Page 18 of Broken Ties
“One of these days, I'm gonna figure out how to roll the way Martinez does,” mutters Matt from next to me as he shakes his head at the grunting display before us.
Hannah scoffs at him. “I'd be dizzy and puking in a heartbeat if I were him. He also doesn't give a fuck about anyone else. Look at him, he just kicked Abigail in the teeth! I can't believe that poor girl is stuck being Bonded to him.”
Matt cackles at her, taking half a step forward before he looks back at me and hesitates. “We can wait with you if you want, Gabe. There's no point trying to get ahead if we're on the same team.”
I shake my head back to him. “I'm not waiting around for her. She made it clear she doesn't want to go through the course with me, so there's no point trying to help her out.”
Hannah gives me a sad look as she slings an arm over my shoulders and gives me a quick squeeze. Both of them are good about not calling me out on my lie; they both just watched me sulking at the edge of the forest. They tease and prod at each other playfully, but that only lasts until we reach the lines of razor-sharp steel threaded over the mud pit.
There's no time for fun on this course.
Being half the size of Matt and I, Hannah shimmies her way through with far more ease than us, but we both still make decent time and pass at least a dozen other students. My arms and my legs are torn apart by the time I'm heaving myself back to my feet on the other side.
Matt groans as he tries to catch his breath. “Who the fuck… do you think… created this course… I feel like… we should sue.”
Hannah rolls her eyes at him. “It's not that bad, Bonded. I’m not pissing the Dravens off over a roll in the mud.”
She shoots me a sheepish look for mentioning my Bond Group even playfully like this, but then she pauses, leaning in closer to murmur to me. “She’s just got here and she's alreadymoving to get under the wire… Jesus, she's quick! How the fuck she’s still on her feet after Vivian’s warm-up is beyond me; I'd be dead.”
Blowing out a breath, I shoot her a grateful look and we get back onto the path. There’s a quarter mile to the A-frame climber, and I enjoy the fresh air in my lungs while I can. In this class, the only stench worse than this obstacle is the pond bitch. In my first year of training on this course, I must’ve asked Gryphon a hundred times why the fuck it had to be that vile, but he didn’t answer me until I graduated high school and got accepted to Draven.
“If you choose to deploy on the TacTeams after you graduate, you'll smell far worse. Fuck, the things the Resistance do out there… you'll remember the pond bitch fondly.”
He had no idea that I would be going out into the field so soon, but nothing about our lives has followed protocol or expectations. My Bond running away from us might be our most gut-wrenching experience, but it's certainly not the only one we’ve endured.
As we half hobble, half stomp our way down to the netting suspended over the stinking bog, Matt starts whining about how sore his arms are and Hannah shakes her head at him.
“If you fall into it again, Bonded, I'm leaving you behind. It took me a week to get that reek out of my hair! Tilly almost moved out, and I'm not being forced to grovel on your account.”
Maybe running alongside these two wasn't the best idea. My Shift ripples underneath my skin in frustration, and I step ahead of both of them as I tuck my chin to my chest to hide my eyes. I shouldn't be so worried about losing control, it hasn't been a concern in years, and yet hearing that these two have exactly what I'm so desperate for makes me jealous and eats me alive.
Oli has been so fixated on the Bonding, and I can't deny howdesperatelyI want her, but this is the part that's killing me. Thelove and the companionship, the inside jokes and the affection, the life you build with the Bond made specifically for you. In the five years since she disappeared, I also lost my close-knit family, and though our Bond Group stepped in to fill all the spaces my parents left behind, there’s still an aching loneliness I’ve never been able to shake. Worse still, Oli’s newfound friendship with Sage Benson has given me a peek into what sharing my life with her might have looked like.
As I work my way across the rope net on autopilot, years of experience seeing me through without too much fear of the stench, I resign myself to knowing I'll have to tell Gryphon about her, too. Shame eats at me for my jealousy over Sage. We've always gotten along well, our parents' Bonded Groups were once friends, and I fucking despise Riley for what he's done to her.
None of that changes the fact that I'm now furiously enraged every time I see her and my Bond interact. One simple conversation in the cafeteria and Ollie was ready to go to war for Sage while her nose still turned up at the sight of me.
I stop and wait for Hannah and Matt on the other side of the clearing, the two of them taking long enough that I can watch Oli start the obstacle as well. My chest aches in a way I can't pretend is the course alone, so the moment my teammates catch up to me, I turn on my heel and sprint toward the finish line.
It's another quarter of a mile before we reach the gates, but I stop before my feet cross the painted white line on the dry grass. Matt and Hannah both step across it easily, too puffed to do much more than gasp for air, but my feet stay rooted to the ground.
“Looks like your Bond isn't going to be the only liability for the teams in the future, Ardern; not if you’re going to stand around sulking after her.”
I keep my head bowed so no one can see the flash of my eyes as my Shift threatens. There's too much on our plates already,without me adding more just because I can't get my bond under control. I feel like even more of an asshole for my blanket fury at them all when at least a dozen other students start calling Martinez out for his bullshit.
“Just because you treat Abigail like trash doesn't mean everyone else here is a scumbag, dickhead.”
The dry grass crunches under footsteps around me and I glance up to find Brayden and Dean both standing in front of me alongside their Bonds and friends. They're both on the football team with me, and Brayden is another Shifter. When he glances over his shoulder at me, he raises an eyebrow at me to check in, and I nod back easily.
I’ve got it under control.
Martinez sneers at Dean. “I'm not going to be spoken to like that by some low-born weakling who wormed his way into this school thanks to a pitiful Neuro gift. Everyone knows North favors your kind; look at everything he does for that asshole Shore! He’s nothing but a walking lie detector; fucking ridiculous.”
My shoulders roll back, and Martinez’s gaze snaps to meet mine, his eyes flaring as my stance widens. I've beaten him in every sparring match we've been paired for, and not once did I have to stoop to using my Gift. He's lost control and Shifted on me more than a dozen times, a few months ago he almost got thrown out of TT for it, and I’ve been itching to end this. He never shows his face at the Shifters fights that are held every other week. They’re notexactlylegal, but North knows about them and turns a blind eye. However, I’ve been more than ready to face the gray wolf he shifts into and finally be done with this rivalry.
Typically, the pathetic dick runs away like a coward.
The other students all start jeering and giving him crap for starting shit he has no intention of finishing, but a trickle ofunease works its way down my spine as I watch him stalk over to the game and lean against the wire fence. It's the way out for the last of the students crossing the finish line.