Chapter 29
Bridger woke from a dreamless sleep to Vega’s screams echoing through the door connecting their minds.
He knocked until the screaming stopped.
It took him a while to calm down, to stop pacing the length of his cell.
Bridger Dimico. Pacing…
If anything was going to make him go crazy, it was the pacing.
The same power that kept abilities from working in the Minerva Archives was used to disconnect Bridger from his in the cave’s makeshift cell.
A fucking immortal god, and I still don’t get to use my curse-free powers.
The one thing it hadn’t taken away, though, was the mental connection with Vega. The only person keeping him out was her… and he wouldn’t stop knocking until he heard her say she was okay.
What had her screams been about?
What scared her so badly she’d managed to wake him from his first deep sleep since before she’d returned in her last life?
Bridger could feel she was okay… but that only rested his mind enough to stop his pacing when a new guard came in with a small plate of breakfast.
Eggs scrambled with some kind of root vegetable. It wasn’t much, but it was still better than anything he’d eaten on Earth.
How they’d even found enough eggs to feed people here in the middle of Vates was impressive enough.
Being locked away should trigger some kind of trauma response in Bridger, but it didn’t. The rebels might not trust him, but they would need him eventually. It also helped Vega wasn’t Marlena, no matter how scary whatever she’d turned into was.
Bridger had seen it all, watched it all happen through Vega’s eyes. While she blacked out and slipped into whatever new power she’d taken when coming back through the portal, Bridger quickly learned their uncursed bond gave them all more of a connection than they’d had before.
He’d felt her pleasure, her pull to whatever she took from Marlena… all while learning he could now wield lightning if it came from Vega’s electric current.
Bridger had seen the way her veins pumped black blood from her wrist until it disappeared behind Vega’s shirt.
Something wasn’t right. Something dark waited in the shadows of his mind. Watching. Waiting. Bridger could feel the strain, even when he wasn’t thinking about it—it was constantly nagging at him.
To top it all off, if someone didn’t go talk to Meyer, he’d probably be setting the place on fire at any moment.
There was plenty for Bridger to think about while being imprisoned, but every thought kept leading back to Vega.
As if he’d willed her into existence, footsteps sounded down the tunnel, and Bridger smiled to himself—he’d know the sound of that walk anywhere.
“Go get some food while it’s hot.” She dismissed his current guard, and when he scampered off, she turned her attention towards Bridger.
“For the love of gods, please stop knocking,” Vega begged.
Sitting against the wall with his legs kicked out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, Bridger let a lazy smile pull at his lips. “Ah, have you finally come to tell me why you woke me up screaming outside the door you won’t open?”
Vega opened the cell door and stepped through, but she hesitated for a second, her brows pulling in long enough for Bridger to know she was about to lie.
“I had a nightmare. I have them sometimes. There’s a lot my brain has to torture me with when I’m not awake to stop it… and now when I’m awake, I have to deal with your insistent knocking.”
Bridger hummed, watching Vega settle on the other side of the small cell. “I’d stop knocking if you’d just let me in.” He shrugged, staying seated on the cave floor.
“But then that means you wouldn’t stop talking, and I don’t want that either.
” Vega slid down the wall across from him, laying her head back and closing her eyes.
“There’s no privacy with this new connection.
” She inhaled, resting her palms up towards the cave’s short ceiling.
Her fingers emitted only a little bit of blue light.
Their powers weren’t completely cut off, just dulled to basically useless. “I’m sure there’s a way to learn to block it out. If my powers are mixed in, it’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it.” He’d done so easily for forty years until their bond decided enough was enough.
“You giving a master class?” she asked, opening one eye.
She was talking to him. That was good, but gods, she looked exhausted. “Tell me something real,” he blurted out, looking to give her a distraction.
Vega blew a laugh from her nose, shaking her head, but finally opened both eyes. “I have no idea what I’m fucking doing.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to,” he admitted. “I mean, there’s never been new gods before. I think the point is to figure it out as we go.”
