Page 60 of Broken Ties
She scoffs at me, but she’s clearly growing desperate. “Atlas, she won’t do the same?—”
My temper snaps and I practically scream at her, “Two years, Mom! She was tortured by that sick fuck fortwo yearsand never spoke my name.”
She shrinks back again and I turn away from her, my gut still churning with anger and shame and a hundred other emotions. I hate her, I hate treating her like this, I hate every little thing about this entire situation, and I hate her even more for putting me in this situation without ever thinking about what it would do to me.
Voices sound out above us, loud enough that it’s clearly family because no member of staff here would dare risk my father’s temper, and the sound knocks some sense into me.
I take another breath and lower my voice so no one else could possibly overhear me. “Even after Davies told my Bond that he was going to start hacking limbs off, dissecting her like a fucking lab rat, she didn’t utter a word… or even think my name where that sick fuck could find it. There’s nothing you can say to change my mind. Either call your asshole of a Bonded and his band of psychopathic war mongers to come haul me away now, or you can get out of my way. I’m done listening to your bullshit.”
I glance up to find my sister, Aurelia, and her mom, Rachel, heading toward us. Mom instantly shifts back into her immovable and cold persona, gesturing at them both to follow her before she shoots me a firm look.
“I don’t understand why you all struggle to read a clock. We’re late for dinner.”
Rachel doesn’t tell Mom to piss off or to stop acting like she’s superior to her. She never does. Instead, she mumbles an apology and ducks her head as we follow like obedient children to the dining room. My skin itches with frustration, but with the extra eyes on me now, I can’t just walk away like I want to. Instead, I prepare myself for another family dinner shitshow.
Aurelia sits in her usual seat, the chairs set out for her Bonded empty and making her look like she’s been cast out to sea on her own. She doesn’t look too upset about their absence, and I’m hoping those assholes don’t show up at all. I sit across from her in my usual seat, struggling to keep my arrogant mask in place as one of the servers comes to unfold a napkin for my lap.
Mom starts muttering viciously about Father still not being here either, and then she makes a big show of sighing like she’s worried about that asshole’s health before she stalks off to fetchhim. With any luck, he’ll start an argument with her that’ll last long enough for me to eat something and bail.
Rachel looks as though she’s praying for the same thing. “I’ll let the Chef know we’re ready to eat. I’ll tell him your appetite has returned, Aurelia.”
My sister has been on a cocktail of antidepressants and mood stabilizers for years, since she first moved out with her Bonded Group. It’s the reason they’re all living here now, back where her mom can keep an eye on her during the day. Peter wants children, and my father wants the Bassinger name to continue on, and every Healer they’ve shoved at Aurelia has said the same thing: her body is under too much stress to carry a child.
It hasn’t stopped either of them from hurting her.
The moment her mom steps out of the dining room, Aurelia’s shoulders slump. It’s like she’s held herself together for her mom, played the dutiful daughter working hard to recuperate perfectly, but the weight of the act is too heavy to hold when I’m the only witness.
We were close as kids… before she Bonded. Everything about Aurelia changed after that. She’s emotional, withdrawn, constantly fatigued no matter how much she sleeps. She also gets paranoid about certain things and falls into thought loops she can’t pull herself out of, the mania bad enough that she stops taking her medication and eating until she ends up back with her mom.
One of her obsessions is my Bond. Specifically, the fact that she’s a Central Bond who Father disapproved of and ran away from me. She doesn’t know who she is or that she’s been found. She has no clue what the Infinite Weapon tests are, but she’s latched on to her as a danger to us all.
Even now, I tell myself that Aurelia is just worried about her little brother and she’s scared my story is going to end up just like hers, but it won’t. I won’t let the pain and suffering Olihas gone through be for nothing. I won’t ever let our budding friendship turn into a tragic Bond… not even if I have to kill every Resistance member with my own two hands.
I don’t want to ever speak about my perfect Bond with my broken sister, even if she weren’t a Resistance threat to her, but with the way she’s staring at me, it’s clear she’s going to hound me about her again.
I rub a hand over my eyes. “Please don’t start on me. I really can’t be talking about Bonds right now.”
Servers start to bring out plates of food, but our parents are still nowhere to be seen. I fill my plate before they have it all set out, determined to get the fuck out of this room, and Aurelia waits until we’re alone again before she finally speaks.
“I heard you talking to your mom, you know.”
Fuck.
My stomach drops
Aurelia only shakes her head at me. “You think I didn’t already know about her, Atlas? I’m not as stupid as Father tells everyone.”
My head spins so quickly that I feel like I’m going to vomit, but I haven’t managed to take a bite of anything yet and that alone saves me.
My voice is hoarse, but I can only think of one thing to say back to her. “I never thought you were stupid, Rey.”
She stares back at me for a minute, her eyes drilling holes into my skin despite how dull they are. “But you still won’t listen to my warnings, will you? Not all Bonds are good, Atlas. Some are hell on Earth, and it only gets worse once you’ve Bonded with them.”
She ducks her head as her voice breaks, and my own throat tightens as I watch her pull herself together to continue. “My life is a complete mess and no one gives a shit! I mean, who would? Who would ever believe the indestructible woman—a Bassingerfor fuck’s sake—is being abused by her own Bonded? No one. Not a soul, and I’m stuck living this nightmare, day in and day out. Losing my mind while they find doctors to prescribe me tranquilizers to stop me from feeling anything, because clearly the problem lies with me, not the grown men hurting me, and certainly not my father who handed his seventeen-year-old daughter over to them without a single concern.”
We both know which of her Bonded is excluded from her scorn.
Jericho is a month younger than Aurelia, and they were both nineteen when he joined her Bonded Group. I’ve heard my father speak about it a lot, at first among his closest allies and cohorts within the Resistance, but soon it was to anyone who’d listen.