I wake up in a car.
It’s hard to explain exactly where in the car I am. Every seat is already occupied, and I don’t actually have a body, but I know that my consciousness exists somewhere within the confines of the vehicle. I shouldn’t be this calm. I should be concerned about how the fuck I got here and where my physical self is, but there’s no question in me that this is where I’m supposed to be.
I’m safe here.
I’ve never really felt this sort of security before, this amount of rightness and contentment.
Once I get my bearings a little more, I look around at my surroundings. I only recognize one of the people in the vehicle, and even then it is a shock to see my Bond looking so young and so… fragile. That stubborn strength that shines out of her isn’t there yet, the little girl still untried and whole, none of the cracks and splintered pieces taped back together that she wears so nonchalantly.
Her hair is also black.
It’s the first thing that strikes me, the fact that the usually silvery halo around her face is the same dark color as mine. There’s a sort of innocence in her eyes as well that makes it obvious that I have fallen into a memory of hers that happened long before she was taken by the Resistance.
Something important changes inside of me.
Something I will never be able to doubt again, because that safe feeling is seeping into my bones, warming me from the inside out. No matter how much my mind would like to rage against that, to question it and poke holes in it, there’s no arguing with a soul-connection.
She couldn’t hide anything from me right now, no matter how hard she tried, and all I can feel is how right she is for me. Made for me, carved from the same stone and separated to walk the earth in search of each other. All of the feelings that I’d hated my brother and best friend for having, all of them fill me at once.
I don’t know what to do about any of those feelings, so I focus on what I can learn from this memory instead.
Oleander is crying.
They’re the angry sort of tears, the type where frustration bubbles up inside of you and without another outlet, the only way that she can let it out is the silent stream of tears down her cheeks. She doesn’t say a word even though the woman sitting in the car next to her is trying to speak to her. She’s very obviously her mother; the gentle hand that she strokes down Oleander’s cheek is so warmly affectionate that it’s entirely foreign to me.
Oleander doesn’t flinch or shy away from the affection even though I can tell that her frustration is aimed directly at her mother. Something has happened to get them all into this car that has broken my Bond’s heart.
The protective urge in my gut is foreign and deeply unsettling.
The men all sitting in the car are tense. They surround Oleander and her mother in a protective circle, each of them darting looks in their direction constantly, as though checking in on them. This is what a real Bonded Group looks like, a healthy and loving one.
Something is wrong though.
The driver keeps checking the rearview mirror constantly, as though he is looking out for someone following them, and the man in the passenger seat with a laptop on his lap is barely concentrating on the data and finances in front of him. His eyes keep drifting somewhere between the road in front of us and the side mirrors. They’re all sitting uncomfortably as though they’re preparing for an attack.
Oleander hasn’t noticed the danger that they’re all in. I’d never asked her when her bond had kicked in and started talking to her, and North had never mentioned it, but it’s obvious that it is not here in the car with us right now.
Oleander would be prepared for the impact of the SUV into the side of the car if it was.
The sound of her scream echoes throughout my consciousness, and I no longer need my lovesick bond whispering inside of me to know that it is a gut-wrenching sound.
I already knew that her mother and fathers had died in a car accident, one that was orchestrated by the Resistance, so this isn’t something that is shocking to me.
Oleander’s bond manifesting and tearing the souls out of everyone within a ten-mile radius is.
Her entire family included.
The tent is hot.
The air is humid, sweat dripping down Oleander’s face as she stares blankly at the canvas walls around her. She’s chained to a chair with the tech handcuffs around her wrists, the type that will send volts of electricity tearing through your body if you attempt to free yourself. I’ve seen the remains of prisoners who’ve died that way before, and it’s enough to turn even the strongest stomach.
She’s a little older now than she was in the car, at least a year has passed, and the silver of her hair is more familiar to me, though it’s a little darker than it is now, more gray than the whiter shade of the girl I now know as my Bond.
The more of these memories that I’m thrown into, the less that I can call her the other word, the one that turns my stomach and has panic run through my veins like the worst type of drug. The more of the broken pieces of her that are given to my unwilling and undeserving soul, the more that I find myself turning towards her and falling under her siren’s call.
It isn’t as terrifying as it once felt.
There’s still a part of me that doesn’t want this, that will never want this, but I feel the shift within myself. I don’t deserve a Bonded. I don’t deserve someone fated to be with me, to love me, to want what’s best for me and to build a life with me. I’ll never be able to fully give myself to someone that same way, and no one should have to be saddled with my levels of broken and dirty and savage.
Least of all this young girl with a spine of steel and a heart that doesn’t give up, not even when it’s been lashed and torn up by my own damage.
We exist in this hot tent together for what feels like an eternity, the sweat still dripping down her face and memories of hers filtering into my consciousness as I take in every boring second of this moment that is one of her worst, though I don’t see why.
Then the screaming starts.
I know what it is. One look at Oleander says that she knows what it is too, and she screws her eyes shut as though that might block the sound out some for her, a single, lonely tear rolling down her cheek.
The tent flap opens just wide enough for Silas Davies to slip through the gap, his body moving in that casual way of his that speaks so clearly about him. He’s self-assured and confident, totally at ease walking around the camps, even as the horrors are echoing through the night.
