Page 32 of Broken Ties
He really is at his limit, teetering on the edge of complete chaos and destruction that’ll surely take us all with it.
Forcing a slow breath out, I speak steadily and calmly so I don’t set him all the way off. “I haven't used my Gift once since waking up with you here, Nox, and you know it. I can't help if your deception flags with my Secondary… though, fuck knowswhat you’re lying to me about because you’re right, Iamone hundred percent sure you’re not a Neuro.”
My gaze is unwavering on his, but from the corner of my eye, I watch the rise and fall of his chest. Even as it stays steady and sure, I don't let myself relax for a second. Nox has always seen even the most banal gestures and actions as a threat. Glancing away while he's teetering at the edge will surely be taken as an admission of guilt—though I’m still absolutely clueless about what exactly it is that he thinks I’ve uncovered. With him, it could be fuckinganything.
When he finally grips the back of the armchair, stepping around it haltingly before he takes the seat again, I silently curse North in my head. It's hard to remember we’re on the same side, that the man must be overrun with threats to our Bond Group right now if he’s left me in charge of babysitting his brother after being taken out in the field, especially with how violently my head is pounding.
When Nox finally breaks away from my gaze and glances down at his nightmare as it comes to heel obediently at his feet, I figure it's safe enough to grab the glass of water waiting at my bedside. Downing it in three gulps, I refill it from the pitcher to distract myself from the unspent violence in the air just in case my own Gift is tempted to join the mix. I haven't had a slip like that in years, but if the last few weeks have taught me nothing else, it's that we’re navigating uncharted waters here.
“I'm working on my third Gift. It's not up for discussion."
Not even the barest trace of a lie.
Nodding easily, I take the peace offering from him and run with it. "We're going to need everything we can get our hands on if the Resistance are about to start unveiling more Gifted like the one who attacked me today. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It felt like it was my own Gift attacking me, like it was being fed back to me."
His eyes narrow. “Fed back to you?"
I shrug. “I don’t know how else to describe it… but I can tell you this; it’s impossible to fight against your own Gift like that, especially when it’s being boosted.”
That catches his attention, his eyes sharpening back on me as he leans forward in the armchair. My own gaze drops down to the nightmare creature sitting at his feet, but the shadow beast doesn't move. Nox flicks a hand at me impatiently, as if I'm silly for even considering its presence, but it’s impossible for me to so easily dismiss the fact that it was salivating at the idea of ripping my throat out barely a minute ago.
"How was it ‘boosting’ your Gift? How do you know that's what it was doing?"
I shrug again, aware the action will probably piss him off, but I really don’t have much to give him. “I know what my own Gift feels like, and even though I knew there was another Gifted involved, it was like they were Shielded while they were in my mind. I only ever felt my own Gift… like it was attacking me, except it wasmorethan it should’ve been. It’s like the moment we Transported in and my feet hit solid ground, my Gift heightened and turned on me. I was being torn apart from the inside out.”
Something shifts in his guys, a flash of the voids so fleeting I could almost be convinced I imagined it before he turns away from me once more, muttering under his breath.
"Have you ever heard of a Gift capable of that? If I need to retake History 101, North will have a field day.”
The sarcastic drawl of my tone doesn’t draw out a sneering smirk like I’m expecting, or even aiming for, and instead Nox glances down at the nightmare creature again. The tension in his shoulders when he leans forward in the seat like he’s going to get up and leave spurs me on.
“What is it, Nox? Just tell me.”
Shaking his head, he leans back again, though I wouldn’t say he’s getting comfortable. If anything, he looks like he’s been strapped into a torture device. His answer has my gut hollowing out.
“It's not something from the records, Gryph… you’ve reminded me of something from the Resistance intel. Davies has been obsessed with the Gifted he thinks will win them this war—the ‘Infinite Weapon’. What if this Gifted is able to take command of the shadows as well? What’s more infinite than controlling every Gift around you?”
And just like that, a new nightmare settles into the room between us, only this one is beyond either of our control.
ELEVEN
GABE
Every morning that I wake up at the Draven mansion, my first thought is how peaceful I feel and how desperately I want to cling to that feeling, but it never lasts long before the guilt washes over me in relentless waves. The weight of it threatens to crush me, my chest tightening and my eyes stinging until my vision blurs and I have to wrench myself back from a panic attack.
I'm sure the therapist back at the council offices would have a field day with this. I've never let it slip, the shame that clings to me relentlessly, but even if I wanted to, I couldn't speak to someone about any of this. The emotions that are swirling in my gut are impossible to name or explain, and bile creeps up my throat.
A good son wouldn’t feel so relieved at leaving his defenseless mother behind… but would a good mother abandon her son in her own grief? Is it possible for a Central Bond to lose their Bonded without falling into the grips of despair just like my mother has? There's also the small part of me that believes it's my fault my father is dead, that he wouldn't have been taken by the Resistance if he weren't out looking for me, and maybe mymother believes this as well… maybe that's why she's never tried to wrench herself out of the deepest clutches of her pain.
North offered to move my mother into the Draven mansion years ago when he first figured out how much she was struggling with my father’s death, and when we found our Bond, he offered again, but I refused this time as well. I told him I couldn’t move her away from the shrine-like memorial to my father she put up in our house, but the real reason is that I know she wouldn’t come willingly—orquietly.
My gut churns at the idea of the rest of the Bond Group seeing her like she is now, the way she forgets who I am and where we are. If my Bond already finds me defective, then how will she react to seeing the state my sole surviving caregiver is in? The problem is that I don’t want to waste resources by having TacTeams guarding my parents’ house, not when there’s only my mom in there and those personnel are better used in the gated communities or, better yet, the dorms where hundreds of Gifted sleep.
I tell myself it's the logical thing to do, that the Resistance isn't going to come after a broken shell of a woman in a town with so many other Top Tier Gifted around, and that’s enough to keep me going to my college classes and living my life without any trouble. It’s enough to keep the shame and guilt from eating me alive.
My day starts off with this same weird guilt spiral, but with my usual plans of following my Bond around all day, I don’t have time to waste on that. When I get out of the shower to find dozens of text messages waiting on my phone for me, my stomach hollows out. There are even more than the gossip machine on campus has been drumming up daily, the endless speculation and commentary on my Bond rejecting the entire Bond Group publicly, and I scramble to unlock it and figure out what the hell is going on.
North’s messages are still the same constant update of Oli’s whereabouts, so it's immediately clear that my Bond is both alive and still safely under surveillance back at the dorms. Nina has messaged her usual briefing of my mom’s refusal to eat decent meals, but that means she’s still safely reclused at home. I tap the group message at the top of the list, the most recent one, and any relief I felt evaporates into thin air.