My heart spasms in my chest like I’m having some sort of episode over his words. He’s so loyal to me, even before he met me, and I feel so unworthy.
North glances at me and shakes his head. “You withstood two years of torture without ever giving any of us up. No one deserves our loyalty more, Bonded.”
I blanch and then groan under my breath, “Don’t tell me you can see in my head now too. I can’t take much more of this.”
He sends one last text on his phone before he slides it into his pocket, loosening his tie as he prepares himself for the change into the Tac gear that’s about to happen. “No. I’m just getting better at reading your facial expressions. You really don’t see yourself the way we see you, not at all. We’re going to have to change that.”
I don’t have anything to say back to that, so I turn back to the screen and keep watching the bloodbath. When Gryphon turns to the grassed area, all of the air leaks out of my lungs.
There’s a white sheet covering some of the carnage, but the little row of legs sticking out are clearly small, grade school and under. The Resistance wiped them out as easily as they’d murdered the grown men and women who had chosen to stay behind.
“I’m going to be sick,” Sage mutters, and Felix jumps up to grab the wastepaper basket and shove it under her nose. She retches a little, and while my stomach cramps and roils as well, I choke down the bile creeping up my throat.
I already knew this sort of retaliation was coming, we all did, but to see it is something else. To know that… that I’m responsible for it in some way is truly horrifying.
The children.
Of course he’s gone after the children. This is Davies’ way of letting me know personally.
“How? How does this let you know?”
I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud.
I glance up to find that not only are all of their eyes on me, but that Nox has snuck into the room as well while I was transfixed by the horror on the screen.
I try not to lash out at any of them because of how uncomfortable it’s making me. “Towards the end… of my time with him, Davies figured out that the best way to get to me was through kids. I couldn’t handle what he would do to them. My Bond took over without the pain it usually took because I would let it just so I didn’t… have to watch.”
The disgust on Nox’s face has me wanting to curl up and die. I get it entirely. I hid from the pain and the horror of what was happening and was no use at all to the children—
North snaps, “Stop it. You didn’t do anything—”
“Yes, I’m aware, please don’t rub it in.”
He grabs my arm and jerks me around to face him, almost pulling me out of Atlas’ lap in doing so. “Listen to me, Bonded. You were a child as well. You were fourteen when he took you and sixteen when you got out, no one here thinks you’re responsible in any way for what that man did. No one.”
My eyes flick to Nox because, well, he’s the one who judges me as harshly as I judge myself. If anyone was going to tell the complete honest truth here about my responsibility, it’ll be him.
He doesn’t even bother to return my gaze.
“Well, Black caught wind of their Transporter’s trail, right? Let’s go kill the sadists and get this over with. They all need to die screaming, and I think we can do something about that,” Nox says, turning his back on us all and walking out of the office.
North stands up and helps me to my feet with a warm hand on the base of my spine, murmuring quietly to me, “I’d rather you stayed here but if you want to come and do your part, then we need to move now.”
I glance up at him, but I already know what my answer is.
I’m going to let my bond kill as many of them as we can find.
Gryphon’s voice pops into my head without warning. That’s my girl.
I want to wear what I’ve already got on, but my Bonded are having none of it. I’m manhandled, coerced, snapped at, and forced into a full set of Tac gear by North, which I complain loudly about because I’m sure I look like a toddler in her dad’s wardrobe.
It also doesn’t help that when I step out of the changing room and into the foyer where everyone is waiting, Gabe cackles at the sight of me, slowly dissolving into full belly roaring laughter.
I shoot North a savage look, but he ignores me. Gryphon, who had returned with Kieran to transport us all in, smacks Gabe in the back of the head and snaps, “Shut up, idiot, before she starts whining about it all over again.”