BODIES FALL to the dirt around us in unceremonious heaps, limbs torn away and chunks missing from their torsos, thanks to the hundreds of nightmare creatures roaming the camp.
All three of the TacTeams working with us today are forming a perimeter, careful not to move in while the carnage is taking place because the infamous Draven nightmares don’t distinguish friend from foe when they’re in a feeding frenzy like this. No, there’s only bodies to consume and tear apart until blood and gore is dripping from their jaws as their eyes shine with an eerie and unnatural light.
The camp is an older one, more established and full of heavily brainwashed Gifted who’ll take months to process and deprogram. I want to be noble and say that we’re here to save them, that we’ve watched this camp for months and planned out this rescue to bring these people home to their families, and on paper, that’s all true.
But as an older camp, it’s also full of records, and Gryphon has become obsessed with sifting through Resistance data. It’s not hard to figure out his motives. There’s something he knows about our Bond that he’s choosing not to share, but when he finds whatever he’s looking for…
We might all finally get some answers.
There’s a static sound in my earpiece and then Gryphon’s voice comes through, “Prisoners are in the biggest tent on the east side. Bravo team, move out.”
I unholster one of my guns and then hold my palm out to call my nightmare creatures back into myself now that the majority of the Resistance here have been dealt with. There’s still a chance that we’ve missed some, thus the gun, but the risk of killing innocents is too high to keep them out and consuming.
Most of the creatures melt away back into me as though they’re obedient, others go back in snarling and screaming. The biggest of them all, the one that I refuse to call August, stops short to stare at me with it’s glowing void eyes.
It stares at me like it is the docile puppy Oleander seems so intent on it being. It stares at me like it’s pissed off she’s not here, dropping to her knees to shower it with love and affection.
It stares at me like it knows something is wrong.
“Is he still giving you shit thanks to Oli?” Gryphon says as he walks up behind me, bolder and less cautious now that he’s seen the creature heel to our little Bond.
“It is, yes. There’s something… off about the camp. Keep your eyes peeled, and stick close.”
He smirks at my distinction of the creature, enjoying riling me up on Oleander’s behalf, which is both new and completely typical of him.
He’s going to be a nightmare going forward, especially if he stays the only Bonded of us all.
I have to wrench my mind away from that particular path, something that could occupy me for days if I really wanted to follow that thought process. Maybe being stuck in council meetings has been a blessing in disguise, keeping me distracted and busy so that I don’t have to think about our little mysterious Bond, who might just have had a real reason to run from us after all.
I hold my hand out to the creature again, a battle of wills and mental strength, until finally, with a soundless huff and snort, there’s a pop sound as he disappears back into me. My bond rears its head in my chest, not so eager at being forced to heel, and I take a deep breath as Gryphon calls out again to get everyone moving.
Nox doesn’t call his creatures into himself at all, but they’ve always been completely obedient to their master. Once he starts moving through the tents and clearing them, the other members of the Alpha team are happy enough to follow his lead. They’re still cautious but no longer stuck standing rigidly like statues, like they are around mine. Something about the size difference, or the very obvious way that mine are rabid, reinforces the general rules of staying the fuck away from them nicely without any of our Bond Group having to say a word.
Gryphon takes his backup second with him to scout out a cluster of smaller tents that we already know from intel are the lodgings of the higher members of the Resistance. His second, Harrison, is Arthur Rockelle’s son, and a highly trained Flame who has always been loyal. He’s the easy choice to back Gryphon while Kieran is on Oleander’s protection detail.
I follow Nox to the torture camp.
He always goes to the questioning and processing areas first. He finds the men and women working there himself, just to make sure that they die a very messy and painful death at his hands, because the idea of a bullet between the eyes for their kind just doesn’t sit well with him.
Or me.
I’m just a little less zealous about it.
Sure enough, we find an Empath and two Neuros in there, huddled together. Their panicked, whispered plans are useless and redundant, and I watch with a cold sort of interest as Nox stalks towards them with his palm outstretched, the black stains of our curse darkening his skin as their screams fill our ears.
He always does play with his food before he lets his nightmares eat them.
An hour later, we’re climbing into the back of the truck with the knowledge that every Resistance member here is now dead. Gryphon calls out to the driver to get us back onto the road and headed back to the rendezvous point, blood covering us all from the knees down.
The Bravo team will stay behind and move the recovered Gifted to our version of the processing camps, only instead of poking and prodding at them to figure out what use they’ll be to our manic mission, we’ll be starting the long process of undoing all of the programming and torture they’ve endured since they were taken.
Some of them will die there.
It doesn’t sit well with me, it never has, but sometimes they’re too far gone, the damage is too much to come back from.
I blow out a breath and tip my head back against the seat, enjoying the quiet moment without having to think about council meetings or political moves. As much as I didn’t want to leave my Bond behind, definitely not after the revelation of more Resistance interference, there’s something about getting away from all of the trappings of being North Draven the Councilman that I desperately needed.
