Chapter 28 #2
While Ford spoke, I watched Elijah. There was no flinching, no tightening of the muscles in the back to hide one, nothing. He seemed entirely unconcerned with how his actions would affect things. Or maybe he was just a damn good actor.
Both options were terrifying, because the fact of the matter was that he’d already taken action, already tied us up in some underground hellhole and was waiving a knife around like he most certainly planned to use it.
“Stop fucking around,” I gritted out, tasting blood and bile in the back of my throat. “What do you want to know?”
“See,” Elijah said, pointing the knife in my direction while he looked at Ford with a tilt to his head. “She wants to be cooperative.”
I wanted to do no such thing, but I knew that our bargaining power was next to none.
Elijah looked back at Ford just long enough to deliver a verbal punch, “A shocker she puts up with someone like you,” before looking back to me with a too-thoughtful expression.
“Though, I guess neither of you chose this fated pairing. In fact, a little birdie told me that you were both very resistant to the Bond. Imagine my surprise when I meet the two of you and you seem…not so resistant.”
“If you want us to regale the sordid details of our relationship, I suggest you sit down. We’ve been together for eight years.” I supposed I’d phrased it the way one would describe a long-term partnership, but wasn’t that what we had, at the end of the day?
Elijah laughed, easy as one would at a dinner party.
He flipped the knife again, as if he knew just how casual his tone was and needed to remind me that this situation was not the least bit casual.
“No, that’s alright. I’d like to discuss how you both seem to accomplish physical feats beyond your means.
Especially when the situation involves the other. ”
There was no use lying. This would come out anyway. “Yes,” I gritted out. “Paranimas seem to have increased strength, reflexes, whatever you want to call it, when their Match is in danger.”
“Something you would think you’d be aware of, considering they seem quite populous on Muli,” Ford cut in, his words edging with a restrained growl. The muscles in his neck were tense and prominent and, even in this awful situation, I had the urge to smooth it out with my fingers.
Elijah snorted a laugh, raising one sardonic eyebrow. “Oh, please, you know that’s bullshit.”
My stomach sank even further, feeling like a puppet on a set of strings. Even then, I couldn’t help but ask, “How did you know?”
A repeated tsk left Elijah’s mouth as he bent down in front of me, resting his forearms on his legs. “This is about me asking you questions, not the other way around. I run this experiment. Speaking of, let’s go through what I know and what I need from you.”
There was something sinister in the way he said that, a note Ford picked up on instantly, lurching forward in his chair with a string of colorfully worded threats.
“I will shut you up if you make me,” Elijah said, still looking at me.
The pain was all-encompassing now, feeling every tense muscle and bruise in Ford’s body in my own, kicked up a thousand degrees. I felt a tear slip out of the corner of my eye and could do nothing but brush it away.
Elijah watched with barely restrained glee as it dripped off my chin and landed on my leg.
He brought one hand up in between us, then started to tick things off on his fingers. “You get stronger, faster when the other is in danger. You have a Bond in your head that helps you stay in tune with the other. You heal fast.” He paused for a second, eyes narrowing.
Whatever he was about to say next was clearly what he found most important. Even though I had a sinking feeling I wasn’t getting out of this unscathed, I couldn’t help but search for the upper hand. “You lose your mind if the other person is hurt, so much so you’ll lose your life if they die.”
Oh.
Ford couldn’t see it, couldn’t see the intention striking clear in Elijah’s eyes. That his little experiment would be to test that right here and now.
I tried to keep it off my face, even as my heart clenched painfully in fear. I’d always had a slight freeze response in times of panic, something I’d worked over and over to combat. I could feel the edges of that paralysis trying to creep in, but I forcefully pushed it away.
Elijah’s voice dropped to a whisper, just loud enough for me to hear it. “I do apologize.”
I couldn’t tell if he was trying to taunt me or not. He sounded shockingly sincere, even as the corner of his mouth twitched up with a smile.
He stood, turning to Ford.
Ford, who was looking at me with a feral intensity that only made this situation all the more fucked up. One of us was going to have to watch the other die.
God, I hoped it was me.
I couldn’t stand the idea of slipping into the great unknown, leaving Ford behind to suffer unimaginable pain.
A sob launched out of my throat before I could catch it.
His family.
Oh, his family.
