I nod, and then I reach out to North and Gryphon through my mind connection.
I need you guys to come down to the cells at the Tac center. We've found it.
Gryphon replies immediately that he's on his way, and North takes a second to get back to me. I'm still on my way back from the summit. It'll be at least another hour.
Dammit.
Gryphon speaks to him through the communal mind link so that I hear it as well. I'll get the information through to you as soon as I'm there. And then we can wait until you're here to proceed with anything.
There's a flutter in my chest for a second as I prepare myself, but there's no turning back now. You need to bring Nox as well, and you need to prepare him for answering questions about his Gifts. I've already tried to talk Sawyer out of doing anything stupid, but I might need the backup.
There's silence for a moment and then North says, I'll bring Nox with me when I get there. None of you can handle him if things turn ugly.
“What are the chances it's an evolutionary thing? Like we’re somehow evolving from the white eyes to the void eyes?”
Gabe turns from his seat to stare at Felix as though he has lost his mind, but the doctor-in-training doesn't back down. “We have a Soul Render and two Death Dealers with void eyes, and the Dravens have had cases of void eyes over the last few generations, though nothing consistent. Oli, do you know if your family had any history of void eyes?”
I shake my head and try not to look as guilty or as devastated as I usually do when my family is brought up. “I don't think so. My parents were very shocked the first time they changed color… except my mom, but that had more to do with the fact that she had been dreaming of me and my powers for years before I was born.”
That catches their attention.
“I’ve never heard of someone being psychic before, not outside of the phonies in the non-Gifted community who try to claim they can see things, but that’s all a ruse for money,” North says as he stares at the laptop some more.
As soon as North and Nox had arrived, we let Kieran, Felix, and Sage out of their cells, and now everybody is sitting around the interrogation table together as we try to figure out what the hell could be going on here. Sawyer has managed to contain his accusations and threats so far, but he is eyeing Nox like he’s plotting out where he might stab my Bond.
I do my best not to watch him, but I find my eyes continually sliding back to him, and I know it is my bond’s interference.
We don't turn our backs on threats.
Ahh perfect, just what I need from my bond right now. There’s no real point in attempting to reason with it, but for some stupid reason, I give it a go.
Sawyer is not a threat. He won't be a threat. Is there anything that you would like to input into today's discussion about void eyes?
My bond’s answer is less than helpful. It's a threat.
I snap back, irritated, Perfect! That gives me all of the information that I need right now to figure out how to get through this.
They're a threat, girl. They're a threat of something coming, something old that we did not want to be dealing with, but soon will have no choice.
A shiver runs down my spine. We. The collective we? As in, you and me? Or me and my Bonded?
It doesn’t answer me. Instead, it curls up in my chest and goes back to watching Sawyer obsessively, taking Nox’s safety to a whole new level of crazy.
I glance over and find Gryphon staring at me as though he's seeing me for the first time. “You're talking to it.”
I shrug and roll my shoulders back, uncomfortable now that I have everybody's attention. “Yeah. I told you she's a cantankerous, unhelpful bitch.”
He doesn’t find that amusing, he just doubles down. “You're asking it questions though.”
Why the hell does that even matter? “Yes, well, it is an independent thing that lives inside of me and has its own thoughts and opinions and knowledge.”
Gryphon leans forward in his seat, planting one hand on the table in front of him as though he's trying to get something through to me that I’m too dense to see for myself. “Where does it get this knowledge from? If it's only ever lived inside of you, how does it know more than you? How does it know anything that you don’t?”
I have no answers, but my eyes flick towards North.
His jaw is tight and he looks incredibly irritated that this conversation is even happening, but he speaks for me. “They've been here before. Our bonds are far older than we are, and they aren't joking when they say that they belong to each other. This isn’t their first time on this earth, or their first time being bonded to each other.”