Page 27 of Broken Ties
“Who the hell gave you liquor? You’re going to get caught, little Bass, for sure.”
Knocking back the entire glass of amber liquid at once, I try to use the burning of the fiery path it takes down my throat to center myself. It's getting harder and harder to remember the reasons I have to play along with my parents agenda, especially when my reason for existence is on the other side of the fucking country. I'm forced to think about the videos I spent horrifying days watching as my Bond was tortured as a reminder of what consequences my actions may have. Nothing sobers me faster.
The only problem with that is the moment I turn to face Peter, the meager stores of calm I’ve scraped together evaporate instantly. His smarmy, smirking face is practically begging to be smashed open by the fist clenched at my side. His smirk only doubles in size when he glances down at it, an eyebrow raising as though he’s daring me to lose my cool at him again.
When I don’t rise to his bait, he steps up to my side and leans against the bar to flag down a bartender with an arrogant jerk of his head. I don’t utter a word to the girl, or even look at her, but when she slides the pretentious gin bullshit Peter ordered overto him, she’s quick to pull out the aged whiskey my father favors and tops up my own glass with a speedy flick of her wrist.
I loathe my father and everything he stands for, but after a few delinquent years of breaking into his cellar and always choosing his most dust-covered bottles to binge from, I'm forced to admit that unfortunately, I share far more of his qualities than I’d ever like to admit. His taste in liquor, even our Gifts are the same.
For most of my life, I’ve hated him for the way he treats my mother and his other Bonded, Rachel. From the moment I’d opened the manilla file North Draven handed my mother and seen that little photo labelled ‘Oleander Fallows’, my hatred re-formed into terror. Then, when I discovered the torture my Bond had endured in silence to keep me safe from men like my father, from men in this room right now, it became self-loathing as well.
Too many nights I’ve woken in a cold sweat, plagued by nightmares that I’ve inherited his taste for violence and control over my Bond as well, that somehow my love and obsession and absolute devotion to her gets twisted into the sick and sadistic craving for dominance and pain just as his has. Had he once looked at his Bonds and felt sickened by the idea of them being in pain, destroyed that he could be the one to cause it? Or was he just the fucking monster I’ve always known him to be from the very beginning? It’s impossible to tell, and there’s no way to pry any answers out of my family without rousing suspicions.
My phone vibrates in my pocket but I leave it for now. There’s no way I’d risk looking at it here with Peter standing right next to me and Silas Davies drinking champagne across the room. It doesn’t matter how much I crave every scrap of attention my Bond gives me, how obsessively I’m collecting information about her or how desperate I am for the photos she sends me every so often. I’d never reveal her to these people, even if she weren’t their fabled ‘Infinite Weapon’.
I spentyearsin training to make sure I didn’t accidentally spill any of my father’s secrets to any Neuro I stumbled across. That doesn’t mean there aren’t Gifted out there who could pry them out of me, but with enough mental defenses and careful avoidance, I’ve managed to evade the worst of them so far. I’m also not so arrogant that I think I’m some mastermind who did this all by myself, I also have my mother’s manipulations to thank.
My father has unknowingly saved my Bond by shielding me to protect himself.
Peter huffs out a chuckle designed to rake at my ego, but I became immune to that brand of bullshit from him years ago.“This Gala is going to the dogs, little Bass. Every year the guest list grows more pathetic than the last. Look around; not a single girl in the place I haven’t fucked already. It’s practically a drought!”
He’s trying to goad me into beating him again, but I learned my lesson well last time. It wasn’t the sanctions from the East Coast Committee that taught me it was pointless to give Peter the fight he wants, or my father’s blind rage at me; it wasn’t the way he went after my mother because he knows he can’t hurt me, and it wasn’t even the six months of curfews and restrictions he put on me because I was still a minor at the time.
It was my sister’s loyalty to the Bonded who beat her.
