Fake it until you make it. Sometimes it’s all you can do while the world is in chaos.
North waits until they're all gone before he speaks to me about what has been eating him all night, speaking directly through our mind link, where he's careful that no one else can hear it.
I spoke with a human senator today. She had a lot of information about the latest attacks on Gifted families.
I’m sorry you had to do that, I say, ready to comfort him from whatever atrocities he’s been forced to see.
I'm not prepared for the horror of what he's discovered.
There are a lot of historical deaths as well. She brought up your parents, the car accident, and she mentioned that a lot of the deaths of the Gifted and non-Gifted alike are hidden in other accidents so that no one would realize the true cause of death.
My heart stops in my chest.
She has a file on your parents’ death. She was trying to use you against me, and I don't think she realized what she had really found. Your parents didn't die in a car accident, Oli, did they? The coroner's report said their hearts just stopped in their chests, as though their souls had simply left their body.
I panic.
There’s no other way to describe the way that one minute I’m standing in North’s office, my Bonded all moving around me as they head off to where they’re needed for the early evening, and then the next, I’m running, fleeing from the worst part of me that’s been cracked open and put on display. It’s like my nightmares have come true.
North's words still bounce around in my head as I reach the house, my fingers almost numb as I scramble to get the door open. I can hear the footsteps behind me, pounding as though one of my Bonded is running after me, but my head feels as though it's filled with air, light and floaty, like I might pass out at any second.
I need to get somewhere safe.
I can’t think about anything else, just the desperate need to flee the rejection that’s about to tear my world apart. I need to be somewhere where I can process everything that's happened without having to face the reality of all of them knowing this about me now.
Do they all know?
North wouldn’t lie to Gryphon. They wouldn’t keep this from Gabe or Atlas, not after how much they’ve talked about being a cohesive Bonded Group.
They wouldn’t let them unknowingly stay with a murderer.
My feet move without me really thinking about it, and I only realize that I have locked myself in Nox’s room when the pounding on the wood starts up behind me. I hear the voices of people yelling through the closed door, but the ringing in my ear is too loud to decipher it.
My back slowly slides down the door until my ass hits the ground so hard that my teeth rattle, my arms shaking as I draw my knees up and hug them. The shouting abruptly stops before there's a soft, wispy nuzzle at my cheek. I slowly raise my head to find Azrael staring at me, his bottomless void eyes seeing everything and nothing, all the time. In the expanse of the voids, I can feel Nox in there as well, and my eyes fall shut as I try to calm my breathing down.
I can't even bear to look at him right now, the one person who already knew and hasn't judged me for it. I don’t deserve the solace of his calm presence.
Murderer.
I can feel pushing at the walls in my mind, but I keep them strong, pushing everyone out so I can keep being a coward here for just a minute longer. I take this moment to tell myself that I can get through this. There’s every chance that they're going to want to leave me now, and I need to have my walls back in place, the cold, calm exterior I had walked into Draven with. I need to be unfeeling before I have to face them. If I go out there right now as raw and as open as I am, I'll be destroyed.
There's a quiet, dark place inside myself that knows no matter what, I'm going to be destroyed, but I can lie to myself for a little longer.
Eventually, I make my way over to the bed, sliding between the sheets and pulling the blanket up over my head. My mind is a spinning, swirling vortex of shame and anxiety, making it impossible to go to sleep, but I lose track of time in my own meltdown.
It’s not until I hear the door lock click and door open that I come back into myself.
I hear Atlas’ angry voice as he snaps, “You can't just keep us out here—”
I cringe and curl in on myself that he is that angry at me, but then I hear Nox reply, “It’s my room. If she chose to be in here, then there's nothing you can do about it. Cross that line and I'll unleash the shadow creatures on you, and we’ll see just how indestructible you really are.”
Then the door shuts again, the lock clicking back into place and the room falling back into silence.
Nox moves so quietly that I can barely hear what he's doing. It's as though his body is made out of shadows, not just his powers, but every now and then, there's a rustle of fabric, the quiet thunk of his phone being placed on the bedside table, and the shuffling of papers as he puts away his research.
Still, he says nothing.
And still, even though he already knew what I'd done, the shame keeps my mouth sealed shut when the door opens to the bathroom and the shower cuts on.
I let go of the breath I was holding in, melting into the bed with the sheer relief that he isn't going to force me to talk about this or to force me to get out of this bed and face the fact that my Bonded are sickened by me.
The sound of the shower slowly lulls just enough calm into me until I'm finally able to doze off to sleep. I wake up to the feeling of Nox sliding into the bed next to me, cautiously bundling me up into his arms until we’re twisted around each other. It’s as though he’s not quite sure of what he’s doing or if he’s doing it right. If I wasn’t already completely shattered, that would have finished the job.
A low sob bubbles up out of my chest, but he just presses my face closer into his chest, the steady thump of his heartbeat under my ear a mesmerizing sound that once again gets me back to sleep.
Hours later—how many, I'm not sure. The complete darkness of Nox's room is disorienting. I feel the bed move again, and I crack an eye open to find North climbing in.
The shadow creatures around us are no longer sleeping, all of them watching him carefully as though they're waiting for him to strike, but he doesn't reach for me or attempt to speak in any way. He just lies down in the bed next to us silently, until eventually the shadow creatures all lay their heads back down to sleep.
The silence stretches on for so long that I start to panic again.
I think it’s that panic that finally gets North talking. “I know what it's like to kill someone without meaning to. It's a heavy weight to carry, Oleander.”
If I didn't already know the amount of trust that Nox has in his brother, this moment would confirm it because he sleeps through the sound of his voice. I'm not sure he'll sleep through mine, so instead, I speak to North directly through our mind connection.
She deserved to die. My parents didn't. There's a very big difference between the two, North. I know that this changes things—
He interrupts me and even the voice in his mind is harsh, This changes nothing. Not with me or any of the rest of your Bonded, who are all out in the hallway, freaking the hell out about your reaction to this. I misjudged how you’d react. This is all my fault. All I've done since you brought Nox back is mess things up.