THE HOLE in the side of the Tac Training Center is still letting out a long stream of black smoke when we arrive home.
Gabe only stays conscious long enough to find out what’s happened here and if Oli is safe to sleep back at the house before he takes our Bonded home, preparing himself for the conversation he’s going to have to have with her when she wakes up.
I don’t envy him.
I’m not afraid of having hard conversations with my Bonded. If it came down to it, I could have this one, but there’s something still raw inside of me at my parents’ loss. They were people who didn’t deserve to live after all of the sins that they had committed, but losing a good man, someone who Oli had known such affection for, is particularly confusing for me.
I worry for a second because I have no idea how Gabe is going to break this news to her. He’s not exactly the most serious of us all, but Gryphon claps me on the shoulder and shrugs. “He’s surprisingly good at this shit. You forget that he’s lost as much as the rest of us have. He’s just better at hiding it.”
North sees them both to the house before he comes back to deal with the fallout. I move straight into the recovery mission along with the rest of them, ignoring how much my bones ache inside my body, as I’m sure they are as well.
I’ve never felt so drained by using my power before.
Usually, being Indestructible also means that I don’t feel any pain but even in this, my Bonded has changed me. I’m willing to take it, and any more pain that comes with having her around, without a word. I will never tell her about this, because I know Oli, and she would absolutely feel guilty about it.
We find Felix inside the small bit of the Tac Training Center that’s still standing, doing his best to help the survivors of Unser’s explosion. No one was killed by it, thank God. The only casualties of the day are Vivian, an operative called Xander, and that piece of shit god-bond.
He deserved so much worse.
Unser is in a pretty bad state himself after Triggering and, grimacing, North is forced to call Adella down to help heal him. She’d been back at the house, breaking the news to their kids and waiting to get the all-clear from North and Gryphon to come and see her Bonded.
I’ve only met her a handful of times, but she’s the no-nonsense sort of woman you would expect two leading TacTeam operatives to be Bonded to. When she arrives, she has a stern set to her face that tells us that she’s putting on a very brave facade to get her through everything that’s happening to her today.
There’s no question in my mind that the three of them truly were a Bonded Group. Her hands shake as she presses them into Unser’s chest, her power flowing slowly through her and into him.
With a groan, his eyes finally flutter open. He looks confused for a second before reality crashes back in and he realizes he wasn’t dreaming, that his best friend and a member of his Bonded Group was murdered in cold blood in the safety of our own town, in our own building.
He stares up into his Bonded’s eyes for a moment, their shared pain reflected in their gaze before finally he reaches a hand out to cup her cheek. I glance away, knowing that we’re all intruding on a very private and painful moment.
“I should have stayed with him,” he mumbles, and she shakes her head.
“We’re not playing the blame game here. No one is, because if we start pointing fingers, they win. I’m not letting every second of his life go to waste. We fought hard for this, and he deserves better.” Her voice breaks.
I have to clear my throat and step away from them both so that I don’t do something mortifying like burst into tears here in public over a man I barely knew. Seeing their pain so clearly reflected is heartbreaking, to say the least, and the weird mix of guilt still bubbling around in me rears its head again.
Vivian deserved better.
Gryphon steps forward to help Unser up, slinging his arm over his shoulders as he helps him out of the rubble. Felix watches his unsteady gait for a moment before standing again, stepping over to where North and I are waiting as he mutters quietly under his breath, “Everyone here is stable, I’ve checked them all. I need to get back to Kieran.”
North frowns and nods. “He’s going to be alright though, isn’t he?”
Felix sighs, scratching the back of his head. “There were a lot of breaks. Sage and I are working together to get him healed up, but it’s going to be a few days at least. You’re going to have to work without him until then.”
North nods and waves a hand. “He’s alive, that’s all that matters. We can cover him for as long as he needs. Rockelle can step into the second position for now, and we’ll try holding off any more missions until Black is back. Go. Go back to your Bonded and the rest of them, and we’ll clean up this mess.”
He nods and moves away, but as he does, Wick comes to stand with North, nodding respectfully at him. “There’s nothing else that I can do at the house. Felix and Sage have a handle on the healing process. What can I do here?”
My opinion of Sage’s Bonded has changed a lot in the last few days.
I know that he already convinced Oli, and he wouldn’t have gotten into the Sanctuary if he hadn’t passed Gryphon’s rigorous vetting process, but just because he’s not evil doesn’t mean that he isn’t an asshole.
I’m relieved to find that he’s stepping up, the same way I did.
He’s finding a place not only in his Bonded Group but in the community itself. It’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you have a chip on your shoulder. Wick certainly had one of those, but he’s made a choice, and his choice is Sage.
No matter what.
I can’t argue with that, and neither can anyone else. Choosing your Bonded above all else is the right thing to do, and it’ll make him friends here faster than anything else he could try.