It all feels like bullshit, like sand slipping through my fingers while the world burns around us all anyway.
William would’ve known what to do, more than I ever have.
There were fifty captive Gifted here and we got thirty-eight out alive. It sounds like a terrible amount of casualties, and in other situations, heads would be rolling about losing twelve Gifted, but these sorts of recon missions… twelve is right about average.
We’ve never gotten everyone out alive before. We’re outnumbered and always running on the defensive, our greatest weakness as a society, and with that comes far too much blood being spilled. It’s easier to digest the numbers here on the ground, watching the TacTeams work their asses off to get the worst of the brainwashed victims restrained before they become a danger to themselves or others, but in my office back home when I get reports, those numbers burn a hole into my deepest marrow. It’s never enough. Nothing we do ever is.
With those morose thoughts, I almost miss it.
It starts with Gryphon’s fingers thrumming against the leather seats, a small outlet for his frustration. The calm over Nox’s face, something I’ve barely seen before and that had only taken place when his own bloodlust had been sated, slowly melts away until the furrow in his brow is firmly back in place.
Blood and pain.
My bond hasn’t stopped whispering to me all morning, telling me all about the darkest and most blood-soaked things it wants to do to every member of the Resistance we come across today. It makes it harder for me to notice that same tension entering me that has taken hold of the other two, but once I see the scowl on Gryphon’s face, I take stock of myself.
My skin feels tight with irritation, as though it’s pulled tighter over my frame now than it was ten minutes ago, and my entire body feels restless. There’s a tension in me that wasn’t there before. Something is happening within our Bond.
Oleander.
I don’t have my phone with me, protocol on this sort of mission, and I try not to sound panicked or desperate when I murmur to Gryphon, “Contact Oleander. Tell me where she is right now.”
His eyes flick to mine, the frown still firmly in place, and there’s the slightest pause before he curses and his eyes flash white as he calls on his gift for an extra boost.
It’s all I need to see to know that I’m not wrong, that something is happening right now that even with hundreds of miles between us, I can feel her there under my skin. We might be Unbonded but it doesn’t matter, she’s there in my blood and the deepest, darkest corners of my soul.
The panic gets worse.
Nox is watching us both keenly, not faking his usual indifference when it’s only the three of us, and when Gryphon curses again, he drawls, “Where is she? Are we about to go running after our little poisonous Bond again?”
Gryphon ignores him as he grabs out his comms, a feat because even I want to snarl at his jabs and I’m sure being Bonded only makes this feeling a million times worse. When he doesn’t get an answer on the comms, he unbuckles his seatbelt and lurches into the front of the truck, coming back with his phone and a vaguely sick look on his face.
I take a deep breath and count down from ten to keep myself in line, forcing my bond back from lashing out.
“Kieran isn’t answering me,” Gryphon says as his scowl deepens, and I want to reach across the backseat and choke the answer out of him, another sign that something has gone wrong in the hours since we left the mansion.
My bond is writhing with bloodlust.
“She’s not answering me either. Get Gabe on the phone, call Bassinger too,” Gryphon snaps, throwing the phone to me as he presses both of his palms against his temples like he’s in pain.
Nox’s eyes meet mine, but he looks as though he’s about to tear the driver out of the seat and turn this truck around. “What’s wrong? Why do you look like you’re about to puke?”
“Because I pushed to get her to answer and she’s not… there. She’s not ignoring me, there’s something in the way. Something is wrong, get Gabe on the line now.”
Except we left a lot more than just the other Bonds behind to keep an eye on her.
As I start dialing, Nox’s eyes shift to black and Gryphon watches him check in with the… Brutus, like it’s the only lifeline in the middle of the ocean while we’re all drowning.
“She’s alive. She’s breathing, I can’t see much else, but he’s with her, so no one will get within spitting distance without him consuming them. Take a breath, Gryph, she’s alive.”
He doesn’t look any better at that news. “Well then, where the fuck is she? Don’t tell me to calm down when she’s gone again.”
When the phone finally clicks as Gabe answers, I hear Bassinger snarling down the line, “So now you lot want to call us? Well, you’re too fucking late!”
Gryphon’s eyes snap to mine, too wide and glassy, thanks to the push he’d given his connection with his Bonded.
I snarl into the phone, “What the fuck has happened? We’ve been gone less than twelve hours—”
Gryphon cuts me off, snarling, “Where the fuck is she, Bassinger? I will come back there and tear your fucking spine out of your throat, if you had anything to do with this!”
Bassinger scoffs at him, a savage sort of sound, and snarls back, “Your useless, fucking asshole second took her, and they haven’t come back! I will fucking kill you all if she’s hurt. I’ll gut that fucking dickhead Black too.”
