Chapter 23 #2
There’s no chance of getting past the psychotic demon if his brother has let him off his leash. I should’ve taken the girl when I had my chance. Davies would’ve given me anything to get his hands on that tempting little bitch—
My Gift seizes control of Vittorio and has the miserable asshole out cold instantly, the sound of his body dropping music to my ears.
It’s also probably a figment of my imagination from this distance, but it has me smiling regardless, right up until I’ve triple-checked every Gifted here and there’s still no sign of the Magnifier.
We’ve provoked them, but this response isn’t the one we wanted.
The gunfire doesn’t falter, but when the bullets stop hitting every surface around me, I look up to find a nightmare creature absorbing their impact for me.
Without pulling itself into a familiar shape, I can only guess that it’s another of Nox’s by the fact that it’s not currently tearing one of my limbs off like North’s are known to do.
Glancing around now that I’m not worried about having my skull blown apart, the nightmare creatures are weaving through the wreckage to hunt down the Resistance scouts and devour them.
There’s no prolonging their deaths, no torture or taking anyone in for questioning, just efficient and methodical killing.
There’s a flash of light to my right and the telltale pop sound of a Transporter before everything goes black.
The pain doesn’t stop, though, so I know exactly what’s happening.
The thick, consuming cloud is impossible to see through and acts as a containment zone.
It’s easy to tell when it’s fully in place because that’s when the screaming starts.
The sounds of torturous death being prolonged and reveled in; a bone-chilling terror that has my heart stumbling a little, even though it’s coming from the Resistance scouts.
North Draven has arrived and brought his worst nightmares with him.
Every inch of my body aches as I walk up the stupid stairs to get to my Bond’s room.
There are more students around than I’d like, but after our failed attempt to lure out the Magnifier, I only stopped in at the Training Center long enough to see a Healer and take a shower.
Hell, I only had the shower because I didn’t want to show up at my Bond’s door covered in blood and grime.
I didn’t want to scare her, and I definitely didn’t want to risk her throwing me out.
My phone is buzzing insistently in my pocket, and I silence it with a curse under my breath. I don’t need to hear from North or Vivian about the reports that need to be written or the debriefs I’ve bailed on right now.
I only need my Bond.
The feeling sits like a weight on my chest, crushing my lungs until I’m practically gasping for air, but it won’t ease until I get her into my sights. I haven’t been under fire like that since I was almost taken out by the Magnifier, and I hadn’t realized how deeply that near miss affected me.
It doesn’t help that the entire building is practically writhing over my Bond.
I’m used to hearing bullshit about her and my Bond Group. So used to it that my mind is filtering out the gossip before I even realize what’s being said. The problem is that the closer I get to my Bond, the more insidious the rumors become, until there’s no way I can continue to just ignore them.
“Did you guys hear? The reject botched an abortion in the bathrooms.”
“I knew she was trouble.”
“That’s what you get for mixing outside of your Bonded Group.”
“Serves the bitch right.”
It takes me three deep, deep breaths to be calm as I knock on my Bond’s dorm room door.
I want to turn my ass around and find the girls whispering about her and hack into their minds, uncover their deepest secrets, and then destroy them with that information.
But there’s a small part of me that worries they’re not lying.
They all believe the words they’re saying.
That doesn’t make it the truth, but it’s enough of a punch to the gut that I can’t tear myself away from her door to shut them all up.
I have to get in there and see her for myself, ask the questions and get to the bottom of all of this, even if the truth might just send me—and the rest of the Bond Group—off the fucking deep end.
I knock before I can work myself up any more, but when she doesn’t answer, a new fear creeps into my mind.
They said a botched abortion.
What if she’s bleeding out in there? What if she’s been assaulted? What if a million other things that could be the explanation here, all of them more disturbing and deadly than the last.
I unlock the door myself.
I’d insisted on having a copy of her room key. Though North had been hesitant to hand it over, he’d trusted me to make the right calls with her, to let my Gift of the Truth guide me. I’m glad I pushed it with him now as the door swings open.
