I glanced at Oli, but she's chewing on her lip, a nervous habit she’s trying to squash.
Gabe answers for us. “It’s something that Nox has been working on. We don't have any concrete answers yet.”
Sawyer nods and scratches his chin. “So it's not exactly news to you guys? I was kind of hoping this would help with the situation.”
I swallow roughly. It does and it doesn't. We already knew about the gods, this only confirms that the Resistance knows about them as well, so they’ve kind of had a head start on finding them.
Too bad we have the Draven brothers and Oli on our side where they belong.
We leave Sawyer’s tent together and head towards North and Gryphon. Neither of them had anything to say about the message, but North had asked the three of us to join them on the far end of the camp, the one that faces the Resistance camp we're here to take out.
I'm not sure if we were hoping for the element of surprise in our attack plans, but it's definitely gone now.
Oli’s quiet again, holding on to me like she’s still worried about how I am coping, but her teeth keep tugging at the edge of her lip. The fact that she's not able to suppress the nervous habit tells me a lot about what's going on in her head.
Gabe keeps shooting her looks, then his eyes dart back up at me before he realizes that he's supposed to be giving me some grace because of what's happened today, and then he looks away. It’s almost comical.
I want to scoff at him and make a joke out of it, but Oli’s silence is deafening between us, a suffocating thing that makes my skin crawl.
Gryphon's eyes shifted to black this morning.
She sends it through the mind connection to just the two of us so that no one can accidentally overhear it. She just sends those words and nothing else.
Now I think we’re all freaking out. My heart does a weird pounding in my chest, as though it skips a beat but makes up for it by working twice as hard. She sighs and adds, We were… intimate, and everything was completely normal. His eyes were already white because he was using his Gift, and after we, uhm, finished, his eyes turned black for a fraction of a second. I told him, but he said he didn’t feel different. We should’ve said something, especially after Gabe’s dragon.
Gabe’s dragon. Gryphon’s shifting eyes.
I feel the itch of irritation at myself, because my own powers have barely grown compared to anyone else's. Sure, I can shield other people now, but Gabe shifted into a mythical creature that has a mind of its own, and Gryphon hasn't found a limit yet on what he can do with the human mind or how many people he can manipulate at the same time.
It feels as though I am lagging behind everyone else.
I'd always loved my Gift growing up, being indestructible and strong enough to move a mountain if I needed to… it felt as though I was Superman himself. I spent a lot of time showing off with my friends. Joining the Draven Bonded Group and having Oleander Fallows as my Bonded has me doubting everything.
I'm pretty certain I'm the weakest link now, and that isn't a comfortable place to be.
Did you tell Nox? Isn’t this literally what he’s working on right now? Gabe sends back hesitantly.
Jesus.
She’d spent the whole morning with him too. No doubt he’ll pitch a fit about it, and then we’ll be trying to fight the Resistance with a huge rift in the Bonded Group all over again.
Oli cringes a little and shakes her head. Gryphon said nothing happened, and it felt… wrong to talk about it without him there. It’s hard to navigate Bonded shit when there’s six different people to take into account!
She chews on her lip a little more and then sighs. His face changed.
Changed? What does ‘changed’ mean? Gabe’s words come out as frantic as I feel.
For a second there, it went blank. It's hard to describe. It's the same thing that North and Nox's faces do when their bonds take over. It's like all of the humanness drains out of them, and they're a little bit more robotic, I guess. I'm not explaining this right, she says, but I nod.
I know what you mean. At the Wasteland, Nox looked like a completely different person. Your bond does that to you as well. I can tell just by looking at you, even without the eye change, because you move differently when it takes over.
Gabe nods his agreement with me.
We're getting closer to the boundary, the voices of the Tac personnel getting louder around us, so we need to wrap this up. I find myself fascinated by the very idea that Oli could change people, change her Bonded men into something else.
Something more.
No wonder Davies was so desperate to get his hands on her.
When we finally reach the edge of the boundary, there are groups of TacTeam personnel armed to the teeth and aiming outwards with their weapons. Some have their palms raised and ready to unleash their Gifts, while others stick to their standard issue weapons.
I move Oli a little closer into my side, and Gabe shifts subtly in front of her. We find North and Gryphon easily enough, though surprisingly, Nox is with them as well. They’re all staring out at the area in front of us where a group of Resistance cavalry is standing there talking, but the shield is strong enough that we can't hear them. That’s both a blessing and a curse, but I find myself angry at the sight of them.
These people had killed my parents.
These people had strung them up from trees. These people would do the same thing to me and my Bonded and the rest of the Bonded Group. And given half the chance, these people would do worse.
It’s like a pressure building up inside of me, bubbling under the surface until my skin and bones can no longer contain it, like my power is building and building and building as it focuses on what those people would do to us all.
What they will do to us all.
Those words echo in my head as I feel my Gift slip out of my control.
Murderers. These people would take everything from us. They would take what is ours.
Mine.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Oli
I feel the moment that Atlas’ bond changes.
It takes over his body in a wave of power that ripples out to slam through everyone around us, intoxicating and terrifying. There’s no mistaking what it is, because my bond wakes up with it, pushing at my skin as it strains towards him. I glance over to see the black rings around North’s irises, the dark stain on Nox’s fingers, and the clench of Gabe’s jaw as he holds the shift back, his dragon fighting to come out. The only reaction I can see in Gryphon is the tight curling of his fists at his side as he stares at the destruction of Atlas’ god-bond.
There's no time to attempt to hide what's happened to him from the TacTeam personnel here.
There's no way for Gryphon to use his abilities to shut everyone down, not without causing serious damage to them, and I find myself standing there as still as I can, praying that I'm wrong even as I can feel what has occurred here deep in my bones.
My own bond forces my head up to look at Atlas, straight into the voids that have taken over his irises instead of the bright white light I’m used to seeing there.
He looks down at me, and his face is that same blank slate that all of the bonds’ are when they take over. When he sees me and recognizes me as his Bonded, his arms tighten around my waist. From the corner of my eye, I can see Gabe freaking out, but I lean in further to Atlas’ side.