Page 51 of Broken Ties
The girl’s hair flashes into my mind, my teeth clenching, but as I look over the list again, nothing else comes even close to describing her. Besides, it’s not unheard of for a traumatizing event to change physical appearance, especially for Gifted.
There’s no way her white hair is a sign of her Gift, I’m almost certain of it now. Weeks of research, yet I’m still coming up empty-handed.
When North and Gryph finally give up on their efforts to pull my attention back to their little Bond’s safety and leave me to my work, a ripple of anxious discomfort pushes me closer to the edge of insanity until I’m forced to intervene.
My bond is awake, lingering in the back of my mind as it always does these days. Watching, assessing, waiting for the moment it can get the girl on her own, I’m sure. I do my best to stay the fuck away from her for that reason alone.
Regardless of the potential consequences, I address it directly,Do you know why her hair is white?
It answers straight away.Of course. I know everything about my Bond.
Even knowing I have no control over its thoughts, my stomach revolts at the label. It feels it, knows the reason why, and ignores it. It doesn’t pity me or feel sorrow for what was done to me, but instead it just watches on almost clinically. It’s probably why I can bear it, a witness to my pathetic and most worthless state of being.
Is the color change linked to her Gift? Does she even have one worth looking into?
Of course. My Bond is unparalleled.
It speaks like that is a fact, not an opinion, and icy fingers of dread creep down my spine. Echoes of memories just beyond my grasp thrum through my blood until I’m shoving away from the desk to refill my glass to drown out the compulsion to findthat girl. Whether my bond’s incessant demand to Bond with her wins out, or my own desires to destroy her do, the consequences would be the same.
I’d finally know whether my brother’s nightmares are strong enough to take on my own, because I have no doubt he’s picked that girl over his promises to me—and I couldn’t care less.
Al’s baris quieter than it usually is on a Friday night, but with the escalation of kidnappings and the council slowly beginning to devolve into cannibalizing itself, I’m not surprised. Pleased, sure, but not surprised.
I sit in the booth my brother favors, a twisted form of payback for the asshole refusing to leave me alone, and my glass is steadily refilled throughout the evening as I finally finish marking the papers for my Draven classes. The material is so familiar to me I could mark it in my sleep, blind-drunk or in a coma, but I still get disapproving looks from half the patrons who come and go. Again, it’s the downside of drinking in a college town; the bars are filled with faculty staff and students alike.
Fuck the lot of them.
“…mouthing off at Giovanna? Daniella is gunning for her now. Draven is going to find himself without a single ally at this rate—oh. Let’s… take this somewhere else.”
I don’t even bother to glance up. Dr. Camile Toby is another lecturer at Draven and his voice is like nails on a chalkboard, irritating and unmistakable. He’s hated me since he taught me back in my sophomore year, thanks to his inability to admit defeat and my own refusal to back down.
He’s a threat.
I down my glass in one go, lifting it over my head before I set it back down to ensure Al comes over to refill it. He’s good about it, and ignores my seething silence as I talk my bond out of needless bloodshed. Not that I give a fuck about Dr. Dickhead’s life.
I’ll never get these stupid papers done if I hunt down every Gifted stupid enough to be a threat to me and my brother.
They’re all threats—he will be dealt with, but we’re only putting ourselves at risk if we run off after every idiot mouthing off. There are limits to what even a Death Dealer can do.
Gut clenching around the bourbon, it feels as though it’s burning a hole through my stomach lining. The words I’d thrown at Gryph like grenades now detonate in my own hands. I have limits, just as he does, as we all do. That Gifted who took Gryph out could take me out as well, especially if I’m wasting my time and energy on pithy gossip-mongers.
Death comes at the hands of the weak, bound together in their fears, made unstoppable by their numbers. Do not allow them to pass unchecked. Our Bond depends on our strength, and this time we will have it all.
‘This time’—it’s obsessed with this time, this Bond, and the bile creeping up my throat almost chokes me. My skin crawls viciously at the thought of thelasttime, the last Bonded I was tied to against my will. I clench my hands into fists so tightly that pain shoots up my arms and sweat begins to bead across my forehead as white light dances in front of my eyes, panic staved off instantly by the physical demands of my injuries.
The abysmal state of my fingers are hard to ignore, even for people who don’t know how they came to be broken or left to heal into the misshapen mess they’re now in. The only grounding technique I’ve ever found that actually works to stop a descent into self-loathing madness is this; a reminder that I did, once, attempt to fight back. I did attempt to stop that woman,and my body will never fully recover from that act, just as my mind will never recover from her.
It almost cost me my life, but I learned not only that I was too weak to kill Emmaline but what that inability would cost us all. Her stain has leached into every crack and crevice of my life, poisoning everyone around me, weakening the strength of the Draven name to a breaking point.
My father was ruined by her.
My brother will be, too. He may have escaped any consequences for her death, but North has still spent more than a decade trying and failing to change how we’re both perceived. Gifted and non-Gifted alike, they know a predator is among them the moment they lay eyes on us both, and Nolan Draven’s violent end is the proof they point to.
As though waiting for my thoughts to return to their usual orderly design, the moment the chaos clears, my bond speaks again.
Once Bonded, we will be limitless. There is no end to the power of my Bond.
I scoff, gripping my glass again as I glance around the bar as a distraction. It’s emptied out some, Dr. Dickhead running obviously spooked enough of the other patrons, but there are a few students still sitting at the bar and others crowding around the pool table, respectful enough to play and joke around at a volume I’ve been able to block out so far.