Chapter 1 #3
Gabe nods back but it’s a distracted action, half-hearted, like he’s barely listening as he stares into the interrogation room with every emotion he’s feeling written plainly across his face.
I scrub a hand over my own face, heart thumping in my chest wildly, before I finally look up and see my Bond for the first time in the flesh.
All of the noise from the thoughts and brain patterns within the building are drowned out instantly.
She’s fucking stunning.
At first glance, she looks just like the single photo we’ve got of her, the photo I still have tucked away in my card clip, where it’s stayed the entire five years she’s been gone.
I’ve looked at that tiny square countless times.
I know it better than I know my own face at this point, and nothing about her big blue eyes, dark lashes, high cheekbones, or full lips has changed significantly. Just sharpened a little.
The longer I look, the more I find that the stark color of her hair isn’t the only significant change.
Her skin is ghostly white, so bleached of color it almost glows under the shitty fluorescent lights of the interrogation room. I can’t understand why Kieran called it eerie though, irritation rippling through me again at the thought. I can’t look away from her.
She’s fucking perfect.
It takes me a minute to see beyond my obsession with her and to realize she’s dressed like she’s homeless.
Kieran told me he stowed everything they found of hers in my office back at the Tac Training Center, so it’s obvious someone has picked out shit for her.
It looks as though they grabbed whatever the fuck hit their hands first, the sweater at least three sizes too big for her and hanging from her like a sack.
She’s not wearing makeup and she looks exhausted, but her hair is braided intricately to one side. The glow of it is just like my Second had promised; unearthly. No matter how ridiculous she looks in the getup, there’s no hiding that she’s certainly something else.
When the door behind me opens again and North steps in, I try to keep my shitty attitude out of my tone.
“Who did you send to get her clothes?”
He pauses in the doorway, using his wide frame to keep it open, so he can keep an eye on Nox while still getting a look at our Bond. “Olivia. Her reports of Oleander weren’t promising. We’re going to have a fight on our hands.”
Scoffing, I shake my head at the idiot. “You sent Olivia in to speak to her, North. Look at what she’s wearing. You should be impressed our Bond didn’t give her the same treatment as Black.”
He sends me a scathing look back. “Nothing that anyone has said to her has rattled her in the slightest, except the fact she’s not going to be allowed to run off again.”
Gabe blows out a breath as he scratches the back of his neck. “Is that even… legal?”
It’s certainly not ethical, but the dangers our Bond has been in for the last five years without so much as a clue have pushed the morality of all this aside for me—for now.
North’s face doesn’t change as his eyes roam over her, the downward turn of his lips still there, but he’s perceptive as hell, even when he’s being an absolute dick.
He knows just how wide the divide between the Bond Group is growing, all of the work we’ve put in for the last five years to build real friendships and loyalties fractured in the blink of an eye.
I should be running damage control with him, I always have, but I’m too pissed off to fake shit right now.
Naturally, North calls me out on that the way only he can.
“The Resistance is amping up. Whatever they’re planning, it’s big enough that they’re throwing everything they have at it.
We’ve just taken out hundreds of their scouts and troops, and yet there’s no signs of any planned retaliation.
They never let us go unchecked, let alone after such losses.
Whatever they’re searching for, they’re not letting anything distract their efforts.
Our Bond was almost caught up in the Trigger’s inclusion zone. ”
My gut clenches again at the reminder I didn’t need and Gabe shifts on his feet, blowing out a breath.
“Whether or not we agree with each other right now is beside the point; we can’t leave our Bond with any doubts of our ability to keep her safe… and here.”
The depth of the fury that tightens my chest is a testament to how fucking woeful this week has been.
I’m usually pretty good about not calling North out on his bullshit, but standing here listening to him apply our council tactics to our Bond is pushing it.
I have to remind myself that there’s a far more volatile and imminent danger that North is grappling with right now, for our Bond’s sake.
All it takes is a glance in his direction to figure out who he’s really trying to placate here, and it’s certainly not the runaway in the interrogation room. It’s not me or Gabe either, it’s the Death Dealer teetering on the edge of chaos and carnage he calls a brother.
I force myself to take a deep, even breath. “Let’s get this nightmare over with then.”