Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
NOX
North wakes me only a few hours after the confrontation that was the result of my bond hijacking my body and almost binding me to that vile girl.
The moment his voice bounced around my bare bedroom walls, I assumed his obsession for that girl won out over his loathing of his bond and he was dragging me out to face Shore’s skull spelunking.
I shouldn’t doubt the man.
“The Magnifier will be attempting to ambush Gryphon and the rest of Alpha Team this morning while they’re scheduled to assist in a relocation.
The family is bait; they got through the vetting process because they’re genuine, but the Resistance has had them under surveillance for three years waiting for this moment.
I don’t care how hungover you are, if you want to see this through, you need to be in the foyer in fifteen minutes. ”
He should definitely care a little more if lives are on the line, but he’s shut the door behind himself without waiting for a reply, and I take all of a minute to decide that I’ve done far too much work on taking out this Gifted to have it all taken from me at the eleventh hour.
My head is pounding viciously, and it’s only as I brush my teeth that I catch a whiff of the girl again, some fraction of my clothes or my skin that I didn’t get clean in my drunken efforts, and I’m forced to step away from my toothbrush until the repulsion clears and I’m no longer violently sick.
My shower is interrupted three more times by my vomiting, but I expel enough of that poison from my stomach to be sure I’ll survive the mission.
After cleaning my teeth for a final time, I chew a fistful of antacids to get me through the Transporting and then call it good, stalking to the foyer like my head isn’t on the verge of exploding.
Gryphon is in the elevator, as though he was waiting for me there.
I almost let the damned thing go and take the stairs, or call it a day and go back to my books, but the look he gives me says I’ll either get into the elevator willingly or that he’ll make me. That moral line of his appears to have evaporated.
If only it weren’t all for the girl.
The missions we could go on if it were for the good of the community.
Too bad he’s as pathetic as my brother.
Halfway down to the ground floor, he hits the emergency stop button and turns on me.
Even expecting it as I am, I can’t stop my bond from waking at the clear threat.
I want to scream at it, to tell it that this is all its fault in the first place, but instead, I fix a bored look on my face and stare back at Gryph, unrepentant.
It’s honest, too.
I did nothing wrong.
Despite being alone in this little metal box, he shoves his voice into my mind with the subtlety of a sledgehammer through a wall.
I’m not here for a fight, consider this a warning.
North told me it was a bond response that you had no control over and barely remember.
If I suspect for one second that you’re about to lose control again, I’ll intervene.
If you have any sense in that genius brain of yours, Draven, you’ll steer clear of her altogether, because if it comes to that, I’ll put you down.
In the choice between you or my Bond, she wins every time.
With a sneer, I shake my head at him. “Pathetic.”
His eyes narrow. “Draven—”
I cut him off, getting into his face so he can see the steely resolve in my gaze even if he’s too stupid to hear it in my tone even with his most enviable Gift.
“Stop your whining and listen to me, Shore. If that situation happens to me again, I’d rather you kill me.
All of you are simpering after that bitch, so I’m sure it’s hard for you to believe, but use that fucking Gift instead of letting it go to waste like a fool; I’d rather die than wake up to find her wet and panting at my feet again. ”
The retching that I only half swallow back isn’t for show, but it certainly helps demonstrate the truth of my words, even if he’s ignoring his own fucking Gift telling him.
I hit the button to get us moving again, and the moment the doors open, I leave him behind. I have a lot of questions about where exactly North got the information on the Magnifier and very little patience left for the personnel already littering the foyer.
The shadows writhing unhappily underneath my skin need an outlet, and finding enough Resistance scum for them to rend limb from limb is my only priority for today.
The entire day is doomed, not just the mission.
We take out the Magnifier, sure, but within minutes of combat engagement, the calls begin to come through about the attack on Draven campus. Gryphon takes Black and disappears instantly, all but abandoning North and I for the girl.
Worse still, my brother doesn’t care.
No, he happily finishes off every last Resistance scum he can set his shadows onto in the tiny little town in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere that is flattened in minutes.
The Magnifier is there and he centers that Gift of his onto my brother, only to find out it’s useless against him.
