He has this very careful and measured way of folding himself into it that makes my skin crawl. Ever the gentleman, but it’s only a mask, a ruse he wears to cover the sadistic creature he really is.
I know I’m a monster, and I hate myself for it, but this man loves being this way with every fiber of his being… and that’s why he scares the absolute fucking shit out of me.
Finally, I meet his eyes.
He smirks at me, enjoying just how much I hate looking at him, but it’s actually easier to stay a blank canvas when I’m staring into the deep, evil abyss that are his eyes. There’s nothing normal or human in them, nothing but the cold-blooded, sadistic man that he is shining there.
He doesn’t say another word to me for a full minute, and then he leans back in the seat again, crossing his arms. There must be a camera in here, because the action triggers more people to enter the tent.
Two heavily armed men, to be precise, dragging a bleeding Kieran behind them, one of his legs jutting out at a very wrong angle.
Well, fuck.
The men drop him at my feet so that he’s wedged between Davies and I and then walk out. I take a very slow, and hopefully discreet, breath.
Davies sighs and tuts at me again. “I have to say, it hurt my feelings, you know?”
I keep my eyes trained on his, because I cannot look at Kieran. You don’t last here in the camps if you show your weaknesses, and all they know about the two of us so far is that we came here together.
That’s already too much.
Davies drawls on, “You never spoke to any of the Gifted here, not the loyal or the sheep, and yet you came right back to us with some weakling Transporter? It cuts me deeply.”
I am an expert at blocking this man out though. I think I would’ve gone crazy in the two years I’d spent stuck in the camps if I hadn’t learned how to just tune his honeyed, poisonous monologues out. I hope Kieran is doing the same down there in the dirt, otherwise he’s going to die a thousand slow and crazed deaths listening to it all.
“I guess we’ll have to do something about him… something extreme. The punishment should fit the crime. How dare a lower-tiered Gifted befriend our Little Soul Render when she’s spat on the rest of us, time and time again? How about the rack?”
Oh, fuck.
My eyes flick down to Kieran’s bloodied and bruised form on the ground without meaning to, a reflex at hearing Silas’ favorite torture machine mentioned. You’d think with all of the power pumping through his veins that he’d torture people with his gift, but no… he prefers machines that belong in the Middle Ages, you know, when they were invented.
No one survives the rack, not a single person in the two years I was here, and if I don’t do something, Gryphon’s second is about to die, all because I asked him to bring me here.
My voice cracks, “You can’t.”
I finally look down at Kieran but he’s glaring at me, a soundless command to shut my mouth and let him take the pain and suffering for us both. He probably knows he’s about to die, but typical macho man shit says he wants to do it honorably.
I’m not built like that. He should know that by now.
Silas turns and smirks at me, his handsome face curling into a ghoulish mask. “And why is that, Little Render? Give me one good reason why I should change my plans for the Transporter.”
He really thinks he has this over me, he really thinks he’s going to use Kieran’s death to mess with my head… Well, trump card, asshole.
“He’s my Bond.”
The best thing about my bond is that it understands a life or death sort of situation and toes the goddamned line when I need it to, so when I look down at Kieran again and see the horror in his eyes, my own don’t shift in retaliation. It’s a win.
How the hell am I going to get him to play along here?
“You stood there and watched him get beaten. You expect me to believe you’re Bonded to him?” Davies’ voice drips with derision but when I glance back at him, he’s tense, his body practically vibrating at the carrot I’m dangling in front of him.
How long had they tortured me for the names of my Bonds?
How many times had he promised me things, evil and glorious and kind things, if only I’d tell them who my Bonds were?
It’s another piece of the puzzle that makes no sense to me, especially now that I know that someone in the Resistance has been messing with the labs and the Bonded groups, but it’s clear that they still don’t know about my Bonds.
I wonder why that traitorous bitch Giovanna hasn’t told them? And how could Atlas’ dad be here, very obviously a part of the Resistance, but hasn’t told them?