THE CITY IS dark around me.
There are cars weaving past me with honking horns and people shouting, disorienting me quickly as it’s been months since I’ve been around vehicles like that. The Sanctuary only has ATVs, and when we Transport elsewhere, it’s mostly been to Wastelands or places affected by the gods, nothing like the real world.
It smells like every city I’ve ever been to, smoke and hot garbage filling my lungs as I pull my sleeve over my hand and press it to my nose. It’s been years since I’ve been somewhere like this, but you never really forget the smell.
A light above me flickers off and on, off and on, and there’s so much light pollution that I can’t see the stars. You wouldn’t even know that there were millions of them shining down right now.
I instantly feel homesick, but there’s work to do. I could put a vulnerable look on my face of uncertainty or worry in some way, but I’m not going to play into the trap that much. When I hear the telltale sign, the pop of a Transporter arriving with the Pain god wearing a senator’s body, I stare back at them unflinchingly with my own blue eyes.
I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of dealing with the Eternal right now.
“You really think you can outsmart me like this?” it asks, clicking its tongue as it steps towards me.
The voice grates on me.
For many months, I sat in North’s office and listened to this god play games with him, pretending to be a human scared of the Gifted and laying more and more roadblocks for us to deal with. All of the time it had stolen from North as it wove its web, distractions leading us all away from what was really going on.
The Pain god is smart, but I refuse to let it be smarter than us.
I tilt my head in the same way that all the gods do, almost mockingly, and the Pain god smiles again, more teeth than emotion.
“Arrogance always was your strong suit,” it says, drawing out the vowel sounds as though it’s chewing on them. Its voice sounds more and more demonic as the conversation continues.
The Transporter, an older man in his late fifties, watches the two of us warily but with clear eyes. What I wouldn’t give to have Gryphon here to tell me exactly what that man is thinking, what he’s been promised, or what righteous mission he thinks he’s on when really, he’s nothing more than a pawn in a game far bigger than he could ever imagine.
The Pain god pitches its tone low for a moment, mimicking real concern that it has no grasp of. It helps that its vessel is an older woman, homely-looking and unassuming, but I know better. “You should come with me, little human. I can try and help get that god out of you, if you’d like. It’s like a parasite, you know. We all are. You really should let me get it out of you before it takes the vessel. You know they do that, right? We all take the vessels at some point.”
I stare back at it, unblinking and unflinching. Eventually, she nods slowly at me. “Well then, let’s not waste time talking. If we’re going to play our final game, then let’s play.”
The Transporter holds his arm out to her and when she takes it, they disappear together, reappearing right next to me before he clamps a hand on my shoulder and takes me with them.
I take a deep, calming breath.
Everything is going to be okay.
We’re following the plan that Nox has put together, and I am not in danger. I say it over and over and over in my head, even as the Transporting seems to take three times as long as it ever has to travel with Kieran. Whether that is his strength or merely that my perception of time is messed up from the tense situation, I don’t know. All that matters is that when we finally appear and I see our surroundings, I want to put my fist through the Pain god’s face.
I refuse to give it the satisfaction.
Instead, I open my mind to my Bonded to make sure they know exactly where I am, following the steps of our plan perfectly. I empty myself of all emotion, everything I feel about where I am, everything that nags at me. Bile creeps up my throat, the motion sickness from the trip here still kicking my ass, but emotionally I let myself have nothing. The tears that desperately want to flow prick at the backs of my eyes, but I will not let it win this way.
The bridge isn’t even that high.
“I’m not sure how they ever convinced anyone that your family died of natural causes and not your little Gifted temper tantrum,” it says as it looks over the side of the bridge.
I refuse to blink, because I am so afraid that even shutting my eyes for a millisecond will cause me to have a flashback of the night my parents died, the car hitting the side of our SUV and plunging us off of the bridge. My power had ripped out of my body to decimate everything around us, killing everyone. Everyone, not just our enemies in the car that had been hunting us, but my parents and the family that ran the small dairy farm just a few miles up the road.
