Chapter 19 #2
I shove my laptop in my bag and ignore the looks I’m getting from the other students.
The professor doesn’t acknowledge the interruption of me suddenly standing and making my way steadily toward the door, not even after Kyle calls out to me to figure out why I’m leaving.
The scouting thugs only tip their heads to me in acknowledgment as I pass them, and the shame I feel over carrying my father’s name finally has a silver lining.
I try calling my Bond twice on the way home.
The first call is a little earlier than I would usually get my daily dose of her bravado and wit, so I can push down the instant fear that swells in my gut, but the second try is right on schedule.
When she doesn’t answer that one, the fear runs rampant until my panic overrides my good sense.
Well, not completely, I know better than to wait until I’m under my father’s roof, so as I turn into the gated community my parents’ mansion is in, I hit dial on North Draven’s number.
The dismissive way he informs me she was injured during the boot camp they give sports credits for has my bond keening for his blood.
While he’s quick to clarify that she’s seen a Healer and is now safely sleeping the aftereffects off, he has no interest in giving up any details or taking responsibility for the fact that my Bond was harmed on his watch.
I’m almost blind with rage by the time he delivers his parting words before hanging up on me like I’m some fucking chump.
In a voice that somehow manages to be emotionless and smug, he drawls at me, “You’ll have to take a rain check on your long distance gossiping and showboating, Bassinger, because I can’t help you. Some of us are dealing with more pressing issues.”
The hold I have over my Gift is once again stretched to its limits, but this time, I manage to rein it in before I rip my steering wheel off of its column.
Good thing, too. Explaining that to my father is out of the question, and my mom would only use the cover-up as leverage to keep me here longer.
Once I get my car parked in the palatial garage at my parent’s house and kill the engine, I sit in silence for a full minute as I stare at the staff currently polishing one of my mom’s Rolls Royces.
None of them look my way, even as the time stretches on, and Draven’s scathing assessment of me settles like a rash over my skin.
I hate the asshole, but I hate that he’s reminded me once again of the fucked-up bubble I’ve grown up in more.
The rest of my class is still sitting in that lecture hall having their minds put through a grinder by Davies’ goon spelunkers.
My Bond is lying in recovery because she has to learn how to protect herself from those same men, something I can’t argue with or protect her from, even when I finally make it to her side.
It feels pathetic and paltry, but I want to give something to my Bond.
She’s cagey as hell about accepting shit from her Bonds though, so I mess around on my phone until I find something small enough for her to accept that can also be delivered onto the campus without Draven pitching a fit, then I message them both.
North to tell him he’s an asshole.
My Bond to reassure her, and to hopefully comfort her in some small way.
Then I finally force myself out of my car and into the mansion, with the intention of barricading myself in my room and ignoring my family for the rest of the evening. I barely make it through the front door before I find my mother waiting in the front foyer for me.
With her arms crossed and her mouth downturned, one of her feet taps out an impatient rhythm on the marble floor as she glares at the Bassinger Family crest as though it somehow deserves her ire.
Though there are a dozen staff working around her, they’re all practically trembling in fear as they clean, shooting her discrete looks and being sure not to get too close to her.
I can’t imagine any member of my family seeing the state she’s in right now and coming up with any other conclusion than she’s furious, absolutely raging, but I see it for what it truly is.
My mom is terrified.
Something big has happened.
Her eyes are the same color as mine, a shade or two lighter than my father’s and the only real physical trait I share of hers, but I hope mine aren’t as cold as hers when I look at someone I love.
Fuck, it would tear me apart to think of my Bond feeling the same chill that’s running down my spine now when she looks into my eyes.
When I open my mouth, she cuts me off. “Leave us.”
She doesn’t even have to address any of the staff, they all know by her tone that she’s talking to the entire room. It takes less than a second to be standing there alone with her, five steps apart but it might as well be miles for how isolating her demeanor feels to me now.