Her face was still mottled and grotesque when she told me I didn’t understand her situation, that I couldn’t without having my own Bonded, and it stayed that way for weeks. She inherited my father’s ability, just as I did, but a lesser version. Peter didn’t do any lasting damage and her body heals faster than any other, but she feels pain just the same.
I’ve never felt pain from a physical injury, only the effects of a Neuro wielding their Gifts against me, and only those with the rarest Top Tier abilities. Unfortunately for me, I’m surroundedby those fucking near-mythical beings. Not only do my mother and a good portion of my extended family fit that description, but all of my father’s closest friends and confidants. I have six godfathers, because my father is an elitist asshole and wanted to gain favor within the Resistance by any means possible, and all of them are sadistic men who use their Gifts to satisfy their own craving for power.
Silas Davies is a patron of my family.
Bassinger generational wealth funded my Bond’s torture.
I guzzle my drink down like it has the answers for me or could possibly offer me some relief from the riot of guilt, pain, and disgust that fills me. The bartender barely looks in my direction, just like last time, but as she passes by, my glass is refilled as though that’s her Gift.
It’s not.
Temperance has worked the Resistance Galas for years, slinging bottles from the minute she turned twenty-one. She looks young, maybe early twenties at best, but she’s pushing thirty-five. I’ve known her for as long as I can remember. I’ve slept under the bar a dozen times as a bored child whose own parents refused to go home at a decent hour, and I still remember the paper cranes she used to distract me with back then.
She's one of the Gifted I’m most conflicted about. Something about this woman, with her constant kindness and affection toward me, eats away at me. She’s a good person, from a Lower family, a hard worker and honest to a fault—and she’s worked at the Resistance’s biggest ongoing fundraising event for almost half her life. The Gifted she receives a check from are the same men and women who would bleed her dry of all the power and life in her veins if it got them closer to their own elitist ambitions.
She toes the line perfectly for them all. She repeats the same propaganda I grew up surrounded by. She doesn’t falter or flinch when the night goes on and all paltry attempts at discretion are abandoned, when the gory details stop being whispered about and instead are boasted loudly across the ballroom for the entertainment of all who attend.
Her betrayal feels worse than my own mother’s.
“You know, I’d heard a rumor you and Zariah broke up, but I assumed you found some other bimbo to occupy your time with. This brooding feels very ‘pent-up teenage rebellion’ to me and I think?—”
I cut him off. “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”
Looking over at him despite knowing better, all it takes is a glance and holding my temper becomes a lost cause.
I might not be able to kill this asshole, and all the others in this fucking ballroom, for hurting her, but I’ll be damned if I let them revel and gloat in their depravity unchecked. It’s nothing on what my Bond endured, not even close to the justice she deserves, but it’s all I can offer her for now. That and my devoted silence while I find a way out of the country for us both, somewhere so far away that even the most determined arms of the Resistance can’t find us.
Focusing on the sick joy shining in Peter’s eyes, a smirk stretches over my lips despite the clench of fury in my gut. He’s forgotten that I’m nothing like Aurelia, and losing my head once doesn’t make me an easy target. Maybe it’s thanks to my mother, but even keeping my head down won’t stop me from finding a way to cut this asshole down.
Letting the silence stretch on, I wait until the nerve in his cheek twitches before I choose the drawling tone I’ve wielded countless times. “Oh, Peter. You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? You’re Bonded to my sister, you’ve named your Bonded Group after her, and you’re even working as one of my father’s lackeys,but none of it will change your own family name. It doesn’t matter how strong your Gift is, you’re still aLowerGifted. While you’re scrambling after a better reputation, I don’t have anything to prove.”
His eyes turn manic instantly, but instead of feeling some sort of victory or satisfaction, I’m furious. How fucking pathetic does he have to be to lose his shit so easily? I already knew he was a spineless and pathetic man who beats his Bonded to feel powerful, but to know how easy it is to expose what his weaknesses are is just fucking sad.