“How do you do it?” she asked, making Bridger furrow his brow in confusion. “Talk to me. How do you send the thoughts down?”
Bridger bit his bottom lip to contain the smile. “Uh…” He paused, searching for a way to explain it. “There’s a door, right? A pathway. And I can just feel it. Feel you.”
“Does it work like that with the others?” she asked.
“No. Only you. I could see through everyone’s eyes the other day though.
Knew where they were and what their next strike was.
But I can’t feel them like I feel you.” The intensity of their bond had always been there, but with no barriers…
gods, Bridger had never felt anything like it in his entire life.
“They say the same thing… about the fight and being connected.”
He wanted so badly to reach out and touch her, to remind her he was in this with her. To make her see he meant everything he said on Earth… but he didn’t have to. Vega brought it up before he had the chance.
Vega wrapped her arms around her legs, resting her chin on top of her knees. Bridger felt her sigh in his own chest. “Why didn’t you tell me about the deal with Marlena?”
Answering honestly, Bridger let himself be seen.
“At first I was still so unsure of what I was supposed to want. I knew I wanted to stop my dreams, that I wanted to live. I knew I had to be the one to go to Earth. I was the one who had the dream… but then I didn’t want to tell you because I was seeing the girl I loved again, and I couldn’t bear the idea of losing her to some stupid scheme I’d never truly wanted.
” Bridger chuffed, shaking his head faintly.
“I knew you’d never believe I was telling the truth about being on your side.
If I would have told you what I promised Marlena, you never would have trusted me.
” He hadn’t even trusted himself at the beginning, unsure what following Vega into another life would do to him.
“Okay, fine, but why didn’t you just come clean when Marlena showed up?
Why put on the act and make her believe you were the person who wanted those things?
The curse is broken. You don’t have to be that person anymore, Bridger.
” The hurt finally broke through in her voice, piercing Bridger through his heart.
The stabbing of Vega’s sorrows hurt almost as much as it had when she’d stabbed him through the heart with a dagger.
“I’ll always be the man who took an oath to protect his realm, Vega.
The second Marlena finds out I’m no longer hers to control, people will suffer.
She will find a way to make me pay for it.
I meant everything I said to you on Earth, but I can’t make rash decisions like I once did. Especially now.”
Her face sank. “No matter how hard I try to hate you, I can’t…
I don’t think I ever really could. I was mad, hurt, and it was easier to turn those feelings into rage.
I can’t find it in me to be mad anymore.
I have too many other pressing matters to worry about now.
But I don’t trust you yet,” Vega told him.
“I know you had to do whatever was best for you, but—”
“Do what was best for me?” Bridger interrupted, cocking his head. “You think I did what was best for me?”
Vega scrunched her eyebrows like it was obvious. “Yes, I mean, sure, you lost the girl you loved, but you gained the army you always wanted in return, and it wasn’t like we knew then what we know now.”
“Vega, if I had done what was best for me, I would have snatched you up and found a way out of Tolevarre. I thought about it once. Forcing you back through the portal and disappearing where we could live in peace. That’s what I would have done if I’d gotten my way.
I did what was best for the people around me.
For my best friend. For your best friends.
” He bubbled a laugh. “Marlena told me she would let Arlet and Khort live if I just fell in line where I was supposed to be. I bet she already knew none of us could die at that point, but Tolevarre was without a commander. Other bloodlines were ready to swoop in and take over.” The fate of their army had been in limbo.
“Could you imagine if Fraus took over the army? The madness my uncle would have unleashed alongside your sister? No one would have been safe.”
He’d made the decision to save others instead of Vega. “When I escaped, Marlena let me stay away long enough to meet you in your next life. I left the rebels, I left you, because the you I loved was gone, and there were people, our people, the people you begged me to keep safe, who needed me.”
Vega wasn’t fuming, she wasn’t ready to set anything ablaze with her ire, but the look on her face was worse than anything else he could have seen.
Pity.