Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Gabe
The moment we arrive at North’s offices, I feel a grim hope start in my chest. The largest number of TacTeam operatives that I've ever seen are here, all of them dressed and ready to move out as they stand in neat lines the way that they’ve been trained to.
Vivian and Unser look over the crowd with stern and discerning eyes, but I've known them for long enough to know that they're happy with what they are seeing. A lot of work in a very short amount of time might just pay off here.
Nox opens the door to the office, shepherding Oli in front of him as he covers her with his body protectively.
Atlas doesn't even flinch at the sight of it, something that has taken a very long time for us to work our way to.
The two of them have finally found a middle ground, all that truly matters to either of them is our Bonded.
The way it should have been all along.
The moment we step into the office a gasping sound breaks out of Oli, and she steps around Nox as she flings herself in Sage’s direction.
I almost don't recognize the girl that I grew up with and have known for my entire life.
The Sage back then, the one that Oli had first met and befriended, was a broken shadow of herself.
A girl who had been manipulated by the Resistance into losing one of her Bonds, rejected by our community, and was everyone’s punching bag for something she had no control over.
The girl who befriended Oli because she saw something in my Bonded that everyone else missed, a good heart.
Now we’re here, one of her Bonded kidnapped, and the rest of her Bonded Group is in a mess over it.
Everyone except Sage herself.
She catches Oli and holds her shoulders. “I need you to help me bring him back, Oli. I need you to help me find him.”
I’m happy her words come out strong, like she’s full of fight, brimming with strength and power. I feel weirdly proud of her in this moment.
She's not going to let this break her.
“Of course. I'm going to hunt him down, drag him home to you, and then I'm going to set my bond on anyone and everyone involved in taking him in the first place. I’ll eat all of their souls for you.
Someone get me some matches, I'm ready to light something on fire!
I can't believe they would go after him like this.”
A grin stretches over my lips, pride swelling in my chest as the Draconis wakes inside of me. It likes the way she’s talking. It likes the promise of bloodshed and vengeance.
Sage scoffs under her breath. “You don't need matches, I'm coming with you.”
“We all are,” Felix says, stepping forward with a bulletproof vest already covering him.
I scowl at him for a second, but as his eyes flick over us, he shrugs.
“I’m not going to risk anything happening to him, getting him home.
The rest of our Transporters aren't as strong as he is, and anything could happen on the jump.
It's just not worth it. Sage is already going to be using so much energy in fighting, and I'm not going to let her risk herself. I'm going.”
He sounds so strong and sure about it as he bends down to grab one of the Tac helmets at his feet.
He always did run headfirst at things. Even being a Healer, he had never really been too concerned about what could happen to him out there.
He'd been on the football team our entire way through middle school, high school, and then college. He’d always been just as physically active as the rest of us, even knowing that his path in life was going to lead to hospitals and not the field.
It's working in our favor, though.
No other Healer is so quick to sign up to travel like this.
“We're all going. We'll all be there to bring him back.” Wick steps up, his hand slowly sliding down Sage’s arm until his fingers thread through hers carefully, as though he's waiting for her to pull away.
She doesn’t.
She’s definitely taking strength from him right now, and I look around to find that even Riley looks determined.
I don't want to voice my concerns about him coming with us on the mission, considering the state he's been in. If North and Gryphon have made the call to let him go, then who am I to question that?
Instead, I step forward and look at the giant screen in front of us showing the map of the Transport zone. It was highly populated just a few hours ago, making it a safer jumping point. The Resistance historically haven't wanted to hit major cities unless they're sure that they can take the area.
It looks as though a bomb has flattened an entire suburb.
A whole block of apartments is now nothing but rubble, even more senseless destruction underneath their belts.
I glance up to meet North's eyes, and he nods at me as though we've come to an agreement, then Atlas as well. He’s slowly checking in with each of us before we head off on our mission.
“Our god-bond target did this. It has Resistance with it, but our main concern is that it's one of the god-bonds trying to lure us out.”
“It succeeded,” Oli snaps, and North only nods his head at her.
