THE DOOR to Sage and her Bonded Group’s house is opened by Wick, and he stares down at me with the sort of distrust and wariness that I’m used to seeing on the faces of everyone within the community except those close to us. I have to remind myself that just because he is one of Sage’s Bonded, it doesn’t mean he owes me anything, and I haven’t exactly had time to make nice with him yet.
Wick growls at me, “So, Sage isn’t allowed to go anywhere or speak to anyone, but you guys are allowed to come over unannounced whenever you feel like it to check in on her?”
No ‘hi, how ya doin’’ or anything that could have passed as good manners. I have to place an arm across Atlas’ chest to stop him from launching at his throat.
I paste on a sweet smile that just about kills me. “This isn’t a wellness check. This is me coming to see my best friend and see how she’s coping after her personal space and boundaries were once again violated by some asshole god-bond—”
“Like the one that’s living in your head?” he interrupts, crossing his arms over his chest as he continues to stare me down.
I’m surprised Atlas’ teeth don’t crack under the pressure as he gnashes his jaw violently, but I’m proud that he manages to hold his temper, because I don’t really want to fight with this man.
I’m going to make him like me, dammit!
“Yep, just like that one, except it’s on the bad side of the conflict and we’re not. Team Good Guys all the way over here! Also, Sage knows I’m coming. I did text her. This wasn’t actually unannounced.”
He opens his mouth, but then Sawyer’s voice calls through the house, “Just let her in, dickhead! She’s the closest thing Sage has to a sister. Plus, we’re all alive thanks to Oli and her Bonded Group. You’re not going to get very far by pissing off North Draven’s Bonded, and rumor has it, Nox has finally decided to cozy up with her. I, personally, would rather fling myself off the roof of this place than go toe-to-toe with either one of the Death Dealers.”
A goofy grin spreads over my mouth at the mention of the rest of my Bonded Group. Atlas scoffs at me, leaning down to murmur, not so quietly, “He knows my god-bond’s called the Cleaver, right? He has more than just the shadows to contend with now.”
The image of the bloodshed and gore from the Wasteland flashes into my mind once again, stealing my breath for a moment. I don’t feel bad for what any of us did, but I also don’t think I can eat anything while the memory is still so fresh. The smell still lingers in my nose, the hot, wet, sticky sensation of blood and innards, and yep, I feel like puking.
Wick finally steps aside, and I don’t hesitate to gently push him out of the way, nudging past the hulk of him to make my way into the large, open area.
There’s a lot of bodies living in this house.
I find Sawyer, Gray, Aro, and her younger brother, Lahn, all sitting in the living room playing video games on the large TV. Lahn is sitting in his sister’s lap while she laughs along at the destruction on the screen. Both of her Bonded are shit-talking each other in a playfully vicious way, their language a toned-down version of its usual vitriol, thanks to the younger set of ears in the room, but it’s playfully nasty all the same.
Atlas scoffs at them both, glancing around the room and nodding respectfully at Felix who is pouring himself a cup of coffee bigger than my head. I make my way over to him, and he holds out the pot to me like the amazing human being that he is.
“I need something stronger than this to get me through today,” Felix murmurs quietly to me as I grab the strawberry-flavored creamer and bend to rummage around in the drawers for some flavored syrups to really get me going.
“Has something happened or just the general bullshit? Gimme an idea of what we’re dealing with here, buddy.”
Felix watches as Wick stalks back into the living room, plonking himself down on the couch and scowling at the TV. “Things were a little bit calmer when there were only three Bonded to contend with. We’re having some… teething issues.”
I bite my lip to hide a smirk and gently point out to him, “Well, I have five Bonded. One of them was set on hating my guts and stirring up shit with all of the rest of them until his dying breath. We managed to make our way out of that, so I feel like you guys can get through this. He just needs to figure some shit out for himself.”
Felix quirks an eyebrow at me and mutters, “If he doesn’t work it out soon, I’m gonna develop Flame powers of my own and set the asshole on fire.”
Atlas snickers under his breath, stealing a sip of my ridiculously over-the-top coffee. He’s good about hiding his grimace at the veritable fruit salad flavor I have going on over the rich and bitter taste of the coffee itself.
“Is he a good Bonded to Sage at least?” I murmur, and Felix raises his eyebrows at me.
“I’m not sure I could tell you if he wasn’t. You’d end up tearing his soul out without asking for any extra details.”
I shrug and turn towards the bedroom door as it opens. Sage shuffles out dressed in a pair of pajamas and one of Kieran’s oversized Tac Training sweaters over her top. She looks a little bit like a zombie, but I rethink that description as Riley stumbles out after her, still not looking good.
