Page 88 of Broken Ties
I smirk at her obvious frustration at not remembering my Bond’s name as I cut her off. “If Alan Bassinger was my Central Bond, I wouldn’t risk a goddamned thing either, so I can see where your confusion is coming from.”
She makes a strangled sound of horror, or maybe it’s outrage, but I almost laugh at the sound of it. She’s always trying to pretend she’s too refined and polished for uncouth behavior, the way she wears the Bassinger name as though she were the one born with it, it feels like a victory to have her reacting so openly.
After a beat, she tries again, this time in an even tone that she’s clearly using to try to reason with me. “This is all far more dangerous than you could ever know?—”
Rolling my eyes, I cut her off. “Because she’s a Soul Render? Or is it her bond that has you this worked up?”
The absolute silence that answers me is both telling and fucking pathetic.
When I confronted her after I stumbled on the digital records of Davies torturing my Bond, I never told my mom exactly what I’d found out. I didn’t tell her a week had already passed, and in that time I’d read every single file that related to the ‘Infinite Weapon’. I also didn’t tell her I made multiple copies of it all and stored them in a dozen different places, so her attempts at hiding the data was far too late.
Even at my most enraged, I never let it slip that it wasn’t just a single video I found and watched, but hundreds of hours of that beautiful, perfect, teenage girl being cut open.
When it’s clear she’s scrambling to find a new angle to try on me, I scoff. “Don’t even try your bullshit with me, I already know everything there is to know about my Bond. Well, everything you know, at least—everything Davies and that pig you’re Bonded to tortured out of her. What do you think I spent the last two years doing, Mom? Did you really think I was just sitting up in my room, sulking and whining about the lot of you like some petulant kid? I’m sure that’s what you told yourself every night as you went to sleep, that you’re not the villain in this story and this is all just some teenage rebellion I’m sticking with no matter how hard you try to get me out of it… but you’re wrong. You are the monster, and I’m not going to fall into line someday.”
There’s a pause, only the sound of her thready breaths coming in. “The thing living inside of her… it’ll kill you both, Atlas. If you just waited here with me, if you could just listen to me and do as you’re told for once, I could’ve dealt with it all. I was so close to figuring out how to get rid of her memory for you?—”
My gut curls, bile rushing up the back of my throat, and I practically snarl to cut her off. “You’ll never see me again. I made myself forgettable, a ghost of a memory, so instead of grasping at whatever you’re left with, pretend I’m dead. Don’t come lookingfor me—for either of us—you’re already dead to me, too, Mom, but if you do come looking, I’ll finish the job properly.”
Drivingfrom the East Coast to the West is a bucket list item for many, but it’s my idea of hell. My car’s navigation system says, with the appropriate amount of stops, it’ll take me a week. I make it in five and a half days. I would’ve made it in three if I hadn’t stopped on day two to ditch my old phone and buy a new one.
Even after being blocked, my mom only doubled down on her mission to stop me. I have no idea what low she might’ve stooped to in her efforts to remember where I’m going, but even after finding a Technokinetic powerful enough to find my new number and track me here, she failed to find me in time to stop me from making it to Draven.
There’s nothing that will stop me from meeting my Bond, and now that I’m here, I’ll never allow us to be separated again.
Now I just have to, y’know,meether.
I had every intention of going straight to her the moment I arrived at Draven, fuck, I’d dreamed about kicking open the door to one of her lecture halls and dragging her out of that misery, but whether it’s my nerves getting to me or not, I head to my new apartment first.
It’s terrible.
For one, it’s tiny, even by non-Bassinger standards, and everything in it is just as small. There’s no way I can stretch out on the couch, the fridge will barely fit more than a single day's worth of food, and even the door frames require me to duck. Despite being the only thing sized correctly for me, theCal King bed has the most uncomfortable mattress I’ve ever felt. Seriously, even the dorms at Basell have better beds than that.
I don’t want to think about how I came to know that fact for sure.
Problem is, it’s also the only furnished apartment within a short distance of the college and my Bond’s dorm, so it’ll have to do for now. If I had more time, I’d ditch the furniture and start fresh, but I’m not willing to go even a single day here without seeking out my Bond. Fuck, I’m planning on spending every moment I can with her, attaching myself to her side if she’ll allow it, so with any luck, I won’t ever have to sleep in that bed to begin with but I’ll be ordering a new mattress to be delivered, just in case.
It takes less than twenty minutes to look over the apartment, decide I hate it, realize I can’t do a thing about it, unpack my car, and be back on the road to find my Bond, but I’m practically shaking in anticipation as I pull into the parking lot. The building is old but distinguished, well-maintained, but that’s the standard here. The Draven Family Trust owns the entire town. Every single building. They own most of the businesses as well, but the few that are independent still are tenants of the Trust. The hold that family has over the West Coast community is so far reaching that my father only dreams of such control.
North Draven’s position on the council is an illusion; he holds dominion.
It makes my Bond’s attitude toward him even more satisfying, to know she’s not impressed with the benevolent figure he’s pretending to be. As far as I can tell, there’s not that much difference between Draven and Silas Davies, only where Draven is satisfied with his portion of the community to rule over, Davies isn’t. He wants more, all of it, he wants to be the pinnacle of Gifted greatness that can’t be touched by any other, and he wants to see the non-Gifted wiped out entirely.
I have no doubt that if North Draven were able to wipe the Resistance out, he’d move on to the next great threat. Men like him are never satisfied for long and the mask of ‘protector’ is just the most convenient one for him to wear. I’m sure he tells himself every night that he’s righteous and a good man.
There’s no such thing.
The moment I kill the engine, I get out of the car and lock it up before I can let myself over-think this first meeting again. I might want to impress my Bond and show her the best possible version of myself, but I still want to be genuine. There’s no good to come from pretending to be someone else, only betrayal when I slip and she finds out that while she’s the literal embodiment of perfection placed on the earth, I’m… not. But I will be, for her. I will do whatever the fuck it takes to be everything she’s ever wanted and needed in a Bond.
It only takes three steps into the dorm that asshole Draven has her holed up in to see that it’s a writhing pit of bitchy bullshit that I know all too well. Top Tier girls raised under the assumption of their own superiority, they look down on everyone around them, no matter what Gift they’re wielding. As I walk through the corridor and ignore their interested looks entirely, there isn’t a single Gift worth noting.
If only they knew they’re talking shit about a Soul Render right now.
If only they knew how limitless her power has proved to be.
If only my Bond could kill the lot of them instead of allowing them to speak like this, but the danger is way too high.
I guess I’m proof that even getting out from underneath Resistance propaganda doesn’t automatically make me a good person, because the value of their lives still equates to exactly zero in my mind. The moment they spoke of my Bond, their rights to breathe were voided. They should count themselveslucky that I don’t want my first meeting with my Bond to be mid-murder of her fellow classmates.