—”

  “You can’t just expect people to help you, Caleb,” she interrupted. “Sometimes, you must help yourself, and sometimes, you have to ask for help, too.”

  She wouldn’t take my information and run with it. She wanted me to be a part of it, as much as she was.

  “I need your help right now,” she said. “I need to know more about the wall, and Daniel and Adam need to know about the wall. But first, you all need to reconcile with one another.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t.”

  “You can,” she corrected and squeezed my hand. “You should at least know the truth,” she added before I could argue. She stood. “It’s not what you think.”

  When she walked away, she didn’t limp, and my own legs ached in place of her removed pain.

  I was both happy for her and jealous of her. But loud crying from the other room disrupted any emotions I thought I had the right to have.

  When I entered the entryway, chaos ensued. From every nook and cranny, curious faces poked around corners to stare at our newcomers, and our newcomers stared back. In the middle, Plato sobbed, wrapped up in and around Levi’s torso. Sand leftover in Levi’s blond hair had already splintered into glass, and, in turn, it shimmered green with Levi’s electric power.

  “Oh, yah sucker,” Levi said, but his voice lacked any humor. “Take a breath. A big one, okay?”

  When Levi set the child down, Plato didn’t stop crying.

  The boy became easily overwhelmed, and the first step was always clearing the room.

  I stepped toward them to make my presence known and waved the others away. The herd disappeared, only Kuthun lingering a moment too long. I looked at Levi. “How’s he doing?”

  Levi laid his hand on Plato’s head. “He’ll be fine.”

  Plato rubbed his nose on his sleeve, then nodded. “Now that my brother’s back.”

  Violet’s jaw dropped at the news, but Levi focused on his little brother. “Why don’t you go get me some water? I’ll even clean some for yah.”

  Plato lit up, then ran off in excitement. As soon as he disappeared, Violet saw her chance to hit Levi’s arm. “How could you leave him behind like that?”

  I often wondered the same thing. The only reason Levi approached the herd in the first place was to save Plato from the streets, but now more than ever, Levi took time away from everyone for unknown reasons. Now the answer seemed obvious.

  “Because the sea.” Levi spoke to Violet once he saw acceptance in my eyes. “Yah think I wanted to leave that island? I barely survive on land. But they’d run outta water eventually.” Which meant the herd would be forced to move inland. “Sometimes, the best thing you can do for someone you love is to leave them behind.”

  Then, Levi left himself, probably to see where Plato went to get water, and the room succumbed to silence.

  Daniel took that moment to survey the room. He stared at the old furniture with a furrowed brow and the new furniture with a confused one. His hand rested on a bookcase.

  “That was empty when we got here,” I said, and Daniel answered one of my biggest mysteries.

  “We always had lots of books,” Daniel said.

  Someone—at some point—had been in the Western Flock before the herd.

  “Abigail…” Daniel paused. “I don’t recognize these titles.”

  “They’re mine,” I explained, albeit hesitantly.

  Jia-Li may have given me every book she could get her hands on, but that didn’t mean she wanted me to share them. Some were Chinese and some were ancient. Others were regular tales told around campf
ires. But they all felt equally important to me.

  “What’re they about?” Violet asked, thumbing one’s edge until it tilted out and faced her. A beautiful woman with a fin for legs adorned the cover.

  “Mermaids,” I said, “or at least, that one is.”

  Violet showed it to Daniel, and suddenly, the tension in the room began to fade.

  It even felt…natural.

  “There’s a poem by Lord Alfred Tennyson in the back,” I continued, and Violet looked. “The Mermaid.”

  “Should I know what a mermaid is?” Adam piped up, and I studied him, wondering how strange it was that he looked the same as he did when he was three and yet, not really.

  He was a different person now, and so was I.

  “Mermaids are half-human, half-fish creatures in the sea,” I explained.

  “They’re not real,” Daniel added. “They’re myths.” But in a world where bad bloods existed, mermaids seemed plausible. So did other monsters.

  “They might be real,” I argued, while leaning against the wall. “I’ve seen other creatures before.”

  “Like what?” Violet asked, excited.

  “A shuǐ guǐ.”

  This time, even Daniel seemed stumped.

  “It’s a spirit that drowns you to possess your body,” I said, “but mine saved me.”

  Violet’s dark eyes searched mine before she went back to reading Tennyson’s poem. Secretly, I wished to know how she interpreted the piece—as vanity, as solitude, or as both. I feared we shared the same answer.

  It was a tragedy.

  “I’m glad someone helped you out, spirit or not,” Adam spoke up, lighthearted and uncertain. “But I never stopped looking for you.”

  My cousin. If I remembered correctly, he would’ve been seventeen now, and I should’ve been twenty. I was older—only by a little bit, but older nevertheless. Now, he looked down on me. Now, I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “At least one of you didn’t give up,” I muttered.

  “Cal didn’t either.”

  Three words as unexpected as I love you.

  “The lady in charge…she told him you died from a disease.” Jia-Li. “But I didn’t believe it, and neither did Cal.” My father even had a nickname. One I didn’t know about. “We never gave up looking for you. Never.”