That same respect is reflected in North’s eyes as he takes him in. “We’re going to have to Transport the prisoners out of the cells and get them locked up in the old cells underneath the council offices with a Shield in place. It’s not ideal, but it’s all we can do until we have made the repairs. You can help the rest of us with that.”
Wick nods without another word and rolls up his sleeves, figuratively and literally. Even with the horrific death weighing on our shoulders, it feels like a step forward, one that I know will break my Bonded’s heart.
Coming together after the loss of a great man.
Moving the prisoners is easy work when you have Gryphon’s ability to shut down minds to do so. Seeing my sister is not my favorite thing, but I help ensure that the holding cells at North’s old offices will hold her before we move them all.
She still looks so thin, but there is a lightness about her now that I was not expecting, and it takes me a second to realize what’s going on with her.
She’s relieved.
My parents are gone. Peter and the rest of her cursed Bonded Group are all dead. It’s only her and Jericho left now. If they’re ever able to convince North and the rest of the council, or whoever ends up making these decisions in the future, to let her and Jericho go, they will never have to worry about being hunted by our family ever again.
They’re free now.
Trapped by their so-called enemies and yet, they’re free. It makes my very confusing grief over my parents amplify all over again. I suppose when everything with the god-bonds is over and done with, I’ll have to help come up with a plan on what to do with them. At the moment, we’re all just waiting. Waiting in case we need them, waiting to see if there’s a use for them, waiting to decide what their fate is for the roles that they have played in the deaths of so many.
“You can go back up to the house and keep an eye on Gabe and Oli if you want to,” Gryphon says as his eyes flash to white.
Aurelia and Jericho’s faces blank out as he takes over their minds and directs their bodies as though they are nothing but puppets.
I look around for a second and then shake my head. “I’m of more use here. I’ll help clear the rubble and debris, get the place into a safe enough position to rebuild. We both know Gabe is going to be down here the second he’s awake, ready to see what can be patched and what has to be demolished.”
Gryphon shoots me a look for a second, his eyebrows falling low over his glowing eyes. “I thought you’d be eager to get back to Oli.”
I take a deep breath and then shrug. “She’s in good hands. There’s no point getting bent out of shape and watching over her as she sleeps when she already has more than enough of that going on. Nox is heading back up there with his research, right? She doesn’t need three of us sitting around with her, not when all she’s doing is resting.”
If anything, this just seems to shock him even more, but he accepts my words, nodding and getting back to transferring the prisoners. His mother presses her hands against the glass, staring at him with the sort of motherly longing that mine had perfected as well. Gryphon deflects it as though she is nothing more than a stranger to him. He shuts her mind down as easily as he did my sister’s before marching her out of the building as well. The Transporters are already waiting there for them, moving all four of them at once.
I already know that Gryphon’s power has grown enough that he can keep them cut off even without close proximity, but he probably doesn’t want to freak everyone out by doing so, not unless it’s truly needed, so he goes along with them.
I get to work helping Gabe’s uncle clear the debris, listening to his instructions and doing the same work as ten men in half the time. At some point, they realize that they’re only hindering me with their attempts to help me directly, so the group of workers all step back, watching as I move entire sections of the walls and ceiling myself.
It’s good to feel useful in such a way. The storm in my mind keeps raging, but I lose myself in the manual labor until I forget about anything but clearing rubble.
It’s the least I can do.
IN THE DAYS after Vivian’s death, the change in the Sanctuary is stark. It’s probably not as noticeable to the inhabitants themselves, but to me and the rest of the Bonded Group, it’s as though we have been transported somewhere completely different, an alternate reality.
Long gone are the suspicious looks and whispers from the members of the community. The looks of fear and the obvious way that they used to cross the road without a word if we were coming, as if they thought they were being subtle, has vanished.
Gone is the division that was once so keenly felt, even if it was quietly done.
I question North about it a few days in, and it takes him a moment to answer. “Vivian Bentley was a highly respected member of our community, not just by the council or the TacTeams, but by the Lower Tier families as well. He gave a lot of money to charities. He helped food drives, and he and his Bonded Group were responsible for getting a lot of the families that are here to safety. During the riots in the seventies, he was a young Tac operative, and he made a name for himself then. There isn’t a single person here who isn’t mourning his death, who isn’t ready to see those responsible brought to justice. There’s a good reason that he was chosen to run Tac Training back at Draven, and it had nothing to do with nepotism. He was a good man, one who did not deserve the death that he got.”
North looks away from me as he says this, staring down at the paperwork that has already been put together for the rebuild of the Tac Training Center.
The moment that Gabe had woken up and come down, he worked with his uncle and North on the plans. The rebuild is taking precedence over everything else due to the serious nature of keeping the people in the Sanctuary safe. Without a training center, we can’t have more operatives joining the ranks, and without more operatives, we’ll quickly lose our task forces. The only thing more important than this place is the dining hall, and that’s only because the chef needs a decent place to cook.
