North scoffs and holds out his hand, his palm slowly turning black. “No, but we are. Isn’t that right, old friend? You were happy to help cultivate the rumors of the Monster Bond.”
North’s gift feels a lot like Oli’s does, a tightness in your chest as he calls on it, and a slow smirk stretches over my face. He usually disposes of prisoners once we’re done with them by using his death touch. Quick, efficient, and clean. That’s him down to a T. Oli disappearing again has snapped his control, and I, for one, am glad to see it.
Glad that she’s dug her way as deeply under his skin as she’s burrowed under mine.
Noakes sputters and coughs in response and mumbles, “I did no such thing!”… lie, “The community was worried about what you were capable of, all of you! There was nothing I could do to stop the spread of misinformation,”… lie, “You can’t blame all of that on me without credible evidence! I don’t deserve to die like this!”… the biggest lie yet.
I scoff and meet his eyes one last time as August pops out of North’s palm, salivating and snarling already, to say, “A monster sticks an explosive in a nineteen-year-old girl’s head just to save his own skin. A monster walks into a fourteen-year-old girl’s hospital room after her entire family was killed in an accident to threaten her into captivity. You think we’ve been monsters so far? You haven’t seen what we’re truly capable of yet… but now you will.”
When his scream finally dies out, the crunching of his bones follow us out of the basement.
Chapter Five
Oli
I wake up with a stiff neck and an aching ass from the chair. It’s frustrating that my body has already forgotten how to sleep sitting up like this, especially since I slept in my car a lot while I was on the run as well, but months at the Draven mansion have spoiled me, apparently.
I groan under my breath and shift as much as the restraints will let me, wiggling my legs out to attempt to get some feeling back with little success.
“How the fuck did you actually sleep like that? And how has no one killed you yet for how badly you snore?” Kieran snarks from the ground at my feet where he’s still huddled up, his hands resting awkwardly on his chest.
I yawn as I shrug. “I don’t usually snore, this is extenuating circumstances, and you learn to do a lot of shit in this place. How long have you been awake?”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Long enough to know that the sun rose at least two hours ago, and we’ve missed the breakfast round. It smelled like bacon. I thought about waking you just to get some.”
I scoff at him with a grin, rolling my shoulders back and staring right at the camera so they can see I’m awake. Being a VIP here has its perks, and I’ll take the sleep in. Gryphon never let me have them, and hopefully it’ll mean less time with that man today.
Doubt it, but a girl can hope, right?
“Stop grumping, they’ll bring us something.”
He pulls himself up into a sitting position without using his hands at all, like he’s doing a crunch in hard mode, and it makes me miss Gabe and Gryphon like a hole in my chest. I’ve drooled over the both of them doing that about a million times in TT and training. Shirtless too, which I really shouldn’t think about or my bond will start whining about getting them back.
“If they bring us slop, I’ll remember it and get you back once we’re home. Mark my words. Tell me why they leave you to sleep and feed you so well? Just because you’re a Render? That seems like an even better reason to deprive and torture you.”
I wiggle my toes in my shoes, trying not to think about how stinky my socks will be in there, and my ass starts to get some feeling back. “They want me whole, undamaged, and at peak performance. I get tortured here plenty, just not like that. I’m sure you’ll get to see it so just, like… prepare yourself for that. It’s going to suck.”
He stares at me and then says slowly, like I’m dense, “Suck… That’s the best descriptive word you can come up with for actual torture? Is this a coping mechanism or something?”
“I compartmentalize like a pro and, well, you’ll see once it happens. Davies won’t make us wait for it for long. He never could keep his hands off of me.”
I’m saved from having to explain much more than that to him by breakfast arriving. Both of the women I’d seen when I’d first woken up bring the plates in, except this time, the younger one is more subdued. She doesn’t speak to either of us. When she leans down to hand Kieran his plate, I see the scratches and bruises forming on her cheek.