Page 38 of Broken Ties

THIRTEEN

NOX

Fingers twitching violently, it takes all my self-control to stop myself from flinging my tablet across Gryph’s room and into the wall. Considering the tech holds every scrap of information I have on the Gifted and the powers that have manifested within our kind, it isn’t the smartest plan, but as yet another keyword comes up empty, it’s the only one I can think of.

Sensing how close to losing my shit I am, Gryph turns away from me and steers the conversation with Ky away from anything that could set me off. He hasn’t used his Gift, my bond always knows when he does, but instead it’s the many years of friendship stepping in to save the day. Ky’s face tightens a little, glancing at me curiously, but she doesn’t question her brother’s abrupt subject change and follows his lead, leaving me to seethe in the corner in peace.

A decade’s worth of my research, this database is the culmination of tireless efforts to find some order within the chaos of the Gifted community’s abysmal historic record keeping. Not that I’d ever utter a word of complaint; there are very valid reasons no one has chosen to have a single collection of such information. The Resistance has been terrorizing the Gifted for the last fifty years with their ideologically-driven war,but there have always been threats against us, no matter how peaceful we’ve tried to be.

It’s only under the guise of the mad-yet-mostly-harmless professor that I’ve been able to access most of the archives, and more than once it’s been my brother’s protections that have covered for me when my digging went further than it was supposed to. Every family tree I found, every letter written centuries ago with fervent warnings of ‘Gift hunts’, every diary kept by Central Bonds hoping to find their lost Bonds, everything has been picked over with a fine-tooth comb, then carefully collated and uploaded into this database of my own design.

Nepotism at its finest, I’ve kept the information I’ve found about the Dravens out of this. No matter the reassurances, I couldn’t let that sort of intel just linger in an information cloud waiting for a Technokinetic to hack into it. It only took that reassurance for North to agree to help me, but finding the right Gifted to help build it was a nightmare. I took enough cyber security classes at Draven to know just how many non-Gifted could target the information for profit alone, let alone the damage a Techno could do. I had to endure the presence of one of Benson’s kids for eight weeks to get it exactly how I wanted it. By the end of it, I was ready to murder him.

Having Gryphon wipe the memory of helping me was an indescribable joy, but talking him into planting fake memories of being chased down by my shadows for some stupid slight was a genius move. The mouthy asshole now flees at the mention of my name.

Now, staring at the empty search box with no other terms to try, my frustration ignites in my blood. My life’s work, and it’s useless to us now. How many near-misses is it going to take before we know who this Gifted is and what they truly wield? How many operatives and civilians will have to die first? Howlong am I going to prove to be worthless to everyone around me, tucked up with my books and my shadows guarding my every move?

There’s nothing I loathe more than this feeling.

With every passing minute, the heat of my fury climbs dangerously until my skin is crawling with the unspent rage. One of the most important lessons I learned after my brother rescued me from my mother was to never let my emotions build like this. The consequences were never manageable, and the aftermath of unleashing my nightmares always skated the line between life and death.

I sometimes wonder whether my infatuation with the history of the Gifted stems from my own deeply-rooted need to find an explanation for my cowardice. The moment I’d watched my brother’s nightmare creatures devour my mother whole, I was also consumed by guilt and grief. It took many years before I could put words to the anguish I was feeling, and only then could I channel it into the research that keeps me from coming apart at the seams.

Where North’s creatures ran rabid, mine were obedient. His would break loose of their confines and wreak carnage on unsuspecting, but deserving, bystanders. His nightmares were strong, resilient, and powerful enough to protect him no matter who it was that threatened him.

Mine followed my command alone.

That means I let her dothatto me.

Within a few months of living in the Draven mansion together, North figured out my penchant for books and made it his life’s mission to ensure I never ran out of new material to read. It wasn’t his mansion, not where we live now, but the one his mother died in. We lived there for three years together under William’s care while this one was being built because when I toldNorth I didn’t like our uncle all that much, my brother refused to move into his mansion.

I never told North it was my bond that didn’t like William.

I don’t ever talk to my brother about how often I interact with it, how it was the reason I’ve always pulled myself back from the edge of despair, or the fact that it’s only our Bond returning here that’s caused the distance I’m currently maintaining with it.

There are many things my brother hates, but the only things he truly fears are the bonds living within us both.

It was around the time North finished up high school and we moved into the new place that I found the first reprieve from the constant self-loathing-fueled grief that weighed on me. While bingeing the latest stack of history tomes he’d found me, I found the records of a Draven put to death in 1802 for ‘casting demons’ onto other Gifted. He claimed he’d lost control of them, that there was a madness that lived within him, and his mind wasn’t always his own.

When I spoke to North about it, he begrudgingly informed me that my family has always referred to such things as ‘the Draven curse’.

It was then I learned our father was not the first of our bloodline to be executed for wielding death, or at the very least, grievous bodily harm. In fact, it was far more common than a peaceful, or even accidental, demise for a Draven. The more I searched for responsibility or someone to blame, the more I learned of the Gifted and those burdened with Death Dealing until I had enough information to take the Gifted community to its knees if placed in the wrong hands.

Still, there’s no way around the fact that I have nothing. Not who or what they are, nothing concrete or even flimsy… just a gut feeling.

I set the tablet on my lap and fix my gaze on Gryph as he murmurs quietly with Ky about some stupid gossip circlingthe community, my mind fussing over this puzzle and blocking them out entirely. A Neuro trying to gain access to your mind produces a sensation centralized within your head, not over your entire body. Even those Gifted capable of manipulating nervous systems are held to this, no matter the following pain or feelings, the Gift begins in the brain.

Full-body sensations occur with Shields, and those feel as though you’re stepping into a bubble or a pressure cooker.

Harrison described the attack as ‘a blanket thrown over us all’ and those are very different sensations. It’s not a lot, but it means I’ve ruled out any Neuro-classed abilities for my search.

That might seem rash to others, but I’m sure of it, and the only way I’m going to find this Resistance piece of shit, is by facing them myself.

Gryph glances up at me as I stand, tucking my tablet into the cushions of the armchair once more, but I meet Ky’s gaze instead. “I need to go look into something. Can you keep an eye on your brother for me? I’m sure North downplayed it for him, but he’s on bed rest for another twelve hours until Payne comes back to assess him, and he’s already passed out in the bathroom once while ignoring the Healer’s orders.”

Kyrie’s eyes flare before she whips around to chew her brother out, and I’m almost giddy at the vitriol she unleashes on him. I leave them both behind to the sound of Gryph cussing me out but that’s exactly what I was hoping for. He should be distracted now for long enough that I’ll be able to take his TacTeam out without North appearing and calling it off. If I’m wrong and he does, well… I’ll just have to go on my own.

Finding Resistance activityisn’t a difficult task, so within minutes of me tracking down Black and the rest of Gryph’s TacTeam, we’re out.