Page 98 of Broken Ties
I take a deep breath and pray my voice is level enough not to betray my Bond Group by revealing my frustrations. “I have met him several times since his blood work was put through the wider database.”
Sawyer nods slowly before he gives me a careful look. “Are you worried he’s a spy? You know who his aunt is, right?”
My jaw clenches as I send him a dark look. “If he hadn’t passed all of our vetting—Gryphon’s vetting—he would’ve never made it to Draven. My Bond’s safety means more to me than anything else.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Just not her comfort? Noted. I’m glad I’m not your Central Bond… or my sister. At least Sagecould set your ass on fire if you tried to chip her, I guess. Poor Fallows. Ending up with the strongest Bonds in history and having, like, zero chances of dealing with them if they turn out to be assholes.”
My heart thumps in my chest like a sledgehammer, my bond expanding inside me until it feels as if my chest will explode with the pressure. God, my ribs practically crack and groan with every breath, and I get lightheaded.
“Jesus, Draven, take a seat! If you’re going to swoon with the tiniest bit of accountability then you’re done for. Bassinger won’t let a fucking thing go. He’s already my second favorite out of Oli’s Bonds. I’ve got too many baby photos with Gabe in them for him to lose, but the rest of you are rock bottom—wait, no, Shore was at least decent about getting Oli Midol. Shit, I forgot about that. God knows how, he almost blew my head off just for knocking on her door—you know what? I changed my mind, you and your brother are equal last. You’re a real piece of work, Draven!”
Turning away from him, I lean against the desk next to his as I reclaim some control over myself and snap back at him, “Just tell me what the hell you called me over for so I can get out of here already.”
When he hesitates, I glance over to find him giving me a careful look. “Bassinger was telling me about his classes at Basell. He was pretty up front with me about the bullshit propaganda they push and about how many of the students are aware of what they’re being taught. I asked him about it and he said he figured shit out for himself when he found out about Oli. He told me his mom was pissed about him leaving home, and even though he got a new number, the psycho just keeps tracking him down.”
None of this information is groundbreaking for me.
I’m also absolutely aware that Erin Bassinger is relentless, cold-hearted, and obsessive about her son. It’s been an absolute priority to keep her away from Nox because, despite the fact that she’s nothing like Emmaline was, her fixation on Atlas is definitely familiar. Something about the way that she doesn’t even care about his opinions on the matter of his Bond marked her as ‘unsafe’ for him in my mind the moment I laid eyes on the woman.
Sawyer taps away on the screen for a little longer and then turns it for me to see. “So, being the welcoming guy I am, I decided to help Bassinger get his mom off his back and the hell away from Draven—and your Bond Group. Turns out, with a little digging and a whole lot of luck, I found out she was using the shitty Techno to stalk her kid… and he still hasn’t figured out how to keep me out of his shit. He’s smart enough to be paranoid, though, I’ll give him that. He built a program that wipes his data every two hours, so he’s basically nothing but a processor. He takes the data, encrypts it, sends it to where it needs to go. Fuck, I’d die of boredom.”
I rub at my brow. “How is this huge, Sawyer? I’m sure it is, but I really need you to get to the point.”
He grins at me. “Well, I set up camp on his computer. I built a—fuck, you know what, it doesn’t matter what I built, you insist on paper copies of everything like a heathen. What I’m saying is, wiping everything only works if there isn’t an invisible data miner sending copies to my servers. It’s only been a few hours but I’ve already gotten some big shit, and he still doesn’t know I’m in there.”
“Big shit like what?”
The grin turns into a smirk, the shit-eating kind where he knows he’s unmatched. “You ever heard of a Gifted called the Amplifier, codename ‘Amp’? Wait, didn’t Nox decide to call it a Magnifier? Turns out, it’s gearing up to attack Gryphon again…as in, on his next mission. Davies has it out for him because he’s a Neuro and that psychopath has an inferiority complex. I mean, I’m sure of it. I’ve seen enough crap of his by now to know he doesn’t ever like Neuros out of his sorting camps alive. He must be super small, if you get my drift.”
Absolutely—horrifyingly—I do.
More importantly, he’s probably just saved Gryphon’s life, and that’s worth all the over-sharing in the world.
He prints me off a ream of data, GPS points, and a cypher that will have Nox giddy and busy for days before confirming he’s taking a leave of absence for the week to continue to monitor the data. I reassure him that not only will I clear it with the Dean, but I’ll personally see to it that he’ll graduate no matter what classes I have to tutor him in so long as he keeps this work up.
He doesn’t look so happy about that offer but I leave him there to hunt down Nox and Gryphon, only to find out they’re both on the verge of blackout wasted at some dive bar. I hold off on telling them anything about Benson’s discovery until they sleep it off, but no sooner have I poured them both into their own beds back at the Draven mansion than my Bond’s GPS flags to say she’s missed her curfew, which was hours ago, but Black followed her and Bassinger back to his apartment a few blocks away. He knew Gryphon was with Nox, so he stayed nearby to wait her out, but they’ve made it clear she has no intentions of returning to the dorms.
Incensed, I convince myself that my fury is because she’s leaving me no choice but to intervene for her safety. It’s a far easier pill to swallow than facing the fact that Bassinger has managed to win her trust already, that she wants to be with him no matter the consequences.
That he protected her better than any of us have.
Blood and pain.
Sitting bolt upright in my bed, ice in my veins, my bond is awake and aware within me, but I have no clue of what has it calling me to arms to hunt for blood for a full, panicked minute.
Then the house shakes on its foundations.
My panic overrules my common sense. It’s clearly not an earthquake, something I’ve experienced enough times to be certain, but I’m still scrambling out of my bed and throwing myself desperately across the room toward my Bond before I can even process that the house is under attack. Exactly zero of my brain cells are firing, but my bond snaps my hand out to grab my phone along the way. I don’t understand why the hell it would even think of it until I’m standing before my Bond’s bedroom, watching as it takes command of my hands again to slip the key out of the pocket from my phone cover to unlock the door.
It doesn’t knock, no matter how adamant I am that we should, that it’s the right thing to do and a very basic form of respect that would barely delay us getting to her.
The door swings open to find her bed is slept in but empty. It’s a split second before I find her standing by the window looking terrified as she gapes back at me, but my gut hollows out regardless. Her eyes are too wide, too harried looking, and she stares at me, unblinking, until a voice breaks through the silence of the room and I spot the phone in her hand.
It’s not the one I gave her.
“Oli? Oleander, what the hell is happening up there?”
She jolts on her feet and her focus is broken, Bassinger clearly on the other end of the line. Of all the childish bullshit todeal with, going another round with that spoiled idiot is going to be my tipping point.