All of this I know from the years of working in the TacTeams and going through the intel North had recovered, but now I also know it from Oleander and her memories. Everything I knew in theory is backed up by her experiences.
“Give me your bond. Let me talk to it, and I’ll make it all stop for you, little Render.”
She doesn’t.
Even with the blinding terror coursing through her body, the knowledge of what he’s going to do to her an intimately detailed list in her young mind, she doesn’t give him what he wants. Instead, she lies there and tries to muffle her own screams as he carves her body up with his sick arsenal of blades and medieval devices that should never have seen the light of day again.
This is only one of hundreds of torture sessions this man puts Oleander through, one day of the life she was living for two years while we searched for her, no one as vehemently as my brother.
And I’m forced to watch it all.
I mark Silas Davies for death.
I don’t need my bond to kick in and make its own assessment of this situation known; I take in every inch of this man until this image is burned into my consciousness as deeply as it’s burned into Oleander’s. This is terrifying to her. This is a trauma that she’s had tucked away deeply in her mind for years that this connection she’s managed to form between us both has pulled out and ripped open into the light of day.
This is something that she never wanted to think about again.
Now it belongs to the both of us.
I wake up on my side in an unfamiliar bed.
Panic rises in my chest when I try to move but find myself restricted, my breathing going from deep to choppy inhales and shaky exhales. I have to squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to calm down before I can make a proper assessment of where I am and what the fuck is going on.
I was dead.
There’s no question in my mind about what had happened to me, because it was so perfectly clear to me what was happening. I felt my body shut down, all of my faculties disappear, and even my shadows slipped away from me. Even now, I can’t… feel them the way I should be able to. My bond is still in my chest, but it’s sleeping, dormant in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s a relief, but I still feel unmoored by the absence of my creatures.
When I open my eyes again, I blink until my vision adjusts and clears enough that I find Oleander sleeping peacefully next to me.
She’s dressed in the same medley of clothes she always is, everything stolen from her Bonded, and her hair is fanned over her pillow in silvery waves that beg for me to wrap around my fist. The image of what exactly that would look like flashes in my head, the feel of the silky strands so clear to me that my fingers flex instinctively from where they’re bound.
I glance down at my body and find that I’m wrapped up in a blanket, swaddled up like a child, and it’s clear they were trying to warm me up. I’m fully clothed and even wearing socks, heat packs tucked into the layers of fabric around me.
They’ve clearly done a lot to get me alive again.
Oleander is tucked in close to me but isn’t touching me anywhere, her careful respect of my boundaries even now a jarring experience. Was it her decision or my brother’s to maintain that distance? I get the feeling it was both of them, some unspoken agreement of understanding that I both need and loathe.
It’s slow work, but I manage to work my way out of the cocoon I’m wrapped in. There’s no one behind me in the bed, but Bassinger is wrapped around Oleander with Gabe snoring away on the other side of him. Gryphon is asleep on a chair in the corner, his head thrown back and his legs folded out in front of him. He’s still dressed with his weapons strapped all over his body, as though he’s waiting for someone to burst in here and attack us.
North is nowhere to be seen.
That’s unexpected and highly unusual for him.
Usually, if anything happens to me, or something that could potentially affect me, he hovers like a mother hen. Even after I’d grown out of my childish idolization of him, he’d still remained the one constant in my life, no matter how hard I pushed him away and, boy, did I push him hard. It didn’t matter though, North Draven was nothing but a pillar of unerring love and support to me.
Even after Oleander showed up and became the fixation for my rage.
Even when he fell so far into her that I’m sure every word I uttered against her cut him like a thousand sharp blades, and my constant loathing of their Bonding was an acid over those wounds.
Will I fall into her too?
Is that even… possible for me?
Heaving myself up is impossible for a solid three minutes, but eventually, I get it done, swinging my legs over the side of the bed until the world stops spinning. I sit there on the edge of the bed until I can feel my hands again. The pins and needles I have to get through first are extreme enough that I consider cutting them off. My hands have always been a source of distress for me, any pains or stiffness a reminder of the damage my mother had done.
A punishment for trying to stop her from her sick ways.
Oleander knows it all now.
I know everything about her now too. Every broken and beaten inch of her soul is clear in my mind now. There’s no questions or veiled secrets. There’s only the heart of the girl and the god living inside her that belongs to me as surely as the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening.
The moment my legs are strong enough to hold my weight, I stagger to my feet and stumble towards the door, but I only make it two steps before I stop again.
Without thinking too much about it or questioning myself, I move back to cleave Oleander away from Bassinger and into my arms. The warmth of her against my chest has my bond stirring in my chest, only waking enough to give its approval before it goes back into its unnatural slumber.
Bassinger frowns in his sleep, but I use my Gift to send him back to a deep unconscious state. When I’d completed the Bond, my Gift of the Madness had grown into a full spectrum of emotions I could give people, and though I’d rather slit Bassinger’s throat rather than comfort and reassure the idiot, I’m not in any shape to deal with him right now if he wakes up and finds me standing here with Oleander in my arms.
I need my own bedroom and my own space.
And I need her there too.
I’m not going to question it any longer.