I glanced back at Felix, worried, and he shrugs. “Who needs to go down to the clinic when I have enough patients in my own house to deal with?”
I put my coffee down on the bench and tuck Sage into a warm hug, hooking my chin onto her shoulder and murmuring quietly, “What can I do? You look like you need a serious blood transfusion and maybe four weeks on a tropical island away from all of this.”
She sighs and melts into my hug a little more, and I catch Wick staring over at us. He doesn’t seem jealous or upset, more like he’s assessing the interaction and deciding for himself whether or not we’re all lying about the two of us being close.
Well, fuck him, he can figure it out for himself that I’d die for this girl.
“Do you really think that Gryphon’s god-bond can keep it from happening again?” she mutters, and I nod, tucking a limp strand of her hair behind her ear affectionately.
“I absolutely believe that it can and has done that, Sage. If I wasn’t sure, and if North wasn’t sure, you’d still be in the cells, and I would be right there with you, raging about everything until we sorted it out.”
She sighs and nods once more, pulling away from me and scoffing as she looks at the pink hue of my coffee. “Can you taste anything except the sugar?”
“Nope,” I say, popping the P obnoxiously and picking the cup back up.
I feel a little bit awkward being in their space like this for a moment as Riley starts to pull together food for himself and his Bonded, but when Sage gets us both settled at the table and starts to quietly debrief with me about the Wasteland, I relax.
Sawyer and Gray talk Atlas into going a round in the video game with them, and I let myself just exist here for a moment with my best friend, a moment of normality for once.
Riley sits at the end of the table and eats his breakfast in silence, acting as though he’s not listening in on every word that Sage and I say. Every now and then, she will shoot a look at him, as though she’s checking in. After the fourth time I catch her doing this, I raise my eyebrows at her with a little wiggle, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
She gives me a sheepish grin back. “We’ve figured out that healing goes the best for us both when we’re around each other. I think whatever that bitch did to him has destabilized our Bond. Even though we’ve been working really hard to sort things out, there’s still some… noticeable damage.”
Riley hunches in on himself, proving that he has been listening to our every word, but it’s not as though we have been talking about anything private anyway.
I nod slowly and shrug with a grimace on my face as well, a mirror of hers. “That makes sense, I guess. What she did wasn’t just a tactical move for the Resistance. It was an assault on your Bond, and it makes complete sense that there would be some lasting effects of that.”
Sage nods slowly, and Riley sighs, setting his knife and fork down on the table. “It’s my own fault for not being strong enough to fight against her. It’s my fault for letting this happen.”
That sounds very self-loathing to me, and I can tell it hurts Sage to hear him speak like that. But I’m also a walking pile of trauma and contradictions, so I don’t have too much of a leg to stand on to argue with him about it.
I try anyway.
He’s still a member of my family’s Bonded Group. Now that he doesn’t have that evil woman, whose name I will not mention, around anymore, he actually seems like a decent guy. Like one who would have been devoted and the perfect Bonded to Sage from the beginning, if only this hadn’t happened to him.
“You know that Gryphon can still get into my head, right? He can get into anyone’s head and do all sorts of nefarious things if he chooses to. The reason he doesn’t is because he is a good and decent person. He understands the responsibility of having such a Gift. He’s always thought through the moral implications of using it. That bitch didn’t give a shit. She was a fucking monster, and you didn’t stand a chance against her. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You didn’t do anything, she did.”
He doesn’t look as though any of this is getting through to him. I’m sure everyone’s tried this tactic with him before, so instead, I take a deep breath and lay a little more of my soul out on the line than I’m comfortable with. If it helps Sage, I’m willing to do it.
“I also have no control when my god-bond takes over. A lot of things have happened, and it’s taken a very long time to get to the point where I can make the distinction between what my actions are and what its actions are. That’s still a heavy weight for me to carry, one that not even my Bonded can relieve me of, but I know where my morals lie. I know what I would be willing to do to keep my family and my community safe. That’s how I sleep at night. You need to ask yourself what you are willing to do for your Bonded and what you would never do to her. Once you have those answers, and follow through with them, I promise that every day it will get a little bit easier.”
Riley’s eyes flick back over to Sage, but he nods at me slowly, picking up a fork again as he moves the eggs around on his plate a little more. Felix, who’d ducked off for a quick shower but had come back out part way through my sad little story, takes a seat at the table as well. He watches as Riley finishes up his breakfast and then heads in to shower too.
Once we hear the door shut and the water turn on, Felix mutters to me quietly, “You know we’ve been sending him to see a therapist, right? The same one North wants to force you to go see. I think you just did more for that guy with a two-minute baring of your own trauma than the therapist has done in weeks of speaking with him. Maybe that should be your major when you head back to Draven.”
