Page 108 of Broken Ties

Obsessed to the bitter end, Gryph murmurs to his Second. “Get Oli out of here now.”

My head jerks up to see Gryphon and Kieran checking over their weapons together, their hands moving quickly over their bodies. Kieran doesn’t look happy at this suggestion. “I don’t have enough energy to come back, we’ll find another way.”

Gryph glances at me, taking in the obvious, before he shakes his head. “Draven can’t go again, he’s drained, and I’m not going to let him push past his ability.”

The girl looks over at me, too, but I refuse to humor her. It’s her fucking fault we’re here in the first place and she’s done nothing to help get us all home safe. I knew she’d be the death of me, but this? Being taken out in some corn field by a few Resistance grunts who got lucky?

Pathetic.

There’s another shout and then one of the cars is lifted and thrown at the Shield, bouncing off of it without any damage. Then Samual’s nose starts to bleed, and we all know we’re running on borrowed time.

The girl finally moves into action but, like the hallway, it’s too little, too fucking late.

"Stand behind us, Oleander,” Gryphon growls at her, but she doesn’t give a fuck about her own safety, clearly.

She just shakes her head at him and prances a little closer to the Shield edge. Samual is shooting looks at Gryph like he’s worried he’s about to get her killed, but it’s her own fault! If anything does happen, I’ll go to war with Gryph and North about—if we’re not dead, that is, which we absolutely will be.

When Samual glances over at Gryph again, I intervene, mostly so I can snarl at the girl. "There's no use dying here, Poison. You'll only have yourself to blame. Gift or not, there’s at least a hundred men.”

There’s movement around us, but I can’t look away from the sheer selfish stupidity of this girl. If I’m dying, I’d like to do it cursing her name and loathing her to my last breath. I’m struggling to stay upright and conscious, so when she takes a deep breath of her own, I think for a moment that she’s mocking me. Then she rolls her shoulders back like she’s preparing herself.

Then she casts her Gift out.

I felt it before, falling over me like a blanket, but this feels like a creeping vine, growing out to wrap around the soldiers outside of the Shield.

At the last moment, she looks back to me with defiance and fire in her eyes.

Her Gift detonates like a bomb.

Every soldier drops in an instant. With only the sound of their bodies hitting the dirt, their bodies convulsing, blood dripping from their eyes and noses, they might not be dead but there’s no recovering from…whatever the hell you call that.

Eyes flaring in shock, I can’t help but hold her gaze now that she has me trapped there, pinned like some bug she has ondisplay. No one else notices the aggression of her eye contact; they’re too busy losing their minds over her Gift.

Or maybe it’s the sheer breadth of it.

Me?

I’m stuck on the fact that she’s still standing. An entire envoy of Gifted taken out at once and she’s standing there looking completely unaffected. In fact, her bond is vibrant and alive within her chest, as though it’s desperate for more.

"Holy fucking shit."

“Did she do that? I thought she wasn’t Gifted?”

"How the fuck did she take out that many at once?”

“Monster.”

Gryphon covers her immediately, blocking her from his team as his eyes flash to white, at least five Gifted have their minds effectively ‘turned off’ as a preventative measure. Gabe scrambles to get a hold of her and yanks her into his chest to finally break our eye contact.

I feel as though my soul has been scoured right down to the softest flesh, and I hate every second of this.

After a moment, she pulls away from him again and within seconds, he’s back to stumbling around like a newborn foal. I’m forced to catch him before he ends up on his ass after he barrels into me and the wave of exhausted nausea sets my temper alight.

Without thinking, I snap at him, “Don’t think we’ve forgotten about your idiot decisions either, Ardern. What the fuck were you thinking? You would’ve been more useful to us if you’d stayed behind and kept Bassinger muzzled. Fucking useless.”

Her Gift goes off again.

This time, it’s a warning call, the same as North lets out when shit is about to hit the fan, but despite knowing that it’s not an attack—yet—I can’t help but feel as though she’s taken aim at me. I’m not the only one though; Gryph’s team scream and takecover like there’s anything they could do against her, but her focus is entirely on me.