They weren’t anywhere near as worried about what we could do as they probably should have been.
They didn’t know I could now run even faster than I had in my race with Zian today. Or that the guy walking alongside me could not only pick up on other people’s emotions but throw his own at them.
We’d learned to hide new talents as they emerged as much as we could during their brutal evaluations. And as long as our jailers didn’t discover those talents in their tests, they wouldn’t be guarding against them.
We marched up the blank white stairwell into a blank white hall to the blank white doors of what might as well have been prison cells. The guardians opened our doors across the hall from each other with a blue keycard.
Griffin raised his hand to my cheek and gave one of the silvery strands that’d slipped free from my braid a gentle tug. When we were little, he’d told me the pale streaks of hair falling over the slate-gray underneath looked like moonlight streaming through the night.
He smiled at me, a soft glint lighting in his sky-blue eyes. “Sleep well, Moonbeam.”
“You too, Emo Boy,” I retorted, and treasured the peal of his laugh as the door shut between us.
On the small table across from my bed, I found my dinner waiting: roast chicken leg, mashed potatoes, boiled carrots. I shoveled it down my throat without processing the flavor. It wasn’t like there was a whole lot to miss anyway.
To pass the time afterward, I tapped the controls on the panel over the table to turn on the music channel I liked best. Lush melodies and thumping beats swept through the room.
Normally I’d have swayed along with them, maybe even gotten to my feet and let my whole body move with the music the way I never did when the guys could see me. I probably looked ridiculous when I danced, but I didn’t care if I was on my own. It felt good.
It was one of the few specks of goodness Icouldcling on to in this place when I was alone.
But tonight I was too wound up to sink into the music. And if the guardians were watching from their cameras, my tension would become obvious the more I moved.
I couldn’t let anything raise their suspicions.
Instead, I flopped down on my bed to simply listen. My hand rose to the pendant that rested against my sternum.
Griffin had brought pewter necklaces back for all of us one of the first times he’d gone on a solo mission in the wider world, using the cash the guardians had given him. I couldn’t imagine they’d intended it for that purpose, but for whatever reason, they’d let us keep the gifts.
Maybe that tiny act of generosity made them feel better about everything else they inflicted on us.
My fingers clicked apart the metal cat from the sculpted ball of yarn it was curled around and then snapped them back into place on their rolling joint.
Click. Snap. Click. Snap.
The rhythm settled my nerves just a little bit. I closed my eyes as if I were tired from today’s workout, though I hadn’t pushed myself anywhere close to my real limits.
One song bled into the next until the lights went out. In the darkness, I kept my eyes closed and pretended to sleep. But my thoughts only got louder.
What would it be like, out in the wider world without the guardians controlling our every movement, jabbing and zapping us if we resisted—or just because they felt like it?
I’d gotten a taste of freedom on my own missions, but those had always been alone. Alone, and knowing that if I disobeyed my orders, the guys I’d left behind here at the facility would pay for my defiance.
Once we were out there and free… could I let them all know how I felt about them? All the longings and hungers that were so much more secret than what TV shows I liked or how I danced?
Griffin knew, because Griffin could absorb emotions like I inhaled stress chemicals. We’d never talked about it openly, but sometimes when a flash of desire or a pang of affection hit me around the other guys, he’d catch my eye and give me a subtle nod, as if to tell me it was all right.
“We’re blood, remember?” he’d assured me once, without ever saying exactly what he was talking about. “We’re going to be here for each other in every way. It’sbetterif no one’s left out. The other guys will see it that way too.”
Could he really be so sure about that? There were definitely times when I got into a friendly bickering match with Jacob and thought there was more than just passion for the debate flaring in his eyes. Or when I wrestled with Zian and his breath seemed to hitch at the exact same time mine did as our bodies collided.
When Dominic scooted just a little closer to me while we sat together in companionable silence. When Andreas’s gaze lingered on my lips while he paid me a compliment I’d otherwise have taken as teasing.
But that didn’t mean they’d be okay with me wantingallof them. If soap operas had taught me anything, it was how pissed off people could get when someone wanted to kiss more than one dude at the same time.
I shoved away the images my mind had conjured. We could figure out the rest once we had the space to do it, without guardians monitoring and dictating our every move.
After a while, the music shut off too. That meant it was really late. I willed myself not to tense up, to keep lying there in fake slumber.