The house looks haunted.
I’m too old to believe in ghosts, guys my age don’t have time for such things, and having the ability to manipulate shadows into savage beasts in any form does nothing to change that fact. Looking up at the house my mother was raised in, the one she grew up in with her sister and family, it’s as close as I’ll ever get to believing that spirits and ghosts that might still wander this plane of existence after their body has gone back to the earth.
If anywhere is haunted, it’s this place.
“This is no place for a boy to grow up. I can’t believe Emmaline has been living here with Nox. What is she thinking? What was Nolan thinking?” William mutters under his breath, sounding sedate as always, even with the accusation in his words.
William was raised to be a peacekeeper.
He was the calm and civil opposite of my fiery and passionate father, the younger and far more cultured figure in the Draven family. I used to think he was soft and too weak to lead the family, but after my father’s death, he’s proved me wrong time and time again.
There are many ways to be a strong man, and I hope that William can teach me to control my anger, to stop myself from lashing out the way my father did, to stop me from hurting those I love the most.
To stop me from becoming a monster.
“Leave Emmaline to me, North. I don’t want you to lose your cool with her today, even if it is… challenging. We need to tread carefully if we want to see Nox more often. Think of your brother.”
We’re only here because it was my father’s dying wish.
I had spent years trying to convince my parents to let me see my brother, with no success. But on the day that my father lost control and the council had come to make sure he paid the ultimate price for that deadly slip, it had been the last thing he’d said to William. His last living words to his family before he was put to death for his crimes.
Find Nox and bring him home. Whatever it takes, brother.
I nod at my uncle, because I have no other choice, and then we walk up the crumbling and dilapidated steps together. There are vines growing up the side of the railing, covered in thorns and spindly twigs that catch on the legs of our trousers as we walk past them, and that feels like an ominous warning.
I know better than to look past something like that.
I don’t need the voice of my bond in my head to confirm it, the thing in there that shouldn’t exist, and yet it does. A god of my own making.
The inside of the house is just as decrepit and horrifying as the outside, and I glance back to find our footsteps clearly visible in the thick dust on the ground of the entryway.
Clearly, my aunt hasn’t been seeing many guests.
William follows my eyeline and cringes at the sight, murmuring to me, “North, I see it too. Just, please, leave it to me.”
The idea of William begging me to hold myself in grates on me, and I can’t keep my temper, no matter how hard I try. I snap back, “I’m going to! I’m not an idiot.”
William stops us both, turning into me slightly and shielding me from the rest of the room, even though we’re alone. “Take a breath, your eyes have shifted and the shadows are crawling up your arms. You need to get a hold of yourself, and quickly. I’m not doubting you right now. I’m seeing the same dire situation you are, and I’m trying to make sure neither of us make it any worse. This is about much more than just fulfilling your father’s wishes; there’s a child living in all of this who we need to think about.”
Dammit.
I hadn’t even noticed but, sure enough, I looked down at my arms to find the inky black stains creeping up from my hands to my forearms. Usually I can feel it, the amount of anger that I need to be filled with isn’t exactly subtle, but this time I’m too distracted by the uneasiness in my gut to focus on what my bond is doing.
It’s furious at everything, that murderous rage of it spilling over into my mind as it sees something amongst the dust that William and I are missing.
I shut my eyes and work through the breathing exercises that have been drummed into me from the moment I was old enough to follow instructions. My father had been sure to teach me this type of control long before my eyes ever turned black, somehow sensing that I would need it.
It’s been years since I needed to focus on it like this.
“Emmaline! Lovely to see you, my dear. You look striking in that dress; it’s the perfect shade of gray for your complexion.”
I have to fight the smile that tugs at the edge of my lips. There’s nothing about William’s tone that would give him away, but he’d spent the whole car ride over telling me all about his theories of my aunt being a ghoulish witch of a woman. It’s clear he’s teasing her, without her ever being able to call him on it.
He’s a disgustingly apt politician, and I’m sure under his guidance, I will be too.
“William. I was wondering how long it would take you to come here, snooping. There’s nothing here for you; not me, and certainly not my son. We’re happy being left alone.”
I open my eyes just in time to see William step towards her, shifting slightly as though he’s covering me even more, as though he knows the very sound of her voice is eating away at my control.
Instead of watching the two of them spar, I take the opportunity to slip away.
