Page 104 of Broken Ties
I get a hold of her arms and, to hell with it, I plead with her. “Dara is the best Shield I’ve ever seen, no one will know you’re even here as long as she’s with you. Don’t move from this spot, Oli. Promise me.”
She opens her mouth to reply, but there’s another explosion further out on campus, screams tearing through the air, and I’m ripping my clothes off as my Shift barely waits before taking over me entirely. I choose the wolf form, an old favorite with a lot of sharp teeth.
Right before I leave, I take one last look at my Bond and, god, am I glad I did. That face will be seared into my memories forever, no matter what else happens today. She stares at my wolf with the type of wonder that makes my heart stop in my chest, then thump so hard I feel like I might pass out. I focus onher heartbeat as well, imprinting it into my memory alongside her image. Then I turn and throw myself into the fight.
One soldier, two soldiers, three; their bodies are torn apart before they get the chance to wield their Gifts against me. Bassinger holds his own, bullets bouncing off of him like they’re nothing, and a few of the soldiers even throw balls of fire at him. He doesn’t burn, he doesn’t even flinch at the heat, and while I might be tearing the soldiers to pieces, he’s crushing skulls and snapping necks just as quickly. It’s clear he’s picking the quickest deaths he can give them, and when a Telekinetic throws a car at him, he catches it and uses it to crush a group of them all at once.
When there are no soldiers left, I duck back behind the Shield to check in on my Bond. The group of students has grown tenfold and are all huddled together as they stare at Bassinger as a group. They barely notice me, open-mouthed and awestruck as they are at the display of a Gift they’ve never seen before.
I scoop my clothes up to Shift back only to freeze on the spot… Oli’s heartbeat is gone. Wait, not entirely, she’s just not here behind the Shield anymore. Ears straining, I push until I find the direction she’s heading.
The moment I find it, I’m out.
It’s that simple, I refuse to be left behind again. The Resistance will drag her back to their sorting camps and when they figure out my Bond is Giftless, they’ll kill her. They don’t have any interest in Lower Tier Gifted, why the hell would they keep an anomaly like Oli alive?
“Ardern! Get the fuck back here?—”
I ignore Bassinger and push myself harder, listening for the sound of Oli’s heartbeat. Even in this form, I know her like I know myself. I see the Dravens’ nightmare creatures, enough forms to know they must both be here, but still I push myselfharder, further, following the sound of her heartbeat through the crowd until I get to the edge of campus.
The sound almost disappears entirely, not in death but by being driven away, and my instinct drives me. I slow down until I can pick out a Resistance soldier with enough weapons and training to be worth something and stalk toward them with intention so that the Gifted takes notice. Then I stop in the street and Shift back to my human form, pulling my clothes back on.
The Gifted tips her head back, her eyes running over me at the same time as her Gift does.
“Grab him—if the Draven Bond Shifter wants a free ride, we’ll give him one.”
Except they don’t grab me, and instead I’m hit in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. I’m out before I even have the chance to decide if this was a stupid idea or not, but it doesn’t really matter.
All that does is my Bond.
A rippleofsomethingworks over my skin.
I’m not conscious, not even close, and I’m definitely not dreaming because whatever the hell they shot me with has me gone, but that ripple is life-changing. I couldn’t ignore it if my life depended on it. I can’t explain how I know any of this, where I am, what’s happened to me, shit, I barely even know of my own existence.
None of my thoughts make any sense.
I don’t know if I’m human right now or if I’m still holding on to my Shift because my senses are all over the damned place. All I know is that ripple and the way every cell in my body has just been irrevocably changed because of it.
My bond practically orgasms over it.
I mean, it’s not that. I hope to god it’s not that, because my Bond is here in the room with me. Or, I guess, the not-room we’re in. I can smell it’s not a room, just like I can smell she’s close by, and… oh my god, the drugs have melted my brain in my skull.
I don’t know how long I lay there, mind racing with zero coherence, but eventually, I string enough of an idea together to know that I’m in human form, I haven’t had some sort of wet dream, and that’s where my luck runs out. Despite my bond being awake in my chest, I can’t access my Shift, which isn’t just bad news for my ability to get my Bond out of here. Shifting instantly sobers me up, a Gifted cheat code I’d never trade out, and now I’m utterlyfuckeduntil my body burns through the drugs the regular way.
Right.
I open my eyes, almost vomit at the assault of pain that cleaves my skull in half, and a groan rips out of my chest.
Then, there’s another ripple, only this time, I know what it is.
My bond experiences that same unbridled ecstasy, a level of euphoria that has to be up there withactualBonding, as Oli’s bond reaches out to me, except this is nothing like the fleeting brushes it’s attempted before. This hits me with a wave of power, her Gift pulsing through it as well, not just revealing itself to me but practically slamming into me like a freight train and scrambles my already scattered brain.
Howthe fuckdid she hidethatmuch power?
“Holy fuck.Holy fuck, what is she doing here?"
I crack one eye open the tiniest bit to look at the Resistance woman across the tent from our cages. My brain registers that we’re in cages, but I lose the importance of that pretty much straight away. She stares at my Bond the way Gifted stare at North or Nox. The way they stare at Gryph and I when theyfigure out we share a Central Bond with the Draven brothers. She stares at Oleander Fallows like she’s death incarnate.
What the fuck is her Gift?