All of them eye us with unease as we move.
None of them have been concerned with us before. I hadn't felt like I was an outsider here, so it's jarring. I can tell Atlas notices it as well by the set of his jaw and the way his hand tenses in mine.
I try to rationalize that it’s because of Nox walking around with black eyes and shadow creatures streaming around us, but no one seems to be paying them much attention.
Instead, they're watching Atlas and I.
Whatever's happened has them rattled about me again. God only knows what the Resistance could have done to elicit that response.
Ignoring them all and the unease that settles in my gut, we make our way into the forest. The shield boundary line was far enough out that it takes us a good five minutes before we get close to the voices. As we approach, Nox's bond speaks directly into my head where everyone can hear it.
Deep breath. They want dissent, and we will not give it to them.
Atlas’ hand jerks in mine at the sound of it, but his face doesn't change. These two might not like each other, but they both agree about keeping our Bonded Group a united front around anyone outside of it.
As we get closer, we find Gabe standing shirtless in only a pair of TacTeam standard issue trousers from him Shifting. I sometimes forget he has to be naked when he does or else he’ll shred his clothing. I have to stop thinking about it before my bond gets jealous at any potential eyes that might have seen him.
He meets my eyes before darting a look at Atlas. He tries to act casual as he tugs his shirt back on, swinging the gun holster back over his shoulder casually, and warning bells go off in my head about how he's acting.
It's not me he's worried about.
Three more steps and then we see it.
In the air, a few feet in front of us, is the shimmering line of the shield. It’s invisible to the naked eye, but also clearly there before us. A few feet outside of that line, three bodies are hanging from the branch of one of the trees.
The bodies of Atlas’ parents.
His father, the Central Bond of his parent’s Bonded Group, is a bloodied mess. His face is a mottled purple color and vomit is covering the dress shirt and slacks he’s wearing. Poison is one of the only weaknesses that his Gift has. Someone close enough to him to know that has used that knowledge to kill the unkillable.
His mom was also clearly killed before they strung her up.
There’s a piece of cardboard stapled to her stomach, blood running from the puncture wounds, but the word scrawled across it is still clearly visible.
Traitor.
Among a dozen other wounds, her hands are a bloodied mess, as though she fought off her killers unsuccessfully. That somehow makes me feel sick, the thought that she was probably tortured before they killed her.
Aurelia’s mother has been beaten to the point that her features are unrecognizable. If she wasn’t hanging with the other two Gifted, I wouldn’t know who she was.
Atlas’ hand shakes in mine and he swallows roughly, but there’s no other reaction out of him, no words or tears as he stares at the tortured and lifeless corpses of his family.
Instead, he looks over at North and waits for him to say something first.
I look over to find Gryphon and North both staring at Atlas. When they see he’s locked up, completely paralyzed by this, they both take over.
“We have to secure the area before we can cut them down,” North says, looking over at Nox. But his brother is still staring at the bodies critically.
Atlas shrugs, his voice a little hoarse as he says, “They're the enemy. You're not going to risk our team to give an honorable burial to people who would never offer us the same thing.”
The handful of Tac personnel around us glance at each other as though they’re shocked by this, but I'm not. Regardless of how Atlas feels about his parents, he made the choice to be with me and be a part of this Bonded Group.
Nothing will change that. He's chosen me above all else.
North shrugs. “Good thing it’s not about them and their motives. We're not the Resistance, and there's no great risk to us to do this for you.”
His words are firm and leave no room for doubt. This isn't about the people who died, the enemy to us all, even their son. This is about Atlas not being haunted by the thought of their bodies being left up there, any more than he already will be, anyway.
This is about the respect within our Bonded Group that was so hard fought for.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Atlas
It takes five hours to secure the area enough to cut my parents’ bodies down from the trees the Resistance had strung them up in as a warning, some sickening show of their own psychotic allegiance.
There's no sign of the enemy around us, and I would guess that they’d simply hung them up there and walked away, not needing to see our reactions or attempt any sort of conflict right now.
Their message here was enough.
It feels weird to grieve them all over again. I’d made my peace with being on the opposite side of this war from my family more than a year ago. From the moment I’d seen that footage of Oli being tortured by Silas fucking Davies, I’d begun to distance myself from them and, even now that they've been murdered by their own faction, I still don't regret that choice. The mourning that I feel is more like I'm mourning the parents I wish I had.
The lie I’d been fed, the fantasy that had played out for the majority of my childhood, one that I know now deep in my bones was never real, was only a part that they played so well in their attempts to indoctrinate my sister and I into the Resistance and their cause.
My father never truly loved my mother. He was never truly Bonded to her or to my sister's mother, the meek woman who’d barely been able to meet his eye when he’d been angry.
Her name was Rachel, and she didn’t deserve to live and die this way.
I wonder whether they'd poisoned my father first.
It’s the only way that they could’ve killed him, the man who was indestructible from the outside. Maybe they’d killed both of the women and simply fed him a meal afterwards.
For all I know, my father was the one to find out about the text my mother had sent.
There’s no question that he would’ve told the rest of the founding families about her treachery, but did it backfire on him? Fuck, I hope it did. He would have told Davies himself, the same way that he would have let him use me and my Bonded as a weapon, even at our destruction, if he thought it would win the Resistance the war.
His blind faith that they are all doing the right thing is nothing short of neurotic.
North offers to take their bodies back to the Sanctuary for a burial there, but I refuse. I don't want them polluting that place for me. And though I want my mother to be laid to rest somewhere, I don't necessarily want it there, especially not now that Oli has made murmurings about scattering her parents’ ashes there.
They don't deserve to be laid to rest somewhere like the Sanctuary. Better for them to be buried near a battlefield, and the one that will be the place of our victory as a penance for what they've done. I insist on doing it myself, not putting this work on anyone else while we’re so close to our attack.
Gabe helps me dig the holes.
North and Gryphon are both busy dealing with intel and the new arrival of extra personnel. Now things are moving quickly, but Oli comes to sit with us as we dig and even offers to help out, which I swiftly refuse. When we're about halfway done, Gray and Aro come join us as well, Gray grabbing a shovel and getting to work without a word.