I giggle. “So… he's a superfan and just wants Gryphon to love him? That's kind of cute.”
North smiles and shakes his head at me. “He’s a good fighter and has worked his way to being third in the chain of command. I'm relieved that your bond doesn't oppose him being around Gryphon, because there isn't an obvious choice to take his place.”
I open up the files on the computer and take a sip of the bottle of water that North had left behind for me. “I would put up with a lot if it meant keeping you guys safe. Even if Rockelle did bother me, if he's the best choice for Gryphon and his team, then I would have sucked it up and let it go.”
North nods and the frown slips back over his face as he gets sucked back into whatever is on his screen.
We fall into a calm silence as we both work, but I can tell that North is frustrated. Whatever is going on within the council is incredibly taxing for him. I stay quiet so that I don’t disturb him and pretty soon, I lose myself in the document about the void eyes and just what they mean.
We've definitely been here before.
I don't know if I can really say we because I don't feel as though I have been reincarnated, but my bond has definitely been around a few times.
The book I'm reading is about myths and legends of the Gifted community, spanning back hundreds and hundreds of years. The void eyes just keep cropping up in it. The ability to manipulate the shadows, the ability to kill people, the ability to mess with people's minds in such a way that they don't even know what's happening; all of it is there.
It's a little terrifying.
I read it all, nonetheless. I read it until I think my eyes are going to bleed, and then I read it some more. At some point, North accepts an invitation into a video conferencing call and signals to me to stay quiet, and I nod.
He gets onto the video call with the other council members, and I'm sure I’m not supposed to be in the room listening to any of it, but he doesn't seem too concerned.
At first, I'm so engrossed in the text in front of me that I don't take much notice of what's being said. But as North's temper gets shorter and shorter, I find myself being dragged out of my own work to sit there and listen in.
A snide voice comes through the speakers, “There are five Wastelands in the country now. Why are we not doing more to prevent this from happening?”
North cocks his head at the screen, as though the speaker is incredibly dense. “And what manpower are you handing over to assist with that, Williams? At no point have you attempted to take security into account, and it's only now that you're on the run and your Bonded Group has been targeted that you suddenly have an interest. Are you missing your pool back home or something?”
There's an indignant noise through the speakers and then someone else, a woman this time, speaks, “Councilman Draven, you can't speak like that! You’ve been responsible for security since you took the seat at the council. It's your responsibility.”
“I took over security because no one else was doing it. If I wasn't doing it, there would be nothing standing between us and the Resistance. If you want to know why we aren't doing more for the Wastelands opening up, then perhaps you should assess why we have such a lack of TacTeam numbers. Those we do have are highly trained and ready to move out at a second’s notice, but we do not have the numbers that the Resistance have. I'm not going to risk the lives of good men on a whim because you think that we are not doing enough, even while we are keeping thousands of members of our community alive and safe at the moment. Which is something that the council didn't even deem important a few months ago. There are women and children living here. I can't leave them unguarded.”
He sounds pissed off, and I think the other council members are glad that he’s here and nowhere near them.
Absolutely gutless, the lot of them.
An hour of useless whining and moaning later, he finishes up with the meeting and snaps the laptop shut, fuming as he cracks his knuckles and looks around the room until his eyes meet mine.
“They’re all a bunch of fucking idiots,” he snaps, and I nod.
“They're the type of people to sit around talking about a problem and never actually do anything about fixing it. They're the type of people who send others in to fight their wars for them. That's not who we are, and I’ll never be able to respect them, North. You’re a better person than I am for not having killed them years ago.”
Chapter Twenty
Oli
As much as I would like to continue to hide away in North’s office with him and make myself useful, I know that I need to get back into training to make sure that I don't lose all of the hard work I've already put in.