Chapter 27 #2
Then students start running out of buildings, flushed out by a Flame who’s enjoying the scent of burning flesh way too much. The soldiers start picking them off, and I can’t take it for another second, not while my Bond is safe here behind the Shield.
Bassinger beats me to it.
“Ardern, do not leave Oli’s side,” he snaps, and then he’s gone, sprinting through the Shield and heading right for the Flame just as the screaming of his next round of victims starts up, only these ones are close enough for my Bond to hear them.
Cursing under my breath, I look around to see if there’s anyone of use here, but Martinez certainly isn’t going out there to help. He’s the spineless Gifted Bassinger accused me of being, but when I glance over to my Bond, she’s already nodding.
“Do it. Go help him, I’ll be fine.”
Shit.
That’s all the permission I need to hear, except one thing.
I get a hold of her arms and, to hell with it, I plead with her. “Dara is the best Shield I’ve ever seen, no one will know you’re even here as long as she’s with you. Don’t move from this spot, Oli. Promise me.”
She opens her mouth to reply, but there’s another explosion further out on campus, screams tearing through the air, and I’m ripping my clothes off as my Shift barely waits before taking over me entirely. I choose the wolf form, an old favorite with a lot of sharp teeth.
Right before I leave, I take one last look at my Bond and, god, am I glad I did.
That face will be seared into my memories forever, no matter what else happens today.
She stares at my wolf with the type of wonder that makes my heart stop in my chest, then thump so hard I feel like I might pass out.
I focus on her heartbeat as well, imprinting it into my memory alongside her image.
Then I turn and throw myself into the fight.
One soldier, two soldiers, three; their bodies are torn apart before they get the chance to wield their Gifts against me.
Bassinger holds his own, bullets bouncing off of him like they’re nothing, and a few of the soldiers even throw balls of fire at him.
He doesn’t burn, he doesn’t even flinch at the heat, and while I might be tearing the soldiers to pieces, he’s crushing skulls and snapping necks just as quickly.
It’s clear he’s picking the quickest deaths he can give them, and when a Telekinetic throws a car at him, he catches it and uses it to crush a group of them all at once.
When there are no soldiers left, I duck back behind the Shield to check in on my Bond.
The group of students has grown tenfold and are all huddled together as they stare at Bassinger as a group.
They barely notice me, open-mouthed and awestruck as they are at the display of a Gift they’ve never seen before.
I scoop my clothes up to Shift back only to freeze on the spot… Oli’s heartbeat is gone. Wait, not entirely, she’s just not here behind the Shield anymore. Ears straining, I push until I find the direction she’s heading.
The moment I find it, I’m out.
It’s that simple, I refuse to be left behind again. The Resistance will drag her back to their sorting camps and when they figure out my Bond is Giftless, they’ll kill her. They don’t have any interest in Lower Tier Gifted, why the hell would they keep an anomaly like Oli alive?
“Ardern! Get the fuck back here—”
I ignore Bassinger and push myself harder, listening for the sound of Oli’s heartbeat.
Even in this form, I know her like I know myself.
I see the Dravens’ nightmare creatures, enough forms to know they must both be here, but still I push myself harder, further, following the sound of her heartbeat through the crowd until I get to the edge of campus.
The sound almost disappears entirely, not in death but by being driven away, and my instinct drives me.
I slow down until I can pick out a Resistance soldier with enough weapons and training to be worth something and stalk toward them with intention so that the Gifted takes notice.
Then I stop in the street and Shift back to my human form, pulling my clothes back on.
The Gifted tips her head back, her eyes running over me at the same time as her Gift does.
“Grab him—if the Draven Bond Shifter wants a free ride, we’ll give him one.”
Except they don’t grab me, and instead I’m hit in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. I’m out before I even have the chance to decide if this was a stupid idea or not, but it doesn’t really matter.
All that does is my Bond.
A ripple of something works over my skin.
I’m not conscious, not even close, and I’m definitely not dreaming because whatever the hell they shot me with has me gone, but that ripple is life-changing.
I couldn’t ignore it if my life depended on it.
I can’t explain how I know any of this, where I am, what’s happened to me, shit, I barely even know of my own existence.
None of my thoughts make any sense.
I don’t know if I’m human right now or if I’m still holding on to my Shift because my senses are all over the damned place. All I know is that ripple and the way every cell in my body has just been irrevocably changed because of it.
My bond practically orgasms over it.
I mean, it’s not that. I hope to god it’s not that, because my Bond is here in the room with me. Or, I guess, the not-room we’re in. I can smell it’s not a room, just like I can smell she’s close by, and… oh my god, the drugs have melted my brain in my skull.
I don’t know how long I lay there, mind racing with zero coherence, but eventually, I string enough of an idea together to know that I’m in human form, I haven’t had some sort of wet dream, and that’s where my luck runs out.
Despite my bond being awake in my chest, I can’t access my Shift, which isn’t just bad news for my ability to get my Bond out of here.
Shifting instantly sobers me up, a Gifted cheat code I’d never trade out, and now I’m utterly fucked until my body burns through the drugs the regular way.
