likely be more.
We didn’t have a second to lose.
But I still had unfinished business with Atticus. I found Lawrence stalking a parallel street, carrying two long blades.
“Lawrence,” I called, relieved to find him, but hardly able to express it as I delivered the bad news. “I can’t find your father anywhere in the base. Do you have any idea where else he could be? I checked everywhere I could possibly think of. I fear he might not be in Chicago after all.”
Before he could answer, more Bloodless surrounded us—too many to hold a conversation in comfort. I grabbed Lawrence by the arms and then launched us upward into the air, setting us down on the roof of a nearby building.
Lawrence furrowed his brows. “Let me try calling his phone.”
Lawrence pulled out his phone that I had returned to him sometime back and dialed his father’s number. He pressed the device to his ear, biting on his lower lip hard as it began to ring.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
No answer.
He tried again.
Still no luck.
I doubted either of us had actually expected Atticus to answer. Lawrence was not exactly on the best of terms with his father right now. I doubted whether Atticus would ever take another call from him again.
“Damn,” Lawrence murmured, stowing the phone back into his pocket. “He could be anywhere.”
Atticus
A fter giving the order , I decided that I wanted to watch everything play out. I took my private helicopter and flew it away from the IBSI’s base, over the river, and landed it on one of the tallest buildings within Bloodless territory.
I watched as the Bloodless swarmed over the temporary bridges I had ordered be set up, and into the hapless residential quarters.
Could I honestly say that I didn’t feel even the slightest twinge at doing this? No. There were families living in that area. I knew that. But I had to remind myself why I was doing any of this to begin with. Many more lives would be claimed and ruined in the future if we didn’t make sacrifices now.
And besides, if it weren’t for Lawrence and The Shadow League, none of this would even be required. There would have been minimal damage to people. But this was an important lesson that we had to teach not only The Shadow League, but the entire world. I had been monitoring the news reports that were spreading across the Internet like a virus, and I couldn’t deny that many of the comments they were making about my organization stung. The vast majority of people already believed Lawrence, and the footage demonstrating the antidote in action. I still had no idea how they had actually managed to crack the antidotes and find all the right ingredients, since the first thing I’d done after Lawrence had betrayed me back in the lab was make sure the antidote ingredients were removed and transported somewhere where nobody would find them. Yes, they had managed to confiscate our stock of trees from Aviary, and it was possible that they had located the other plants from there, given that they were apparently now in alliance with the Hawks, but it still confused me as to how they could ever have gotten the blood that was required for the antidote.
But whatever the case, it was irrelevant now anyway. They had cracked the antidote and were apparently confident about creating enough of it to transform a significant number of Bloodless.
The screams and shouts piercing the night made my spine tingle.
The Shadow League had no clue. Absolutely no clue. I imagined they still thought that they could bring world peace by recruiting more of the supernaturals who were causing our problems in the first place. They probably still thought that they could trust them to turn into protectors. Well, now they had the perfect opportunity to test that theory, with the world as their audience.
After TSL’s failure, the IBSI’s position would only become stronger. Even if the world accused us of being duplicitous in our dealings, nobody could deny that we had kept
We didn’t have a second to lose.
But I still had unfinished business with Atticus. I found Lawrence stalking a parallel street, carrying two long blades.
“Lawrence,” I called, relieved to find him, but hardly able to express it as I delivered the bad news. “I can’t find your father anywhere in the base. Do you have any idea where else he could be? I checked everywhere I could possibly think of. I fear he might not be in Chicago after all.”
Before he could answer, more Bloodless surrounded us—too many to hold a conversation in comfort. I grabbed Lawrence by the arms and then launched us upward into the air, setting us down on the roof of a nearby building.
Lawrence furrowed his brows. “Let me try calling his phone.”
Lawrence pulled out his phone that I had returned to him sometime back and dialed his father’s number. He pressed the device to his ear, biting on his lower lip hard as it began to ring.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring.
No answer.
He tried again.
Still no luck.
I doubted either of us had actually expected Atticus to answer. Lawrence was not exactly on the best of terms with his father right now. I doubted whether Atticus would ever take another call from him again.
“Damn,” Lawrence murmured, stowing the phone back into his pocket. “He could be anywhere.”
Atticus
A fter giving the order , I decided that I wanted to watch everything play out. I took my private helicopter and flew it away from the IBSI’s base, over the river, and landed it on one of the tallest buildings within Bloodless territory.
I watched as the Bloodless swarmed over the temporary bridges I had ordered be set up, and into the hapless residential quarters.
Could I honestly say that I didn’t feel even the slightest twinge at doing this? No. There were families living in that area. I knew that. But I had to remind myself why I was doing any of this to begin with. Many more lives would be claimed and ruined in the future if we didn’t make sacrifices now.
And besides, if it weren’t for Lawrence and The Shadow League, none of this would even be required. There would have been minimal damage to people. But this was an important lesson that we had to teach not only The Shadow League, but the entire world. I had been monitoring the news reports that were spreading across the Internet like a virus, and I couldn’t deny that many of the comments they were making about my organization stung. The vast majority of people already believed Lawrence, and the footage demonstrating the antidote in action. I still had no idea how they had actually managed to crack the antidotes and find all the right ingredients, since the first thing I’d done after Lawrence had betrayed me back in the lab was make sure the antidote ingredients were removed and transported somewhere where nobody would find them. Yes, they had managed to confiscate our stock of trees from Aviary, and it was possible that they had located the other plants from there, given that they were apparently now in alliance with the Hawks, but it still confused me as to how they could ever have gotten the blood that was required for the antidote.
But whatever the case, it was irrelevant now anyway. They had cracked the antidote and were apparently confident about creating enough of it to transform a significant number of Bloodless.
The screams and shouts piercing the night made my spine tingle.
The Shadow League had no clue. Absolutely no clue. I imagined they still thought that they could bring world peace by recruiting more of the supernaturals who were causing our problems in the first place. They probably still thought that they could trust them to turn into protectors. Well, now they had the perfect opportunity to test that theory, with the world as their audience.
After TSL’s failure, the IBSI’s position would only become stronger. Even if the world accused us of being duplicitous in our dealings, nobody could deny that we had kept
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