North doesn’t listen.
He never listens anymore, another strike against her.
But even after Bassinger is locked away, we’ve spent three entire days sitting around, trying to find where they’re all being held, with no luck. All of the monitored campsites and residences are running business as usual, and there is no new intel. Zero. They know we’re listening, so the moment they have Fallows, the lines all go dead silent.
So we’re back to working through the old intel and searching for some clue or little sign that we might have missed about where they are. Gryphon is better at strategy than paperwork, and he spends his time keeping his Teams on standby for the moment we have something, so it’s up to North and I to sift through it all with a fine-tooth comb.
There’s only two things that pop out, and neither of them are enough to go on.
Alaska, in the highest and coldest area that would be an absolute logistical nightmare to attempt an extraction.
Or possibly in the middle of the Sahara desert, which would also require a lot of communication with the local authorities and Gifted community to go in and get them back, so either way, we need to be sure about it before we move in.
It doesn’t come down to that.
At dinner on day three of her being gone, while we’re all arguing viciously about what to do next because Gabe is furious that we’re not going to just traipse around in a desert or a frozen tundra until we trip over her, Gryph lurches away from the table with a bark, his chair crashing to the ground.
The blood drains from his face as he feels it. The ghost of Fallows’ pain as if it’s his own. My bond begins writhing in my chest, that terrible thing it does now around her, but whatever is happening in the Resistance camps, Gryph can sense it stronger, thanks to their connection.
Then he lets out a roar and goes down to his knees as his legs buckle underneath his weight. I haven’t heard a sound like that out of him since the last time he was shot while on duty, and North almost loses control of his own bond in response as he bolts over to him with a snarl. Gabe shoves away from the table, but his hands are shaking and his face is unnaturally pale.
Someone is hurting their Bond.
I know it because I can feel the echo as well, the sensation of pain that isn’t my own, and my palms immediately break out in a sweat. My bond wants to find her, to save her, to take the pain for her and tear apart whoever dared lay a hand on her.
She’s not mine. I shouldn’t feel this way about her.
I should feel this way about anyone. I know better than to fall for these tricks, and there’s no way I’m ever putting myself back in that situation.
Never.
“What is it? What’s happening to her?” North snaps as his phone starts ringing on the table. We all ignore it but the moment it stops, Gabe’s starts up, and he grunts at it.
“It’s Bassinger. He must feel it too.”
Gryphon takes a gasping sort of breath. “She’s being tortured. I got into her head, but she shoved me back out. Someone is carving her up.”
Kill them all. Filthy heathens, touching what’s ours.
I shake my head as though it’ll clear the sound of my bond away. My creatures don’t like sharing, not even with the others, and no matter how much I tell them that I won’t have her, they don’t want someone touching her either.
Gabe shoves up to his feet and snaps, “Where the fuck is she then? We’re going to the desert, send a team to the snow. We can’t just sit the fuck around anymore—”
He’s cut off by the audible pop of a Transporter arriving, and then Kieran Black is groaning on the ground at Gryph’s feet, looking as though he’s been beaten by the entire population of the Resistance. From the look on both North and Gryph’s faces, he’d better have been.
Because Fallows isn’t with him.
“Get me a Healer. Now,” he says through clenched teeth, and Gryph drops to his knees to grab at his vest, pulling him up into his face.
North is already on the phone and calling Felix Davenport down, his second phone in his hand as he starts calling in the TacTeams to be ready to move out.
“Where the fuck is my Bonded, Black?”
Kieran turns green, his teeth clenching in pain as Gryph manhandles him, and he chokes out, “Get me a Healer and I’ll go back for her.”
I check in with Azrael, the shadow that stays with her that she’s doing her best to domesticate, to figure out what the hell is happening there. Kyrie is still in one of the cages, unharmed, but trapped nonetheless. There’s no sign of danger or trouble yet. I tell Azrael to be on high alert and he whines a little at being away from Fallows if there’s danger, his soft spot for her a mile wide.