I’ve never been in this house before, but I’d spent the last few days practicing with my Gift as much as I could to prepare for this. I usually avoid the shadow creatures as much as possible, even more so after my mother’s death, but I knew that my time here would be limited.
I need to use every tool in my arsenal here.
I wait until I’m out in the hallway, and then I let out one of my shadow creatures, the nightmares of my community appearing beside me as a dog with a wide, snarling jaw of razor-sharp teeth and empty void eyes that somehow see right through you.
I would do anything to carve these things out of myself.
The creature stares up at me for a second, as though it’s judging my commitment and my ability to call it back into myself, like it’s trying to figure out if it can run through this house and kill everyone on sight without me being able to stop it.
It’s hard to lie to something that is a part of you.
Impossible really, but whatever it sees in me when I direct it to find my brother, whatever strength and limitations, it only hesitates for a second before it moves at my command. It moves so quickly that the edges of the form blur, looking more like smoke than beast, and I tuck myself into one of the nooks in the hallway to shut my eyes and see through the shadow creature’s eyes instead.
The house is just as dark and forbidding on the inside as it seems on the outside. The curtains are shut in all of the rooms on the first floor. There’s rotting food in the kitchen, plates and cups piled up in the sink, untouched, that have clearly been there for weeks, if not months. While I can’t smell anything through the connection with the shadow creature, the flies and maggots everywhere are both disgusting and telling.
Something is terribly wrong here.
I move the shadow creature out of the kitchen and up the stairs to work through the rooms until finally, it ends up in the large, dusty attic space.
Nox doesn’t flinch or react to the sight of my shadow creature.
He has one of his own sleeping at his feet, as though it’s nothing more than a docile pet.
I call the shadow creature back to me as I navigate my way over to him, wincing at the plumes of dust that spring up from my steps and the thick layers of filth on every surface. I put it all out of my mind until I get up to the attic and finally lay my eyes on my little brother after six years of living apart. Six years didn’t seem like such a long time until right now as I stare down at this little stranger who looks so much like me that there’s no mistaking that we’re brothers.
He’s so… small.
Unnaturally so, like he’s being underfed or is sickly. I don’t remember my father saying anything about health issues, but there’s no way that my brother is healthy right now. There’s no way this is acceptable. I’ve only been allowed to see him a handful of times since his mother moved him out of the Bonded Group manor, but he’d been perfectly fine then.
What is happening in this house?
I ease forward towards him, slowly and carefully, as though I’m approaching a skittish animal. The shadow creature sleeping by his feet lifts its head to stare at me with its empty but strangely knowing void eyes.
It’s too placid.
My own creatures are rabid beasts, vicious and out of control the moment they’re released, and to see one sitting there like a well trained lapdog is jarring in the worst way. How does he have that much control, and at such a young age? How does he have a better behaved creature than any of mine?
Something is wrong.
My bond, the voice in my head that I will never admit to having just in case someone locks me up in an institution or simply kills me for the anomaly, speaks to me in a stern voice, one that it doesn’t usually use. The type my father would use if I was acting up in my classes or threatening people with my void eyes just for the hell of it.
I don’t need the warning though; I’m well aware that something is wrong here. I’m well aware that no matter what our plan had been when we arrived here today, William and I will not be leaving without my brother.
This is no longer an opening to a negotiation.
This is a rescue… or an abduction, depending on which side of the interaction you’re standing on.
I aim for a calm and reassuring tone as I speak to my brother, but he doesn’t react to the sound of my voice at all. “Can I come sit with you, Nox? Is it okay if I just… sit with you?”
He shrugs, his eyes still down on the shadow creature at his feet. He stares at it as though in a trance and not at all like he’s waiting for it to savagely attack anyone else in the room.
That’s the way I stare at mine.
“I can stay over here if that would make you more comfortable. Do you remember me?”
Do you remember any of your family, other than your fucked-up mother who tore you away from us all? Except I can’t say that to him. It’s not fair, and it’s not right of me to try to drive a wedge between them. William had been clear on that, clear that I wasn’t to even say Emmaline’s name in Nox’s presence. We both knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the venom out of my tone.
I loathe the woman for leaving my father behind.
I hate her even more for taking my brother with her when she left, splitting our family up and being the first of the cracks that splintered everything apart.
Would my mother still be alive if she hadn’t left?
Would the madness that took over my father have existed if he’d have had both of his Bonded with him?
Would the shadow creatures—
“Nox! There you are! I see North found you first; I’m not surprised. He’s been very eager to spend some time with you.”
