Page 8 of Broken Ties
Whatever rumors she heard of the Draven Bond Group that had her running will be neutralized the moment she figures that out, and all of this running and hiding will end… leaving me backed into a corner by a manipulative Bond, demanding and taking and humiliating.
Never again.
My eyes flash black as I hold my bond at bay, its demands for the girl already obnoxiously overbearing and difficult to contend with, and it takes flexing my fist and feeling the tension of my badly healed fingers to clear the panic haze from my mind.
I find both of them glancing down at my hands and I shove them in my pockets with a snarl of frustration that has them both turning sharply away from me. It’s not fear, or even deference, but concern that I’ll be ‘set off’—a horror neither of them want to unleash so close to their precious little Bond. Especially after watching our interaction, now knowing for sure that my aversion to Bonds wasn’t miraculously fixed by her mere presence.
As if that’s even possible.
Gryphon clears his throat. “Regardless of what she's done, I'm not crossing that line.”
North takes several very carefully controlled breaths. “I understand your reasoning, however?—”
“However nothing, North. I don’t care what she’s done because it’s not about her. It’s about me and my boundaries. I’m not going to be the type of Bond who uses my abilities against her. I can’t control that I know if she’s lying, but I can control this. I’m not telling you anything, not unless her life or ours are in imminent danger.”
When North opens his mouth again, lip already curled into a snarl, Gryphon cuts him off again in a cutting tone. “Imminentdanger, North, not the endless bullshit we exist in every fucking day.”
As if he’s reminded of the TacTeam personnel we’ve just lost and the council members already calling him to whine about the heightened security measures put in place as a result, North turns on his heel and stalks away, no doubt toward his office. My feet move to match his pace and I choke down the snarl of frustration I have at my bond forcing me to stay within the building now it knowsshe’shere.
The doors to the elevator shut behind North and I, leaving Gryphon behind without a word, so my oldest friend can scowl through the one-way glass unimpeded at my greatest fucking nightmare come alive.
“What would cause her hair to change like that?”
I don't want to even look at my brother’s lovesick face, my gut churning already at the lingering hurt in his voice. “I don't know and I don't care.”
That pisses him off, his temper too short today, but he waits until his voice is level before he tries again. “I might not think she’s a danger to you, Nox, but I agree that she’s not the anomaly she’s claiming to be. I don't know how she’s hiding her gift from us, but Idoknow her hair is a clue. It has to be; I’ve never seen anything like it before, but my bond likes it.”
North never talks about his bond.
He does everything he can to pretend that we’re every bit as placid and normal as the rest of the Gifted community are. A seed of dread takes root in my gut. If he is discussing this with me now, it's far more serious than he's making it out to be. When my own bond sends through its approval of me leaving the girl behind here with him, to return to my texts to find an answer to his question, my suspicions only grow.
She might be built for our destruction, but I’m not going to lie back and watch it happen. I’d rather burn us all to the fucking ground than be trapped with her.
THREE
GABE
The very last thing I want to do after having my heart torn out of my chest by my own Bond is go into the debriefing rooms and talk about what I did to those Resistance scouts, but I do it.
I sit outside the office for over an hour before North and the other Senior Tac Ops arrive to ask me the usual slew of questions, though North is good about fielding a lot of the bullshit for me. I’ve never asked him who takes the lead for his debriefing and whether he gets the same preferential treatment, but today I'm just fucking grateful for his intervention. When he finally directs the others to leave, calling the report more than sufficient, he stays put and I know without a word that I need to do the same.
Once the door is firmly closed behind the other Ops, North sighs as though the entire world is on his shit list before he glances up to meet my eye. “How are you really feeling?”
All of the warmth and easy smiles he just had on display are gone but, despite the steep learning curve, I’m fluent in the confusing and intricate mannerisms of the Dravens. Outsiders get the facade of the placid and unbothered councilman, the sedate man with an air of harmlessness around him that quickly has you questioning the rumors that surround his bloodline.
Only those North trusts most get to see beyond his carefully designed persona to the viciously loyal and cutthroat caretaker he really is. Meaning, despite the hard tone of his voice and cold look on his face, I know for a fact that he’s eager to set a nightmare creature on someone right now for sinking me into such misery.
If only the person responsible wasn’t our Bond.
The problem is that it only makes me feel more pathetic. The rest of our doomed Bond Group held their shit together in that interrogation room far better than I did, no one else bolted so they could puke their guts up.
I bury my face in my hands so I don't have to look at him.
“I know I have to do the counselling session, and I know you've already got way too much on your plate today, but can I do it now and get it out of the way so I don't have to come back here? I don’t… want to hang around.”
North’s good about not forcing me to explain myself, to say out loud that I want to run as far as my feet can fucking get me away from this building and our Bond’s words. Instead, he shuffles some papers around in his hands for a moment as though he's thinking about something, an old habit, before he answers. "I was planning on enrolling Oleander into the same classes as you at Draven so you can keep an eye on her. I can make changes if that’s…unfavorableto you.”
I swallow roughly, rubbing my face a little harder as though I can shift this misery. "She’s safer with one of us watching her."