It was blamed on a gas leak, a mysterious accident that occurred at the exact same time as the car accident here, like some horrible twist of fate.
The first souls I ever tore out, the ones that weighed most heavily on my shoulders.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to get the god out of you? Are you sure you want to keep it? Choosing the side that killed your parents seems awfully short-sighted.”
My bond recoils in my chest, rolling there as though it is slowly pulling itself up into a fighting position. It’s deceptively slow and languid in its movements, when I know that it could lash out faster than the speed of light if required. I feel the way that it reacts to every word that comes out of the Pain god’s mouth, the way it tastes them for itself, chews on them, finds them wanting, and spits them out.
The way it sees everything that Pain is doing for exactly what it is, a lie to attempt to trap me. I wonder if it’s ever worked before? If this, too, is a part of the trap that it lays? I wonder whether it is feeling cocky about all of this because there is a long history behind it.
If it knows how ridiculous all of this seems to me when it’s wearing the face of this woman.
Nightmares, to me, look like Silas Davies.
They look like a man in his prime, handsome to those who are blind to the evil within, the cruel set of his mouth and the way that his eyes pick me apart. He didn’t need a god-bond living inside him to be dangerous, deadly, cruel, and wicked.
That was all the man.
“How exactly would you get the god-bond out?” I ask in a low voice as though I’m trying to keep this a secret between the two of us.
I doubt I’m fooling anyone, but I suppose this is the game of cat and mouse that we’re now playing. The Pain god tilts its head, looking me over slowly before reaching out a hand and letting it hover above my temple.
“I know the Eternal has probably told you that it’s stronger than me because all of its Bonded are here too, but that’s a lie. Power is not something that you share. It’s something you take. These gods that live within you and your Bonded Group, they live in a fairy tale, a twisted version of the truth that they desperately want to believe, but it cannot be. You don’t have power unless you take it from someone.”
A cold breath of wind rustles the leaves in the trees that line the riverbank. The night air around us seems to drop ten degrees as the god keeps talking, rambling on about its opinions of the way the world should be. It’s all nothing but a ploy to win my compliance.
Again, I can’t help but wonder if it’s ever worked before.
“You know that it’s true. Your god-bond exists to take the life force from those around it. You cannot deny the truth in my words when that is how it derives its power. I will get it out of you, whether you submit to me or not. One way or another, I will get it out.”
I nod and lean away from her as if I’m afraid of her touch, as though I’m afraid that the pain will come dripping from her fingers the moment it touches my skin. I can feel the way that she’s pushing at me with her Gift, the way she’s poking and prodding and trying to find a hole in my barriers to wield that dark power against me. I came here prepared for all of that. I came here not only with my own mental securities, but those of my Bonded as well.
I didn’t come here alone, even if the Pain god thinks I did.
“Your devotion to them is disgusting, you know. A thousand lifetimes and not once have they ever protected you. A thousand lives, and you always ended up dead. You’re more powerful than all of them put together. If you sacrificed them, you could become as I am.”
I look over at it as I digest its arrogance. “It must have been so frustrating for you to be born into that body. I’m sure you’ve had more than your fair share of obstacles, thanks to it.”
It shrugs at me and nonchalantly tilts its head. “A Gifted born to a lower Tier family. It was easy to kill my vessel and the family it was born into, to hide myself amongst the humans. It’s far easier to do such things when you remember exactly who you are from the moment you are born into the vessel. I’ve had a lot of years to plan what this would look like, lifetimes to prepare for your cycle. I don’t want to kill your Bonded Group. I want something else entirely.”
I make a big show of swallowing as though terrified, my eyes darting back to the river rushing underneath the bridge to convince the Pain god I’m telling the truth, and it steps up alongside me once more.
“There is no power without taking it from someone. A thousand lifetimes, and I have killed a thousand gods, but I have finally unlocked it. I have finally unlocked how to take that power into myself. Taking from your Bonded Group will give me everything I need to build the world that I want.”