Right.
I open my eyes, almost vomit at the assault of pain that cleaves my skull in half, and a groan rips out of my chest.
Then, there’s another ripple, only this time, I know what it is.
My bond experiences that same unbridled ecstasy, a level of euphoria that has to be up there with actual Bonding, as Oli’s bond reaches out to me, except this is nothing like the fleeting brushes it’s attempted before.
This hits me with a wave of power, her Gift pulsing through it as well, not just revealing itself to me but practically slamming into me like a freight train and scrambles my already scattered brain.
How the fuck did she hide that much power?
“Holy fuck. Holy fuck, what is she doing here?"
I crack one eye open the tiniest bit to look at the Resistance woman across the tent from our cages.
My brain registers that we’re in cages, but I lose the importance of that pretty much straight away.
She stares at my Bond the way Gifted stare at North or Nox.
The way they stare at Gryph and I when they figure out we share a Central Bond with the Draven brothers.
She stares at Oleander Fallows like she’s death incarnate.
What the fuck is her Gift?
I don’t have to wait long to see it in action.
The man steps forward and she strikes. Without a second of hesitation, there’s a surge of power so intense I’m forced to look away before my eyes melt in my skull.
At first, I assume it’s Elemental, maybe she’s a Flame, but then bodies hit the ground and I’m blinking away the pain to find both of the Resistance soldiers writhing on the ground.
Mouths open, their bodies are locked up like they’re convulsing, but they’re gone. I don’t know how I know that, either, but despite the shallow breaths they’re taking, it’s all mechanical. They’re gone.
I… don’t know what that is.
Even without the haze of the drugs, I don’t think I’ll know it, either.
"Oli, what the fuck was that? What the fuck did you do to them?”
She doesn’t answer me. I struggle to sit up which is a really, really stupid idea. So stupid. My hands are tied behind my back, so I fail pretty much straight away, but when I attempt a crunch-like tactic, my head swims and then my vision blacks out.
When it returns, dazed and even more stupid than before, I look up to find Sage opening up my cage, and then she leaves me to my Bond.
She’s fucking gorgeous, all scowling and bright.
Her Gift is making her skin glow like a firefly, and I’m in love with her.
Sure, she’s been pretty mean to me, but she’s a cute little glow bug right now, and that’s all that matters. A glow bug… who melts brains?
What Gift even is that?
She crouches down to me, so close to being in my arms but not quite, and I think I’m pouting, so I ask good questions to distract her. “How did you stop them from knocking you out? I’ve seen Zoey do it a hundred times.”
Her hands slip on the ropes as she gets me free from the restraints. “You saw Zoey knock Gift-less me out. I’m a little more supercharged right now. I don’t have time to explain this, can you hulk out and get these off?”
I can’t control my head movement, and when it rolls on my shoulders a little too fast, I have to swallow hard to stop myself from puking. “One of them drugged me, I can’t access my Shift. How the fuck are you still conscious, Oli?”
Huffing and puffing, she finally gets me free, and I want my hands all over her.
“You obviously haven’t paid enough attention in Gifted 101.
I’m higher up the food chain than those little bitches, so far higher, that they’re nothing to me…
the exact same way you are, and they had to resort to drugging you. Can you stand? We need to move now.”
I was listening, but Nox never told me that there were pretty little glow bugs out there who could melt brains… until they came out of ears, which is what’s happening to that Gifted lady right now by our feet.
Her face is still twitching, so she’s alive.
Fuck her and her brain soup.
My Bond pulls me up to stand with her, and I’m an expert at standing, but after a minute, the ground tries to take me again. I think it’s stupid for a second until my Bond panics a little and a seriousness falls over me. I cannot fall and take my Bond with me.
Fuck no.
I will not get my Bond killed because of that stupid dart. My jaw locks up and I rub at my face until I can feel it again.
Faintly, like it’s happening far away from me, the sounds of my Bond clearing her throat and rustling grabs my attention, but none of the motions she’s doing with her hands make any sense to me right now.
I focus on staying on my feet.
That seems the most helpful thing I can do, and when I’m steady again, a pulse of relief radiates out of my Bond that makes me feel like I’ve slayed a giant.
I glance back down at her, ready to see her grinning up at me for all of my hard work and instead find her glaring at the other Gifted. Whatever the hell they’ve managed to communicate to her with all that waving around, she’s pissed.
She shuts her eyes and another wall of power bursts out of her. The rest of the tent panics, blood draining from faces, eyes wide, everything except running away, but I guess the Resistance scares them more than the complete mystery of my Bond.
My Bond is suddenly on her tip-toes, her lips brushing against my ear as she whispers to me, “Cavalry is here.”
Shit.
I’m getting drunk from her power, the swell of it pushing into me as though her bond is trying to funnel it inside me, only I’m unable to take it.
I think it’s pissed that I can’t.
I shake my head, trying to shake the thought away at the same time. I don’t know where the hell all of this is coming from, but I never want to be hit by one of those darts ever again in my life.
Then all hell breaks loose outside the tent.