I want to duck my head and hide, to pretend I’m focused on what we're actually down here for to save face, but I can’t. If there’s anything I can do to help North and Gryphon, then I’ll do it.
They both deserve a strong and capable Bonded.
So instead, I look in every single glass pane at the horrors that wait for me there.
I know a lot of the people here.
I look into the faces of soldiers and grunt-work Resistance members mostly, but there are also some higher-ups that I recognize. A shiver runs down my spine as I spot one of Davies’ advisors staring back at me.
Ray Branston, an Elemental nightmare.
“You recognize him?” Atlas says, and I nod my head with a sigh.
“Branston. He was one of the decision makers in the camp that I was held in.”
He also used his Gift to torture the prisoners, forcing water into their lungs and dry-drowning them. I’d also seen him suck all of the water out of a victim’s body with the flick of his wrist, killing them excruciatingly in an instant. He got off on it too, enjoyed the acts of killing innocent men and women.
He deserves to die down here.
I want Azrael and August to eat him.
Atlas nods and scratches the back of his head a little, looking sheepish as he says, “He’s my godfather, one of my dad's closest friends. Gryphon warned me that he would be down here, but I didn't know how much of him you saw in your time there. I should’ve said something.”
I shrug and step forward, leaving the man behind. Atlas struggles to tear his eyes away from the man he had known all of his childhood, the guilt of it all eating away at him until Gabe claps him on the shoulder and leads him away with a few snarky comments.
I don't listen in on any of it, mostly because I already know that it's not my job to police my Bonded and their interactions with each other, but also because Gabe and Atlas have found their own sort of friendship. It’s been built on ribbing each other and making rude remarks over the stupidest things.
Guys are weird.
“We're at the end,” Gryphon says to me, and I nod, carefully steeling myself as we pass Aurelia, still sitting in her cell.
She's even thinner than the last time we saw her, something I didn't quite think was possible, but there's a light in her eyes now as she stares at the thick concrete that separates her from her Bonded.
She can feel him here.
Even with all the shields and precautions that have been put into place, she can feel her Bonded’s presence. She’s my enemy, but there’s a small part of me that feels sorry for my Bonded’s sister and the indoctrination she had as a child.
She never stood a chance.
But maybe she did, because Atlas got out of there. He found out about me and he ran, never looking back, except to use everything that he knows about those evil people to keep me and our Bonded Group safe.
I can’t keep thinking about her, or I’ll drive myself insane.
As we get to the last cell, I stop and look in at her Bonded. Jericho looks exactly as I imagined he would from Atlas’ description of a man who enjoyed camping and the simpler things in life compared to that of his Bonded Group.
He's tall, at least as tall as Gryphon and North, and there’s a carefully rustic beard that covers the bottom half of his face. His eyes are a warm honeycomb color that make him look approachable and not at all like the enemy that we’re fighting so hard to dispose of.
He's covered in dust and there are holes at the bottom of his shirt, a warm jacket thrown over the top of his outfit, as though he has been traveling for quite some time. The only thing on him that looks well maintained is the ring on his finger. I would wager it is a symbol of his bonding with Aurelia, a treasured symbol of what they share.
He stares at me through the glass with the same assessing keenness that I am showing him, but he is the first one to speak.
“The little girl who broke the Resistance camp in half and destroyed the great dynasty of the Bassingers. I wasn't expecting you to be so… small.”
I raise an eyebrow and glance back at Atlas who is hanging back towards the table, standing closer to Gabe and Gryphon. I’m glad he's nowhere near Nox because I can feel the pent-up anger in him that is just looking for an outlet, and I don't want my Bonded fighting right now.
“I’m sorry that I don't meet your expectations, but it's not my fault you pledged your loyalty to a cause that’s so fragile it can be taken out by a single girl and her Bonded.”
Jericho shrugs and takes a seat on the single chair in the cell. “I didn't pledge my allegiance to anything but my Bonded. Why the fuck do you think I'm here?”
I shrug and glance over my shoulder at where Aurelia is pressed against that concrete, her eyes shut as her palms lie flat on the ground beside her. It’s a power position if I ever saw one, and a trickle of dread runs through my mind.
The cell can hold her, Gryphon says directly into our mind link, and I take a steadying breath.
The cell can hold her, and even if it can’t, there's nothing any of them can do to us. We already know what they're capable of, Atlas chips in as well, and I remind myself that he knows absolutely what his sister and her Bonded can do.
A small, dark part of my mind that has nothing to do with my bond pops in with the small, helpful detail that Atlas has been gone from his childhood home for a while.
A lot of things could’ve changed in that time.
August butts up against my leg as though he's reassuring me as well, and Jericho’s eyes flick down to stare at North’s shadow creature as though the Doberman-like creature has come from the depths of hell itself.
Kinda rude considering August is the sweetest boy ever at my side, a living embodiment of North’s protective love for me. He doesn’t even attempt to eat anyone around me anymore.
“I think it's kind of sweet that you wanted to come here and die with your Bonded. It's more than I can say about any other member of her Bonded Group, so kudos to you. Well, I guess we can’t blame Peter… I already took care of him.”
I don't look back at Atlas as I say this, mostly because I’m baiting Jericho. I don’t want the man to know that we’re stuck in limbo of not wanting to kill Aurelia for Atlas’ sake, so she’s just got to waste away in the cells here instead, being fed properly but dying of her own volition slowly nonetheless.
The move pays off when a slow smirk stretches over his face.
“I’m not here to die. I'm here to make a deal.”
Jericho refuses to speak to us about the deal he's proposing until he is let out of the cell and able to see his Bonded, even if it’s just through the glass. Nox is keen to just let the shadow creatures in there to convince him to start talking, but I shoot that down pretty quickly.
He already knows what Atlas is capable of, as well as the rumors about the Draven Bonded Group. If he's come all of this way, he either has something very big to offer us or he’s underestimated our abilities greatly.
Atlas chews on the inside of his cheek for a minute before he finally shrugs, saying, “He’s Resistance. He joined my sister’s Bonded Group and was happy enough to go along with everything that my father has said. There's no excusing that. It's not like he didn't know any better, but unless the Resistance has created some sort of ‘super soldier serum’， he's not going to be a threat to any of us. If we get him out of the cell, Gryphon could get inside of his head and shut off his Gift instantly. Oli could rip his soul out of his body, and the shadow creatures could easily tear him limb from limb. He’s not really a threat to any of us.”