I don’t turn to look at my uncle as he steps into the attic with us, but his calming presence fills the room as though it’s a physical thing. I keep my focus on my brother as William starts to go on and on about all sorts of happy and gentile things, all of the ways he knows to fill awkward silences and make people fall under his honeyed spell, but the pounding in my head drowns him out, because I’ve finally found something wrong on Nox. Something so absolutely wrong that there’s no way anyone can talk their way out of it.
His fingers are crooked.
My eyes are stuck on the sight of them, the way that they’re jutting out in all of the wrong directions with lumps and bones poking out through the skin. An old injury that wasn’t healed properly.
Our family is richer than God.
That’s not just something I’m bragging or gloating about, it’s a fact of life that my father and William have both spent their entire adult lives spending hundreds of millions of dollars per year on every type of charity and luxury for their family, and our collective net worth has only increased. We’re a pillar of our society because we’re the type of old money that will never run dry. All of this is to say, why the fuck didn’t someone look at Nox, heal him before his fingers set like that?
Why did no one call our father?
“Is this… your room, Nox? It’s quite cozy up here. I used to build forts up in the attic when I was your age. I used sheets and pillows from all of the beds in the house. It used to drive my mother insane. I see a mattress and pillows; your shadow creature looks very happy on them. Can I come give you a hug, or will that upset the two of you?”
Nox doesn’t lift his head, but the shadow creature does, its void eyes staring William down as though daring him to touch the little shrinking boy in front of us. I start to wonder if maybe he’s in a trance… or if he’s inside of his creature right now as an escape from the room, a way to disconnect from us without actually running away or having to confront us to get out of this.
Is he scared of us?
Or of what will happen if he speaks to us?
I want to scream and unleash all of my worst nightmares and shadows into this house and everyone in it out of pure frustration. I hate the lies and whispers, the deceit and veiled ways of doing things when it should be simple.
Nox should come home with me and William, leave behind whatever the fuck has been happening in this place.
I’m about to snap when the door behind us opens again, ricocheting off of the wall as my aunt bursts into the room, her voice shrill as she snaps, “What are you both doing in here?! I told you I would bring him down to speak to you, William. You are not welcome here.”
I can’t turn and look at her, not right now with my eyes shifted and so much anger inside of me. Why would she leave him to heal like that? What mother would deny their son medical attention?
I didn’t think it was possible to hate her any more than I already did, but she’s proving me wrong.
“Nox, come here. We’ll speak to these men in the parlor for a few minutes, and then they can leave.”
For the very first time, Nox moves, but only his lips as he murmurs with a robotic monotone voice two simple words that fracture my world in half, a break that will never repair.
“Yes, Bonded.”
All of the oxygen in the room disappears.
My world very quickly shutters down to focus with pinpoint precision onto that word coming out of my little brother’s mouth.
To his mother.
Bonded.
Emmaline steps forward towards Nox, but the sinking feeling in my gut has grown into a cavernous crater, and now pieces that should never fit together are falling into place in my head.
My father’s last words to my mother before his creatures devoured her whole.
You knew.
“North—” William cautions, as though he didn’t hear what Nox said and he’s not having the same devastating revelation that I am right now, so I ignore him entirely.
My bond ignores him entirely.
“Why did he call you that? Emmaline, why did your son call you Bonded?”
William makes a noise behind me, and then I hear the thump of his body hitting the ground as my aunt hits him with her Gift, the grunt pulled out of him almost an afterthought. I feel that same power wash over me as well, brushing at my skin as she tries to get inside of my head and break my mind open with the Madness she wields.
I’m stronger than her.
It means nothing to me; it’s only kindling to the fiery rage burning inside of me.
The shadows around the room twist and grow, bigger and bigger until they all bend towards me and this nightmare I’m finding myself in. The shadow creature sitting obediently at Nox’s feet doesn’t react except to snap its jaws when my shadows get a little too close, but still, my brother doesn’t have any reaction to the maelstrom around him. That is damning enough for me. That this chaos is nothing to him at all… what the fuck has been going on in this house?
Bonded.
The moment Emmaline finally gives in and her eyes flash back to their usual blue color, so like my own mother’s, she raises her head to look at me, and the guilt-soaked fear there is confirmation enough.
My shadow creatures burst out of my chest, a mirror image of what my own father’s had done to my mother.
I am the same monster he is, but I will happily burn in hell for this.
And now I know my father died feeling the same way.
