That’s deeply troubling.
I’m fine. Please don’t take out a wall, because I’m not in any danger.
The relief from them all is overwhelming, and when it floods through the mind-connection to me, I groan again and clutch at my head. Whatever I’d had to do to get Nox’s soul back into his body, it has messed me the hell up. My Gift feels exhausted inside of me, my bond is still sleeping, and every inch of my body feels heavy and achy.
If anyone attacks the Sanctuary right now, we’re screwed.
Nox’s eyes are still bright on mine and he nods at me, already completely aware of this fact, and his shoulder bracing the door suddenly becomes just a little bit more sweet.
He’s guarding us both right now.
North needs to sober up; we’re exposed right now.
I hate thinking it. I hate that it even crosses my mind, because he’s always the responsible one for us. Clearly watching his brother die in front of him has rocked him, but the fact of the matter is that we’re being targeted, hunted, and our Bond Group is already two Gifted down.
We can’t afford to lose a third to inner demons.
I’ve already spoken to him, there’s no getting through to him right now. I’ve… never seen him like this.
Nox speaks directly to me, keeping the others out of this because it feels like something within the family to deal with. The family I’m very much a part of now, in Nox’s mind, and though I get the feeling he’d allow Gryphon to help him with North, there’s no way he’d open up to Gabe and Atlas about this.
Progress, not perfection, I guess.
Oli, come back to your room where we can all be with you and know you’re okay.
I feel a pang of guilt at Gryphon’s words, but I also don’t want to do that. I’m absolutely sure of where I stand with each of them, even North in his spiraling freak-out. It’s Nox that I need to be with right now, it’s with him that I need to find stable ground.
It’s him that I need to be with.
I’m staying here tonight. We’ll come out tomorrow and debrief.
I feel Gryphon hesitate, but he accepts it. Gabe is the same, happy enough to hear my voice and let me do whatever I need to do.
Atlas does not want to leave me here.
In fact, he raises a fist like he’s going to get to work tearing the wall down, and I have to take a calming breath to not get angry about it. The last… however many hours this has been going on have obviously been hard on them all.
I work at keeping my voice level and calm. Am I not allowed to make my own decisions about MY Bonded?
There’s a very uneasy sort of silence in my head back to that, and I glance back over at Nox to see something wondrous and magical.
He smiles at me.
An actual smile stretches over his lips without a hint of sarcasm or derision. He just enjoys the hell out of me calling my other Bonded out on his hypocritical actions.
You are, but I’m not sure you’re thinking straight right now, Sweetness.
I huff at the sound of Atlas fussing over me and stretch back against the pillows. I’m a big girl; I can get up and walk out of here the moment I choose to. Now, leave me alone for a bit so I can sleep. I feel as though I was hit by a bus.
It takes them a minute, but eventually, they all move away. Gabe and Atlas both head back into my room to sleep, each of them grabbing one of my pillows and surrounding themselves in my scent just like I do with theirs. Gryphon, though, heads to the kitchen to sit with North in silence, watching over him as he gets royally wasted.
Please don’t do anything dumb while I’m sleeping. I need you whole and happy, Bonded.
He doesn’t answer me except to send through a snapshot of what he’s feeling. Regret, devastation, and a lot of pain at the thought of losing Nox and I. I think that’s all he’s capable of saying to me in his current state, and even though I’m desperate to go to him, I know there’s nothing I can do for him right now.
Tomorrow I’ll be with him again, hold him until he’s reassured that I’m not going anywhere. That, and I’ll have to try to talk Nox into spending the day with him as well, for long enough that he remembers how much his little brother can get on his nerves.
“I don’t, though. He’s never once gotten pissed off at me.”
“Not even when I showed up?” I say with a smile, trying to delicately start the conversation we so desperately need to have, but his face stays solemn.
“Not even then. He just sunk deeper into his loathing for his aunt… my mother.”
Ah.
The woman who has always stood between the two of us, invisible to me but so clear to him. I find that I might join North in that loathing, because that woman deserves to be cursed by every last one of us, every day until the end of time.
“You saw everything.”
Deep breath. There’s no point trying to lie to him. “I did.”
The room is so quiet that I can hear the very slow and controlled way that he’s breathing, the way that he’s forcing himself to stay calm. I already know that if he loses control right now, he’s going to lash out at me, and he’s trying not to. Funny, now that I understand it more than ever, he’s finally trying to break the habit, but that just makes my heart ache even more.
“Why aren’t you looking at me any differently?”
I swallow and shrug slowly, carefully thought-out movements so as to not ruin this moment. “Why would I? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
His head rolls on his shoulders until he’s staring at the ceiling, avoiding my eyes, even though there’s nothing in them for him to be worried about. “The shadows could have killed her. They could’ve killed her years before North came for me. I… never did protect myself like I could’ve.”
I hate that he thinks like that, and I can’t stop my words from coming out soaked in sorrow and sympathy. “You were a child.”
His words are like ice. “So were you.”
The air gets knocked out of my lungs. Knocked out in that permanent, I’ll-never-breathe-again sort of way where I think that I’m actually dying.
I could’ve handled just about any answer, except that one.
My vision blacks out a little as I attempt and fail to get oxygen into my body, until I feel hands on my cheeks, long fingers framing my face as a low voice speaks to me softly. The bed moves next to me as a large body lies down beside me, but even with my eyes open, I can’t see who’s attempting to soothe me.
I assume that it’s North, finally here to rescue me, that finally Nox’s brother, the man who knows almost all of his secrets, has decided to put an end to this, and he’s taken down the door to get to me because my panic has broken down his restraint.
Except it’s not North.
Nox murmurs quietly, nonsense things that don’t really string together to form proper sentences but slowly, painfully, begin to calm me down anyway.
A shuddering breath ekes out of me, and he presses in closer, still not quite touching me other than the hands framing my face. It all feels deeply intimate though, the way that we’re sharing our breaths and staring into each other’s eyes so openly. There’s nothing hidden between us, our souls have been stripped bare to each other, and I have no questions left about this man.