A shiver runs down my spine, because I already know that the world it wants to see is one of pain and blood and madness. The same world that the Resistance has been fighting for because they were fighting on her behalf.
“I don’t want to fight the god within you. I want to take its power and become it. I want to consume it.”
I KNOW that things are not going to stay so civil between the Pain god and I for very long. The more I try to keep the god-bond talking, the more that it snares me in its trap. And the more that it pushes me closer and closer to the edge of the bridge, the more that it draws my eyes down to the water rushing beneath us.
The more that it gets me where it wants me.
I don’t know how it intends on doing what it claims it can do, and the Pain god reads my disbelief with ease, a cruel smile curving over its lips as it bares its teeth at me like a true predator playing with its prey.
“Silas Davies figured it out, you know,” it continues on, and I shudder unconsciously at the mention of his name.
“He figured it out thanks to you, of course, because consuming people is your gift, after all. I know that you all seem to think it was a misstep of mine to let him play with you for so long, to let him play his little games, only to have you disappear out of his grasp as if you were smoke. It was never about killing you or the thing that lives inside of you. It was about harnessing you. Of course, he thought that I wanted mass destruction, for you to kill as many Gifted and humans as possible. He was a crazed being, one after my own heart, but we can’t ever really befriend the Gifted. The wolf cannot befriend the sheep, but I suppose we can use the most creative of them to our benefit.”
Creative.
I suppose that’s a word you could use for Silas Davies. I also have to acknowledge that spending time with him trained me pretty well to have this conversation. There’s nothing but madness spewing out of the Pain god’s mouth right now, nothing but the sort of maniacal insanity of a nihilistic dictator.
There’s no doubt in my mind that this is exactly where the Resistance started, from a group of Gifted worshiping the wrong god. One who had promised them power and convinced them all that they deserved certain liberties, when really all it wanted was cannon fodder for a war of its own design.
“We can’t spend all night talking about such things, little girl. You’re not going to find a flaw in my plans, and I’m not going to convince you to join my side, am I?”
The wind rustles in the trees on the far side of the bridge again, this time louder, and it’s an ominous sound that echoes through the night.
I shake my head. “I think we both know that I’m not going to give you my bond. I also think you know that you couldn’t get it out of me even if you tried. You haven’t been able to push your way inside of my head in the ten minutes we’ve been talking, so I doubt you’re ever going to be able to. All of your convincing has been for nothing. I’ll stick with real power. The Eternal will win this.”
I watch as the senator’s face contorts, twisting and turning as the disgust and madness bleeds into the woman’s features. I almost feel glad that the god killed the vessel a long time ago, that there hasn’t been some poor Gifted trapped inside there with it all this time. It’s a fate worse than death, I’m sure.
“The Eternal would certainly like to think that, wouldn’t you?” it spits out, its voice changing, darkening, deepening, and its eyes bleed to black.
My bond stretches in my chest again in retaliation, preparing and readying itself to finish what evil has been started here. We’re both ready to take back the life that we want to have with our Bonded, the one we all deserve.
The Pain god raises a hand, centering its power on me, only this time, I feel the full blast of it as it pulses out of the god-bond’s body. It hits mine as though it’s a physical wave, crashing over me and flooding me with sensation. I do feel the pain but not in the way that the Pain god intends, because my bond is shutting it out of my mind, taking it from me as it took Silas Davies’ pain. It’s protecting me now as it protected me before, taking it all even as my body begins to shut down.
Protecting me now as it always has.
As my vision begins to blur, my eyes slowly begin to flutter shut. For a second, I feel myself panic.
What if it doesn’t work?
What if everything that we planned was all for nothing? What if we die here, and my last moment with my Bonded was back at the Sanctuary, back where Nox was the only one confident of this plan. He was the only one pushing it, while the others were furious at us both for this. What if all of this is for nothing and we’re going to be forced to cycle again?
As my vision goes black and pushes me into darkness, those words echo in my mind, the last thing I think as the Eternal takes over… What if we fail?
What if I fail?