“We always knew that they’d come after our friends first. Unfortunately, they found a crack in our security and exploited it. We knew that there’s always the chance for something like this, but time is not on our side here. We need to go in, find him, and kill everyone we can.”
North chooses his words carefully.
Normally, he tries to sugarcoat things—‘take people out’, ‘deal with them’—and all the other words that the council have used to make the missions feel less like acts of war.
This time, there's no need for it.
This time everyone is clear on what we're doing.
They've taken one of our own, and we won't stop until we get him back.
* * *
I'm expecting Oli's bond to kick up a fuss about whichever Transporter is chosen to move us. The moment that everybody starts heading off towards their Transporters of choice, Nox grabs her by the elbow, spinning her his way as his eyes and the skin of his arms and his neck slowly turn black.
I can see North hesitate, his worry palpable, but Nox cuts him such a savage look that his mouth snaps shut and he accepts that this isn't something he can fight his brother on.
Instead, he grabs the Transporter we've been assigned and snaps, “Hurry up, we need to beat them there.”
Atlas and I move swiftly to him as well, grabbing his arm. We move into space, everything melting around us before suddenly becoming clear again with that tell-tale pop noise.
We find the smoke beginning to form slowly, morphing up into the solid form of a person, but it’s as interesting to watch them shift through it here as it was having Nox appear in the bedroom.
The two of them suddenly appear in the shadows as they arrive.
One second, there’s nothing, and the next, my Bonded is here with us.
The anxious energy that had begun to build up in me eases off the moment I can see her again.
Gryphon takes half a step towards Oli, then his eyebrows shoot up his forehead as she smiles at him with a slight shake of her head.
“I don't feel sick,” she says quietly in a pleased voice, the surprise and wonder evident in her tone.
There's a Shield in place, so the chance of a surprise attack right now is low, but North and Nox move into military mode the moment that Oli steps away from them and into Atlas’ orbit.
Sage and the rest of her Bonded Group arrive shortly after, moving over to us as Sage mumbles quietly to Oli, “I hate Transporting with anyone who isn't Kieran. It feels gross.”
Oli nods, quietly slipping her hand into her best friend’s as she offers her what little comfort she can.
The entire situation is manageable right now, but it’s teetering on the edge of becoming worse.
Gryphon murmurs to Sage, “Can you feel anything? Can you feel if he's nearby, or anything from him at all?”
She scowls a little as she closes her eyes, but she shakes her head pretty quickly. “He's blocking me out. Whatever's going on is probably not pleasant, but it's not strong enough now to leak through the way it would if he's in too much pain.”
Oli sighs with a nod. “That makes sense, but at least it’s survivable. Is it strange that I already know exactly how much pain that is? Never mind. He’s going to be okay. I promise you, Sage.”
Gryphon frowns at the mention of the torture that Oli had endured, and I understand that completely sick feeling sinking into my gut at the very idea of it. Before I can spiral too much about the torture she’d endured, Gryphon starts directing everyone.
The teams are made up of a fifty-fifty split, half of them being Tac operatives and half being the newcomers we've had to train. That way, when he starts using hand signals, at least half of each team understands what he's saying and can direct the rest.
The shield that's in place is strong, but not strong enough to give us a clear vision of what's happening outside of it.
We already know that it's going to be bad from the surveillance footage that we had, and Nox sends one of his shadow creatures out to get eyes on the situation before we let the shield down.
He curses under his breath for a moment and then sends through the mind connection, Prepare yourselves. It's so much worse than what we were expecting.
I watch everyone square their shoulders.
Oli squeezes Sage’s hand right before she drops it, widening her stance and rolling her shoulders back as she prepares herself for whatever is to come.
I swallow roughly for a moment, and then I reach out to the Draconis, making sure that it is not only awake but prepared to shift the second that I might need it.
It isn't just ready, it's hungry.
Hungry to do everything that it can for our Bonded to prove itself to her, to let her know that even though it had the longest cycles between lives, it loves her just as much as any of the rest.