I CAN’T SEE Oli from where I am in my shifted form, but Gryphon’s reassurance filtering into my brain that he’s heard from her, that she’s alive and ripping people’s souls out left and right, is the only thing keeping me from abandoning the people here and running to her. The impulse to find and covet her is strong, but I have a job to do and I need to trust the rest of the Bond Group.
It’s a good thing too, because there’s a lot of Healers and low level Neuro types running towards me for safety that would be decimated by the gifts being thrown around.
There’s a Charge around here somewhere, blowing holes in the sides of buildings, and I’m feeling particularly shitty about it after a week of working on the damn things.
I have to shift back into human form to call out to the terrified crowd and direct them to safety. They blink at me like rabbits caught in headlights, a giant naked guy will do that to a person, but I open the doors up to the school to usher the newcomers in and they go quickly enough. I send them down to the storm cellar underneath the building with the rest of the Gifted that I’ve found and stashed under there. It’s mostly women and children and Top Tier idiots who are too scared to fight for our town and our community.
There are going to be a lot of changes around here once we’ve dealt with this nightmare.
The moment I get the door shut and barricaded behind them, dragging a slab of concrete from the debris in front of the door for extra protection, I shift back into my largest panther form and jump down from the small porch to join the other shifters, sniffing at the air as the next wave rolls in.
North and the others are doing a great job of keeping most of the fighting away from us, but there’s a group of Transporters here bringing in wave after wave of soldiers, and there are too many slipping through to us for me to leave and join the fight.
In my fully shifted form, I can tear through three men at a time, which is helping keep the crowd at bay. Ezra shifting behind me into the tiger form he has and being able to take out one at a time also helps. Elliot stoops down to place his palm on the ground, sending a sheet of ice that grows out of his fingers to cover the ground and freeze the approaching soldiers, making them easy game for me to rip in half.
It’s messier than the other deaths, but there’s something very satisfying about doing it.
There’s a quiet moment, a lull in the hordes of insurgents around us, and then I turn towards the footsteps coming up quickly from behind. Kyrie has a scrape down one of her cheeks, a split lip, and a child she’s found somewhere tucked under one of her arms, but her eyes are clear and she’s still sharp as she looks around the side of the school building, spotting me and deflating a little in relief.
She helps the kid onto the porch and then winces a little as she pulls herself up. “Tell me you have guns here as well? I only had three in my room, and I’m already out of ammo.”
I jump up to lead her over to the pile of clothing I’d torn off to shift, and she stoops down to grab two of the guns and some clips that I’d grabbed and brought with me when North had called.
She sweeps her hair back into a ponytail, all business and looking so much like her brother with the no-bullshit look on her face. “There’s some houses on the edge of zone three, just over there, and there’s people trapped in there. They have kids, and they’re too scared to move them without an escort. I’ll go now. I have an earpiece, and that Benson kid has been directing me.”
I drop my head down in a nod, because I’m not going to shift back and have this conversation butt-ass naked with her. My bond ripples in my chest at the idea and the seething sort of jealousy that Oli’s bond had shown around us makes it a non-option.
If her bond is out here tearing souls out, I’m not going to provoke it into hurting Kyrie.
There’s a boom as the Charge takes out another building, one of the trucks they’d rolled in here lifting into the air and landing a few feet away in a charred and smoking mess. I jerk my head at Kyrie to get her moving and jump back down to where the others are waiting.
The next wave of Resistance arrives in front of us, guns and hands raised as they begin firing at us but the bullets bounce off of an invisible barrier. We might not have a Shield hiding in the school strong enough to protect the entire Sanctuary, but there are three mothers and a father in there doing everything they can for their kids, and I would protect them over the Top Tier Flame bureaucrat shitting himself next to them any day of the fucking week.
The barrier isn’t enough to keep them away from us though, but we’ve been at this for over an hour, so we know how it works. I focus on the bulk of the soldiers while the other two grab whoever I miss. It’s bloody work, but it’s also cathartic, taking out every last ounce of my frustration on these fucking pieces of shit who came here after our most defenseless population.
When I’ve taken out the six men who crossed the barrier, I look up to find the Charge there, hand out as if he’s about to blow a fucking crater into the ground where I’m standing.
Except then Oli strides around the corner with her hand up and her eyes voided out. There’s nothing here that my Bond can’t handle. Dozens of the Resistance fall as one until there’s no one left for me to deal with. I watch Ezra and Elliot both drop back, moving away from her with a look of fear in them so strong that even shifted, you can tell they’re shitting themselves.
I think she just looks hot as fuck.
“Ugh, what was that? That guy there, what was his power?”
I glance down and then shift back to my human form, enjoying the little squeak she lets out at the sight of me. I glance around but there’s only the building workers still out here, and I don’t think she’ll give a shit about them. “He was a Charge. A living bomb. He’s the one doing all of the damage. He flipped a truck over on a few of Gryphon’s guys early on, and North has been working at pushing him back this whole time. He had a Shield working with him but… well, that’s the other guy you just took out.”
Oli looks around, very scandalized about my dick still being out, and says, “Shift back! There’s cameras everywhere, and I don’t want Sawyer talking about how fantastic your ass is.”
Bassinger snorts and shakes his head, drawling, “I don’t think it’ll be his ass—”
“Don’t even suggest his dick right now! I’m doing what I can to distract my bond, and talking about it isn’t helping, Atlas!” she snaps, and I shift back, easy as breathing, to butt my head against her legs. I’d shifted to talk to her, sure, but also because I wanted to take a second to just hold my goddamned Bond.
Alive and massacring the enemy like they deserve. We’re all fucking blessed.
She crouches down to wrap her arms around my neck, burying her face there. “Sorry. I want to talk to you but… you’re also mine and I’m not sharing.”
It’s a good thing too because right as she sighs with relief at having me back, Kyrie pops back up with a couple of families, at least a dozen kids between them, and starts moving them back towards the school. Brutus jumps over to sniff at them as they walk and a couple of the kids squeal and burst into tears at the sight of him, their parents scooping them up in fear.
Kyrie nips that in the bud. “The beast is back again? Shit. It’s okay, kids. He’s a friendly pup. That’s his mama over there. She wouldn’t let him misbehave. He won’t hurt you, he’s here for the bad guys.”
Everyone who has an earpiece turns to stone for a second, hearing something from Sawyer, but my feline hearing can only pick up the high frequency noise of the technology.
Oli lets out a sigh and tucks her face back into my neck. “I got the last of the Transporters. North just took out the last of the soldiers in his zones, and Gryphon has the gates back in place.”
Atlas nods and takes a step towards the corpse of the Charge. “They got the new Shields in. We have three backups now, instead of one. That should help.”
Oli’s stomach makes a noise and I move back a little so that I can look at her, ready to go hunt for something to feed her if she needs it after all of the power she’s used, but she looks sick.
“Ignore it. My bond… is eating the Charge’s soul in there. He was the strongest Gifted here, and even stronger than Andrews. I guess we just passed the next strength test.”
Well, fuck.
