North looks around at everyone at the table before he signals to Gryphon to open the cell door. He uses his Neuro Gift to shut Jericho’s brain down as they maneuver him over to the interrogation table, locking him into the seat with his hands bound behind his back with the tech handcuffs on. They’re another layer of security for us all, and I’m not really worried about what Jericho has planned anymore. Atlas is right, we’re stronger than him, which means that whatever he’s planning on offering us must be big.
Aurelia watches the entire thing with tears in her eyes, but she stays in the same position, her back against the concrete wall and her palms flat on the ground.
It's creepy as fuck.
We have to move to find more chairs, but once we're all seated in a haphazard half circle around the table, Gryphon finally lets Jericho’s mind go, the white ring around his eyes slowly disappearing until he blinks rapidly, as though he’s clearing his vision. The moment he is aware enough to know that he has been moved, his head snaps towards his Bonded, his eyes drinking her in obsessively, and his lip curls at the state she's in.
When he turns back to North, my Bonded shrugs. “She won't take anything we offer her. She has been sent three solid meals a day, medical assistance, and her brother has been down to speak to her. If she won't take what's been provided to her, then what are we supposed to do?”
We had discussed the ethics of Gryphon using his mind control to force her to eat, but I had no intention of asking that sort of thing of my Bonded. Forcing a woman to do anything isn't a pleasant experience. In the end, Atlas had been the one to say that she should be left to the consequences of her own choices.
North waits another heartbeat of silence before he says, “I’m not a very patient man, and I have no time for games. Put your deal on the table, and be done with it.”
I cross my arms over my chest as I lean in slightly, eager to hear what the deal is, what it is that he could possibly be offering us.
Atlas’ palm is warm on my knee, even as his face shows none of the frustration and disapproval that he’s filled with right now. He'd been quick to suggest that I sit between him and one of my other Bonded so that he could shield me if anything does go wrong here, always extra cautious, and I didn't feel the need to argue the point.
I don't really want my bond to come out right now, because I have no doubt that it’ll simply destroy everyone in the cells rather than bother to extract information from any of them. I don't want to mess with the processes that North and Gryphon have in place like that. The tiniest scrap of information could turn the tide of the war.
We need every chance we can get.
“First, I will tell you the terms of the deal before I let you know what I'm offering you. I want to take my Bonded to Singapore. I want you to release us and let us leave the country together.”
Atlas’ hand jerks on my knee, the only sign of his reaction to this news, and North immediately cuts Jericho off. “Absolutely not. We don't just let Resistance prisoners go, especially not high profile ones such as yourselves.”
Jericho’s lip curls. “We’re not though, are we? Aurelia is a Bassinger in name only. Her father sold her off to the highest bidders. The only reason she got to have one of her actual Bonds is because I was willing to sacrifice everything to have her.”
I frown and look around at the rest of my Bonded Group, but they're all staring at Jericho intently. Only Nox seems distracted by the shadow creature at his feet. His head is ducked down as he strokes a hand over Procel’s head gently.
“I have no interest in listening to Resistance lies; we're done here,” North says, and Jericho jerks forward in the chair, his bindings rattling at the sudden movement.
He looks fearsome, his eyes narrowed at North like he’s imagining ripping his throat out with his bare hands. “You've already figured it out. You've already figured out what the Resistance has been doing for generations, splitting up Bonded Groups and using the entire population as a breeding science experiment. Very few Bonded Groups are left as they should be, and only if the testing slips through the cracks. You will let me and my Bonded go to Singapore, and not only will we abandon the Resistance fight, but I will give you whatever information you need to kill them all.”
North shakes his head slowly, his mouth a grim line. “You don’t think that every Resistance prisoner that we've had in this place hasn’t offered us the same thing for their freedom? I have no interest in playing these games with you, Jericho. You’ve turned yourself in, and it's all been for nothing.”
North moves as if he is going to stand, and Jericho snaps, “It’s about the god. The breeding experiments are about the void-eyed being, the one that lives inside your Bonded.”
That gets everybody's attention.
Chapter Eleven
Oli
He's bluffing.
I can barely hear Nox’s words over the pounding of my heart in my chest, thumping so violently that I feel as though my ribs might crack.
I don't think he is, Atlas replies through the mind link, and I risk looking over at him. His face is still completely unreadable, not showing any of the spiraling panic that I'm sure we're all feeling, or maybe it's just me. Maybe my own freakout is consuming me so goddamn much that I can't sense any calm in the rest of my Bonded Group.
North replies, his voice full of steel and sharp edges, Of course he is. He stumbled on some document about Oli, and he is trying to use that information to get his Bonded out of the cells. Admirable enough, because at least he gives a fuck about her, but it's not going to work.
Surprisingly, it's Nox who finally addresses Jericho. “Tell me what you know about the god. Tell me everything, and tell it to me truthfully. Maybe we’ll spare your life.”
Atlas glances over at me, his eyes round with shock, but I focus on what Jericho’s answer is. Nox is the one who had spent hours and hours trawling through every history book he could get his hands on that referenced void-like eyes or gods living amongst us, so I'm not shocked that this has caught his attention.
I'm also very aware that Jericho only mentioned the god living in me and has not put together enough clues to know about the Draven brothers.
“I know that the breeding experiments were about making sure that the god was born into the Resistance. They were hoping for it to be born into one of the higher families. That's why they chose the bloodlines very carefully. The Bassingers were hoping it would be born to one of them, but when the rumors started of a young Gifted girl who could kill people at will, with eyes that changed to black, they knew that they had failed and that it was born outside of our inner circles. When they approached her, the entire family ran. The Fallows knew what we were going to do.”
“And what exactly is that?” North cuts in, but Jericho keeps looking at Nox, his eyes sizing up the younger of the two Draven brothers. Maybe he sees something in my most damaged Bonded that makes him think he has a chance of convincing him.
“The god that lives inside her is not something that you can tame. Just because it's playing along now, doesn't mean it will forever. It always turns on its host and kills everyone around it.”
My blood chills in my veins, but my bond doesn't come out to play or even to reassure me that it isn't planning my demise right now as we listen to Jericho spout on and on about all of the things that it will do to us.