I take the plans from North that Gabe had sent me out here for before clapping him on the shoulder, a small show of respect for the grief that he so obviously feels for the man who taught him so much and was a very important figure in his life. He nods back at me, thanking me in his own quiet way before turning back to the other sheets of paper and leaving me to find my way out without another word.
Only a few months ago, that would have pissed me off, but now I see it for exactly what it is. Now isn’t the time to talk needlessly, to offer me pretty words when he’s feeling so wretched about the world. Right now is the time to get on with things, to work through it or to make things better, no matter the cost.
I get on one of the ATVs downstairs and slowly make my way over to the remains of the Tac Training Center. There’s already a large monument of flowers slowly appearing. I’ve never really noticed anyone leaving anything, and yet there are hundreds of bouquets and wreaths, all of them picked from back gardens or quiet hikes. All of them have cards, offerings of condolences, and provide small bursts of color against the harsh gray concrete.
They are an offering of sympathy and grief for a man who meant so much.
I find my Bonded standing in the rubble, her fists on her hips as she stares around at the mess left behind. Her eyes are red and her cheeks are scrubbed raw from how often she has wiped away tears. It breaks my heart and makes me want to plant my fist in someone’s face and break it for daring to hurt her like this. Except the man who did this is already dead, taking his own life so that he can return again someday. I’m not pissed about that, just about the lives he took with him.
He better hope it’s not in this lifetime of ours.
I watch as the other members of the community work around us and all gravitate to my Bonded like she’s drawing them in. They never actually approach her however. They leave a small circle around her as though there is a barrier in their way.
I’ve never noticed it before.
I’ve always spent too much of my time glaring at people and trying to keep them as far away from her as I possibly can, for her safety, but also because I covet her. I want all of her time and attention. I covet the very sight of her, to the point that it makes me angry that anyone else gets to be in her presence. Now, in this moment of the entire community mourning Vivian and trying to piece itself back together, I see it for what it is.
They’re terrified of her, of course, but some of that terror is definitely laced with respect.
They all know what she can do, and it’s only natural that they’re scared of that, but they also understand that their safety hinges on her ability.
In a way, it always has.
The Dravens have been working tirelessly for years. They’ve poured billions of dollars into this town, all of them working towards having a safe community and peace, towards finding a way to deal with the Resistance, but in the end, the shadows can only do so much. They are not all-consuming. They aren’t able to stop people dead in their tracks from hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
They can’t do what Oleander can.
I meet the eye of one of the builders, and he startles for a moment before he inclines his head at me respectfully, stepping up towards me as he begins to point out more areas that need work. He’s respectful enough, but he also knows a hell of a lot more than me. When I listen to him attentively and begin to move as directed, I can feel not only his relief but his approval.
I feel for a moment as if I’ve suddenly woken up inside Gabe’s body, because this is how they all treat him. Suddenly, it all makes sense to me. He always works with everyone in the community, regardless of what they whisper about him behind his back. He ignores it all, taking the high road, and just gets on with things.
It’s never occurred to me to act in the same way or to build relationships the way that he has, but as other builders and TacTeam personnel begin to approach me and speak to me quietly about various different things, I find myself leaning into it.
North has spent so much of his time making the Sanctuary a place of safety for all, so much of his resources and money and time has gone into it. I know Oli has no intention of leaving, even once we’ve dealt with the god-bonds.
This place is home to her now.
If we’re going to continue to live here with these people, then I can’t just lock myself in the mansion with her forever, as tempting as that may be. I might not be able to achieve Gabe’s level of friendliness, but I can certainly try and cultivate some form of relationships and goodwill with these people.
This might be what growing up feels like.
As badly as I don’t want to admit it, so many of my formative years were spent with my mind being twisted by Resistance propaganda and my parents’ expectations for me. Then my later teenage years were spent planning an escape for my Bonded and I. Now, I suppose, is the time to find and explore a new normal.
We just have to find the god-bond and kill it first.
It’s the last one left that we know of, and then I suppose we’ll spend the rest of our days waiting for more to wake up, watching carefully for any signs while we build a life and live it to the fullest. We will learn how to be the best versions of ourselves, for our Bonded and for everyone else.
My eyes drift back to Oli. The pull of her magnetic beauty, both inside and out, is so alluring to me that I find myself once again growing angry that other people are in her presence.
Except then I see what she’s doing.
As she fusses with the flowers on the ground, the small memorial for Vivian that has started, I calm myself down once more. We’re working on our next move and we’ve almost got it planned out. Just a few more days of waiting for the next move, of repairing what we can and helping everyone around us.
A few days of giving what we can in the hope that it is enough, that we can build something that will survive all of this death and destruction with us.