Right before Azrael tears his throat out, he throws it at me as well, but I barely feel an itch.
It’s frustrating, more so because it’s clear this was all a distraction.
They’re looking for something.
By the time Black returns for us, the campus is chaos.
Students lay dead on the paths alongside the Resistance scum responsible for killing them.
Entire blocks of buildings are still on fire while others are nothing but rubble.
North is cursing viciously and sending out his shadows to cover the area, but when I move to do the same, my bond stops me.
Save it.
Holding back the full coverage of my shadows, I sent out a handful of the most vicious beasts instead. After a pause with nothing more pressing to show for it, I reply to it. Save it for what?
Before it can answer me, Atlas Bassinger arrives in the courtyard at a full sprint looking both enraged and terrified.
“She’s gone. They took her, and Ardern went after her.”
There’s a pop and Gryph arrives with Kieran, equally grim faces between them. “Gabe let them take him to go after Oli.”
Shaking my head at the sheer stupidity, it’s North who snaps, “Go now, and get her. They’re at the sorting camps in South Carolina, Benson already tracked her.”
He doesn’t give me orders to go, but he’s already used most of his Gift clearing the campus. He’s almost spent, and if it weren’t for Gabe, I’d leave the girl to her fate.
I meet Gryph’s eyes and give him a sharp nod, stepping over to them both.
“I’m going—”
Sneering as I grip Black’s arm, I cut Bassinger off. “I’m not taking a Resistance fucking spy with me. Go ahead and rot here with the rest of your kind.”
His eyes flash white but Black Transports us all out, the black tendrils of my brother’s shadows coiling around Bassinger the last thing I see before my feet hit the ground at the sorting camp.
The camp is already in complete disarray. Black lands us at the edge, but there are already soldiers here and we’re forced to take them by surprise. They clearly weren’t waiting on us, but we have them taken care of in under a minute.
Jolting on his feet next to me, I assume Gryph has been hit by a wayward bullet the shadows missed until it hits me next; a wave of power blankets me, immovable even to my bond, as it reaches out. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, but the moment my bond responds, I know it’s her.
Only hours ago, any mention of her sickened me to my core, yet my curiosity is instantly lit. My mind fixates on it, turning it over and over until a memory flashes in my mind. Mine or my bond’s, I don’t know, but it’s there.
Her bond.
It was like nothing I’d even seen before…
nothing but my own bond. It called to hers, conversed with it wordlessly, and when it chose not to form the Bond, my bond acquiesced.
It didn’t fight tooth and nail as it fought me.
It reached out to her bond, touched it and communicated somehow, then it retreated.
At her request.
Her bond listens to her. Her bond is submissive and controllable, and—what the fuck type of game is that girl playing at? Why didn’t she stop them sooner?
I’m broken out of this train of thought by gunfire and Black cursing under his breath, Transporting away without a word to leave us behind.
With no other option, I cover the open air area of the camp in shadows. With a command to consume every Resistance piece of shit in this place, I can only hope my Gift lasts longer than there are Gifted here.
Kieran barely makes it back to us before I’m tapped out, Transporting us as far as he can before he’s tapped out as well. Fuck, Gryph’s entire team is barely holding themselves together, we’re sitting ducks right now.
Waves of exhaustion and pain rake over my entire body, my bond out cold in my chest and my shadows completely spent. Threads of panic wind around my mind, binding me until I’ve turned to stone.
I can’t access my shadows.
I’m completely defenseless.
North isn’t here.
Anything could happen to me.
Whether Gryph recognizes the state I’m in and keeps everyone away from me or they’re all just as equally exhausted as I am, I’m left to myself.
Not even my Bond’s close proximity can rival the sheer terror of being, essentially, Giftless out in the middle of nowhere.
This is my worst nightmare unfolding before me, the day after I barely made it out of yet another worst nightmare.
Aarav speaks up, breaking me out of my disassociated state to slam the reality of just how fucked we can truly get here. “Are we expecting any ground cover?”
My gaze focuses on the convoy of Resistance trucks heading our way and there’s no way this is a coincidence, just like nothing about today has been. They knew about our rendezvous point.
They have a spy within our ranks…probably someone on this team, or North’s.