Sage lifts her cup up to her lips, hiding a smirk behind it. “You know, if the world doesn’t end or anything.”
AT LUNCHTIME, I convince Sage to come out to the dining hall with us to grab food, and when Felix agrees to tag along as well, she reluctantly grabs a jacket. She snarks at her brother when Sawyer starts barking out a food order to her without so much as looking up from the TV screen he’s still happily kicking everybody’s ass on.
Atlas bows out from the competition to tag along with us, and I’m relieved when I check my phone and find a message from Gabe waiting for me there. I text back to tell him to meet us at the dining hall, and the four of us slip out together for the short walk down there.
Felix and Atlas are good enough friends now that they happily walk a few steps behind us and chat with each other, so I get more privacy with my bestie than I have so far today.
I get straight to asking her the real question that’s burning a hole in my head.
“So, things with Wick… How are they really going?”
She groans and rubs her hand over her forehead. “With me? Great! He’s been just as kind and supportive and amazing as the rest of my Bonded. With everyone else? He has a huge chip on his shoulder, and I’m struggling to figure this out. I feel as though everybody is a second away from descending into a giant argument, and my nerves cannot take it.”
I giggle a little, and even though Sage digs her elbow into my ribs just a bit in retaliation, she also sighs. “I know you get it, and I know that your Bonded Group has been through a hell of a lot worse than a few bruised egos, but oh my God, I’ve never had to make a schedule over who is going to be around me before. Kieran and Felix just always made as much time for me around their work schedules as they possibly could, so it never really overlapped. It was a bit of an adjustment with Riley, but again, neither of them minded making that space for him, especially because he really needed me to speed up the healing process. But Wick? He questions everything. Why does Kieran work so much? Why did Kieran let me go out to the Wastelands when it was so dangerous? Why didn’t Felix come to it just in case I needed him? Why do we all abide by everything that North says without too much questioning? Why does Felix work so many hours, even when I need him with me? Why did no one do anything about Riley a little sooner?”
Her voice breaks on the last one, and I seriously consider turning around and going back to find Wick and thumping him. Like anyone in that Bonded Group needs more guilt than they already have. Instead of pretending that I have the answer to everything and that my own Bond was a peaceful experience, because how laughable is that, I do what I can to offer her a little support.
“Things will die down with him. It’s kind of like a pecking order thing. He’s trying to figure out where exactly he is on it. He probably never thought he would be sharing with such high-profile people, per se.”
Sage raises her eyebrows at me. “And what exactly is the pecking order in your Bonded Group? And how does that work out?”
I grin a little sheepishly, and I’m very careful not to look back at my Bonded or hers, even though they are probably eavesdropping on us right now.
I also choose my words very carefully.
“No one’s in charge… except maybe me and my bond, when push comes to shove. But everybody has their own special skills or areas of knowledge, and we all naturally default to that person. North is always going to be the councilman. He’s always going to have more knowledge about the families and the inner workings of those sorts of things. I would never presume to know more in those areas than him. Gryphon is the TacTeam leader. Even North, who has training in tactical response, will defer to him when it comes to missions and that sort of thing. Nox has always enjoyed more of the research side of things.”
Sage nods along and glances back at Atlas. “And the other two? Because this is my problem! Kieran has a very clear job and position within my Bonded Group, as does Felix. Riley doesn’t care yet about that sort of thing. He’s still so lost in his own guilt and grief that he might never question his place, but Wick has just walked into a very established set of relationships and is not comfortable just gelling with everyone else. He wants his own place and his own strengths recognized.”
I nod and tuck my arm into hers, pulling her in a little closer so that I can be quieter about this. “Atlas was the one who struggled. The reason that he didn’t kick up too much of a fuss about it was because of his plans to run away with me. When those plans were changed, he definitely had an adjustment period. But in the end, the one thing he could agree on with everyone else was keeping me safe. He has taken it upon himself to shadow me through every mission and keep me alive, no matter what. I’m sure that once we have dealt with the Resistance, he’ll find something else. There will probably be an adjustment period again, but I guess that’s part of being in a Bonded Group. Everybody has to grow and change and do it together, even when it makes it so hard for everyone else.”
Sage nods and sighs, and I say the one thing to her that Gryphon and North have said to me a dozen times between them, the reassurance I’ve needed a hundred times over. “It’s not your job to police their relationships. Just because you’re the Central Bonded, it doesn’t make you responsible for making everyone be friends. If they’re upsetting you, tell them. If they’re butting in to things that aren’t their business, tell them. You get to choose what your Bonded Group looks like, but it’s also not your responsibility to keep everyone happy. That’s way too much shit on your shoulders, Sage, and none of us can bear the brunt of all of these men and their egos. Not even me and my god-bond.”