Breaking away from her stare, I turn to walk away before her dramatics can really start. “Whatever’s happened, I had nothing to do with it and I don’t fucking care—”
She’s across the room and hissing at me before I have the chance to storm out, grabbing my arm and yanking me back around to face her before she slaps a piece of paper on my chest. “It has everything to do with you, Atlas. It was that vile Bond Group leading the charge!”
Shit.
I scan the page she’s given me, and it’s not just scouting or the small-scale rescues that usually piss Father off without really ever moving the needle in Davies' favor. Eight drop points were taken out, wiping out the resource lines that have been pivotal in the expansion of the conversion camps. There’s little to no security footage of the attacks either, thanks to whatever the fuck the Dravens use to obscure the video, so they can’t figure out the holes in security and plug them.
This is what Draven meant when he said he had more ‘pressing’ concerns to deal with.
Fuck it, I’m still not giving him a pass, no matter how impressive this really is.
God, to think of how poorly set up their side is, how the aftermath of their win back in the seventies had led to years of fear and desperation that became the breeding ground for Gifted like Davies and my father to exploit, and yet they’ve managed… this.
Maybe the fear that Gifted direct at the whisper of the Draven name isn’t so pathetic after all.
I fix a smirk over my lips. “Such a pity for Father’s big plans, Mom, but it has nothing to do with me.”
Her eyes narrow at me again but when she opens her mouth, this time I’m the one to cut her off. “I’m leaving soon anyway, so I don’t really care about the details.”
She scowls, her nails digging into my arm hard enough that I’m sure without my Gift it would be bruising. “Don’t be so reckless and idiotic, Atlas! I raised you better, and it’s about time you remember that. You’ll get us both killed acting without thinking.”
Scoffing at her, I jerk my arm out of her grasp. “They can’t kill me, and I don’t give a fuck what happens to you.”
Her eyes shutter and the old me feels like shit, but I remind myself that that version of me is both dumb and dead. This woman watched my Bond be tortured. She watched a child endure that violence and didn’t once feel anything.
She’s a fucking monster.
I make it another few steps away from her before she snaps, “They’re looking for the Amplifier, Atlas. The drop points are just a diversion, they’ve found enough information about him to go hunting—that’s what your weakness over that stupid girl has cost us!”
My bond comes alive in an instant, my eyes flashing to white as it demands her blood on my hands. I turn on my heel and stalk back to her, practically trembling with rage as my Gift floods my body and threatens to crack the marble under my feet with every step.
Mom shrinks back, the same way she does when my father is furious, and my stomach turns violently. I refuse to be that man. I refuse to be anything like him, to sell my soul for greed and power, to abuse the ones I’m supposed to love and protect the most.
My restraint tightens back over my temper.
That look is enough to stop me from crossing a line I could never take back, could never clean the stain from myself, could never bear for my Bond to discover about me.
It reminds me that no matter how much I despise my father, we share DNA, and if I don’t control myself, I’ll end up an evil piece of shit just like him.
My choices matter. Only I can decide who I’m going to be.
After a deep breath in, I can force my tone to be low and level, but it’s definitely not pleasant.
“I loathe the sight of you. I’m disgusted by you, and that man, everyone in this house and this family—I want nothing to do with any of you.
When I leave you all behind, I’m never coming back.
If we ever face each other again, just know that we’ll be on opposite sides of the war, because you are a piece of shit and I refuse to be. ”
Her eyes grow steely, but I shake my head at her. “It’s not Bond-blindness. It’s a matter of principle; you disgust me. If I had to choose between my life or my Bond, I’ll choose her every time.”
She scoffs at me, but she’s clearly growing desperate. “Atlas, she won’t do the same—”
My temper snaps and I practically scream at her, “Two years, Mom! She was tortured by that sick fuck for two years and never spoke my name.”
She shrinks back again and I turn away from her, my gut still churning with anger and shame and a hundred other emotions.
I hate her, I hate treating her like this, I hate every little thing about this entire situation, and I hate her even more for putting me in this situation without ever thinking about what it would do to me.
Voices sound out above us, loud enough that it’s clearly family because no member of staff here would dare risk my father’s temper, and the sound knocks some sense into me.