He couldn’t leave them behind.
Everything started to move too fast, faster than I could stop it—my hands literally and metaphorically tied.
Elijah realized that Ford wasn’t going to look away from me, so he stepped up right in between us. The second he did, my name left Ford’s mouth in little more than a broken plea.
“Why are you doing this?” I cried, not even caring that those few words exposed the depth of my desperation. No use in faking bargaining power when you no longer had any.
Our only, only hope was that someone realized we were gone, used the tracker burning a hole in the back of my head to find us. At the rate things were going, I was pretty sure one of us would be dead by the time that happened.
Elijah ignored my question, too busy cataloging Ford. Doing what, I couldn’t see, but I could hear him struggling against his restraints.
The Bond had probably taken over entirely now, throwing away logic and trying everything to break out, even if it meant gnawing off its own foot.
“Oi,” Elijah said, snapping his fingers in Ford’s face. “I’d watch it if I were you. I have the opportunity to make this very, very painful for her.”
Elijah, for all he seemed to know, didn’t understand the Bond at all. Didn’t understand that what he’d just said was probably the worst thing for it to hear.
Which was why, seconds later, Ford’s head was colliding with Elijah’s midsection, knocking him back with a force he wasn’t prepared to counter.
It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, considering we were both still tied up, but I’d take every opportunity I could get to repay a little pain.
Elijah stumbled back enough that he was within kicking distance of my legs, allowing me to slam my heel into the crease of his knee, sending him off balance.
I used that leverage to swing my other leg up and around his shoulder, hooking over his neck and yanking him back. Surprise was really your best asset, likely the only reason I was able to get him into a headlock between my thighs.
The victory tasted sweet, even if it only lasted a second before a white-hot agony shot up the side of my leg.
Ford’s own growl of pain was drowned out by the shouts of Elijah’s soldiers descending on him, pulling his chair upright. Through the pain, I thought I saw Ford bite down on someone’s arm when it got too close.
The knife sticking out of my leg made the muscle weaken, enough that Elijah was able to twist free and shoot back to standing with a few centering hops and a concerningly bright smile.
“Woo, how fun!” He said, rolling out his neck. I couldn’t quite figure out if he genuinely thought this was funny or was overcompensating for something.
It more likely that he was toying with us, like a predator teases prey before clamping its teeth around a neck.
“You surprised me, Ford,” Elijah said, “I’ll give you…”
The end of his sentence was lost. Into what, I didn’t care.
The moment he’d said Ford’s name, my eyes flew up from the knife in my leg to find his, shining with unshed tears. His eyebrows were pinched together in the center, a deep, pained crease marring his forehead.
He was being held back by three different people, hands covering the entire expanse of his shoulders and his upper arms. They seemed no more affecting than a light breeze, his entire world narrowed down to me, to the blood seeping slowly from my leg.
Slow enough that it wasn’t likely arterial. I’d probably be fine.
It wasn’t even my leg that hurt. It was my chest, breaking apart under Ford’s attention.
Distantly, I heard someone talking. They could have been shouting at the top of their lungs, and it wouldn’t be enough to break through the trance we were locked in.
It felt like I was trying to push my soul out of my body to meet his somewhere in the middle.
Then, Elijah punched Ford straight across the jaw.
I let out a sob and a curse to Elijah’s name. Ford barely moved, other than to spit out blood. Never once did he take his eyes off me.
Elijah was shouting at him now, demanding his attention. There was a threat to his family’s life in there, one that made me see red, but it never broke Ford’s attention.
The second hit, a knock to his jaw that was so hard I thought I heard something crack, didn’t make him move.
“Alright, enough of these fucking dramatics,” Elijah bit out.
I knew I was crying, could feel the tears dripping onto my legs, but I didn’t feel all that dramatic.
In fact, I found that an incredibly normal, if not expected, reaction to the blood trickling out of Ford’s nose and the bruises blooming on his face.
He walked in between us, ignoring the bark of protest that left both of us.
All I could see were the edges of Ford’s shoulders, pinched back and straining.
I could see Elijah reaching up, and based on the feral growl that Ford let out, I was pretty sure he’d grabbed his face.
“Get it together. Or I’m going to get annoyed and send someone to go blow up your camp again. ”
Nothing. No reaction out of Ford.
“I will kill that general of yours.”