Oli is lying in her bed, looking as though she’s dying, with a fine sheen of sweat over her forehead and a green tinge to her skin. Her eyes are a little unfocused, a sign of pain, and her hands clutch at her stomach desperately.
She looks fucking awful.
It also lines up with what the gossiping bitches down the hall were saying just a little too much, despite the evidence otherwise. I have to fight to unclench my jaw enough to speak to her.
"I'm going to need you to be really honest right now, Oleander. The girls downstairs are saying this is a botched abortion. I checked your GPS tracker, and I know that it can't be unless you did it in a bathroom stall by yourself over lunchtime. So, what's going on?"
Her eyes instantly fill with tears. She blinks rapidly to attempt to clear them, but all it does is help them fall. "Does it even matter what I say to you? It's not like you will believe me anyway."
She swipes a hand over her cheeks, a little color rising in them as she curses under her breath.
It only makes me angrier. “Just tell me the truth."
She rolls her eyes at me and snaps, "Well, it’s not a fucking abortion and it’s not a miscarriage.
I have my period, and I'm in a lot of pain.
It's like this every time I get it. Normally, I can get pain medication that will help.
I don't have a credit card to get it delivered, and all of the drugstores are too far away to get back in time for curfew.
I'm here for the long haul tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll just have to be late for classes to get the damn Midol. "
Pure, unadulterated truth.
The kind that splits open my chest and floods my veins with the teller’s emotions, the frustration and embarrassment and resentment in her at all of the indignities she’s experiencing taking over me.
It’s like a drug to me, dopamine and an aphrodisiac all rolled up into one. There’s nothing else quite like it.
She digs her way a little further into my heart.
I nod at her slowly, my decision on how to react to this instantly made because she’s my Bond and she’s lying here in pain. I can’t just sit by and accept that, no matter how much she might still claim to want that, so instead I hit the lights, the whole room plunging into darkness.
She panics.
Her breathing becomes unsteady, which pisses me off, but my anger isn’t really at her. It’s at this entire fucking mess we’re stuck in.
"What the hell are you doing?" she croaks, but I ignore her for now.
Some things are better said with action, not words.
I step over to the bed, pulling my leather jacket off, and then after a second of thought, I strip down to my boxers.
I’m not leaving her tonight, and there’s no way I can sleep in my jeans, not after the week I’ve had thanks to the Resistance’s attacks.
My bones are aching, muscles screaming, and I’m the type of exhausted that can’t be cured with sleep alone.
There’s also a large part of me that wants my Bond in my arms with nothing between us. I can’t really have that, not in the way I truly want, but this’ll be close. Fuck, I could be playing with fire here and this might end up the tipping point to my descent into complete madness.
That thought still doesn’t stop me.
She swallows again and huffs out, “You need to leave. I can't give you what you want right now.”
I scoff at her, once again not bothering to answer her sass.
Instead, I reach out to gently roll her on the bed, creating just enough space so that I can join her.
I’m instantly assaulted by the mattress, wincing and cursing North in my head for this bullshit.
He clearly has no idea of the conditions she’s living in, one of his petty and vindictive staff members clearly responsible for this, but as the broken spring coils dig into my back, I’m not really moved to think rationally about a goddamned thing.
Again, my Bond panics.
“Gryphon, what the hell—”
“Just shut up,” I snap, my frustration bubbling out of me as I pull her into my chest and make sure she’s not going to fall out of the damned pathetic excuse for a bed in her effort to wriggle away from me.
I wait until I’m sure she’s comfortable there before I slowly, carefully, splay one of my hands out on her bare stomach underneath the thin nightshirt she’s wearing. My palm warms as my Gift flows through me and into her, turning off her pain receptors with ease.
The silent tears flow down her cheeks unchecked.
She lies as stiff as a board in my arms without so much as a word between us.
I could say a lot right now, a dozen things come to mind, but instead of starting a fight, I just enjoy having her so close to me.
For a minute, I can ignore everything that has been said between us, about us, around us.
I can just be a Bond taking care of the most important person in my world.
And for a moment, she can lie there and let me.
Once I have her tucked comfortably into my chest, our legs tangled together and her head over my heart, she croaks out, “Thank you.”