“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Draven?” Felix snaps, still struggling against the smoke, but Kieran just stares at him with cold eyes.
“Let me go. I’m going to North now.”
Nox scoffs at him and steps across the room, circling Sage as more of his creatures take form amongst the smoke and fall into line around him. Brutus rumbles under my ear, not as a warning, but as a comfort to me so I know he’s still there and ready to step in if I need it. I have no doubt he will, not a single fleeting doubt has ever filled me about his loyalty to me, and I raise a hand up to pet him, even as it shakes just a little.
I can’t look at Sage right now.
I’ll either break down or start screaming.
Nox takes another step into the center of the room, the smoke thickening until my eyes have to shift to see clearly through it. He answers Kieran, “I just said he’s on his way and that none of you are going anywhere. If I had things my way, you’d all be locked up until Gryph can sift through every little second of your lives and find out whether it’s just Benson, or if you’re all in on this. I thought more of you than this, Black, but nothing here will really surprise me. Not even you betraying us all—”
Sage makes a noise like she’s struggling for air, but it’s more of an outraged sort of thing, and I still can’t force myself to look her way yet.
Kieran makes his own sound of outrage and strains against the ropes of smoke, even though they don’t budge. “Betraying you? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Just because you have your own little bullshit mission here, trying to psych out your Bond because you’re absolutely fucked—”
Oh, I don’t like that.
Neither does my bond, waking up finally to the absolute mess we’re in, but when I poke at it, expecting a whispered threat or something, it’s silent. Wary and watchful, but silent.
I mean, I know that we have our problems, a whole fucking pile of problems. But they’re our problems to deal with. Someday. Maybe.
They’re not up for public discussion.
Atlas’ voice is sharp as it cuts through the haze and through Kieran’s tirade. “She murdered our Shield. Sawyer just showed the evidence of it to North and Gryphon. This isn’t some inside job, Black. This is us keeping everyone in the Sanctuary safe, not just our friends and family. If her brother was the one to start this, then there’s absolutely nothing you can say to Draven about this being a witch hunt. Besides, look at what this is doing to Oli… If you believe nothing else, do you think I’d be standing here and letting him do this to her if I hadn’t just seen Sage murder that woman myself?”
There’s a stunned sort of silence, and then I startle at the booming sounds of doors being slammed open and dozens of sets of boots stomping through the medical center, signaling that the cavalry has finally arrived. I take my first real, deep breath and then another one.
Still, Sage doesn’t try to defend herself or speak a word.
Is she just too scared to try? Does she know that Gryphon is listening through me, his gift flooding me and watching everything that’s happening here and waiting for a sign that maybe she is a willing participant in… all of this?
Or is she waiting for me, her best friend and most loyal confidant, to defend her and get her the hell out of this mess like I always have?
I want to be sick.
North and Gryphon step into the room, a group of Tac personnel behind them, and I move over to them instinctively, seeking out my Bonded to get me through this cluster-fuck of a situation. North catches my face in his hands and tilts my head back until he’s staring into the black voids of my eyes. Whatever he sees there, he doesn’t like, and his mouth hardens even more.
He leans forward just a little, his brother’s smoke still obscuring us both from everyone else’s view as he murmurs to me quietly, “Go home and get some rest. I’ll take care of this. Stay with Atlas and Gabe and just leave it to me to handle, Bonded.”
“Oli?” Sage says, her voice trembling a little. Even though it hurts me, I finally look up at her and, thanks to my void-like eyes, I can see her clear as day.
She looks terrified.
The words tumble out of me as I scramble out of the door, “I’ll be back, Sage. Just… just answer all of their questions. We’ll figure it out.”
It only occurs to me as Gabe and Atlas each flank either side of me that Nox had put himself between the other Bond Group and I.
As we step out together in the afternoon sun, I feel the flutters of anxiety deep in my stomach. The destruction from the Resistance soldiers is everywhere around us. Cars are overturned, craters are in the once freshly paved roads, and debris littering the ground everywhere.