I wait for a moment, and then I let our fingers grasp together for a second, squeezing them in the only reassurance I can give her right now, before I pull away and stand back up, rubbing my hands over my legs to brush away the soap suds and dirt from the muddy ground of the shower.
When I snap the curtain back, the woman is waiting there for me, her ear pressed close to the fabric like she was trying to figure out what I was doing in there without the shower on.
Good luck with that, bitch.
“I’m ready to go,” I drawl, and she scowls at me.
“You didn’t even wash anything. What’s the point in me getting you over here?”
I shrug at her and enjoy the huff of frustration I get back, not even caring when she’s rough about tightening my restraints and jerking me around to get me moving again.
Kieran is safe because of my lie.
Kyrie is safe with Brutus.
I’m as safe as I’ve ever been thanks to the bond growing angrier and more savage by the hour in my chest.
We’ll survive until I can get us out.
Chapter Four
Gryphon
* * *
It’s getting harder by the day to keep my face passive and the contempt off of it while dealing with Gifted that we know are members of the Resistance. Daniella Jordan is no exception.
I’ve never trusted the slimy lawyer, and though North has always said I was just being difficult for the sake of it, it feels good to know that I was right. She doesn’t like me standing in on their meetings, especially when I stand on North’s side of the desk in his home office, behind his seat like I’m preparing to take a bullet for him as though he’s not the most dangerous man in our entire community. She doesn’t like the advantage it gives me, or that I’m looking down on her.
Well, I’ve never been looking down quite so hard before because this fucking bitch knows where my Bonded is. I know it. North knows it, and while she’s sitting there talking about asinine Council bullshit, she knows it too. We’re all just playing our parts and pretending the giant elephant isn’t in the room. It’s making my skin itch.
There’s no way her sister was working alone to mess with Bond Groups. There’s no way that Daniella has wormed her way into the good graces of North Draven for innocent reasons, and how much confidential information has she gotten directly from him in the last five years?
I’m going to call dibs on killing her, no matter how badly Nox wants it. There’s a reason he’s not here today. He’s terrible at keeping a poker face in this kind of situation.
Daniella paints a frown onto her face, the picture of a concerned lawyer worried for her boss’ Bond, but there’s something about the very careful way that she speaks around me that’s always flagged on my radar. Now we know why.
It takes everything inside of me to stop myself from reaching across the desk and choking the life out of her, at least until some useful intel falls from that sharp tongue of hers.
The way she smiles at me, she knows it too.
“I’ll get these documents drafted up for you, North. The Alpha and Bravo Teams will find her. They found her last time. I’m sure they have her scent already, it’s only a matter of time,” she says as she collects the papers in front of her and slips them into her briefcase.
North stands and runs a hand down his suit jacket as though he actually gives a shit about looking professional in this moment, just another part of the act, and then walks her out to Rafe, who will see her all the way out of the mansion.
I count to five after the door locks behind her before I murmur, “I have no idea how you put up with her. I would have killed her long before we figured her out.”
North shrugs and shakes out his hand, the one with the thin black ring of smoke circling it, one of the many little warning signs that he’s riding the edge of his control. “Being on the Council is exclusively dealing with people I don’t like. It’s that or I give up the seat, which I couldn’t do while we were looking for Oleander. Now I need to keep it so we can find her every time she disappears on us.”
It’s the first time he’s mentioned it without putting his fist through something, so I’ll call it progress.
He moves back to the desk and unlocks the drawer to collect his own stack of papers, all of it relating to Oli and her code name.
The code name that Atlas Bassinger conveniently knew without her telling him.
North checks his watch. “It’s dinner time. We both skipped breakfast and lunch today. With what we’re doing tonight, we’ll need the fuel.”
No argument from me there, though I don’t really want to deal with half the people coming to the table anymore.
The Benson kids and Felix Davenport have moved into Draven mansion with us. While there’s a part of me that takes great pride in caring for my Bonded’s closest friends in her absence, there’s a part of me who resents having them here while she’s gone. Salt in the wounds of her being taken from me again while we’re stuck here, sitting on our goddamned hands, because they’re not in any of the known camps.
When Atlas handed me her GPS chip, I wanted to strangle the life out of him with my bare hands. That feeling had only gotten worse when Gabe had debriefed us fully on how much Atlas really knew about her… right up until Gabe got to the part about Noakes’ treachery.
North also didn’t take it well.
He hasn’t taken any of this well, and the more information we get about Oli’s time with the Resistance, the closer to losing control I see him getting. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen him this close to the edge. The last thing that set him off, well, no one blamed him for losing it on his brother’s behalf like that.
I certainly didn’t.
With every day that she’s gone, we’re all starting to unravel. I’d thought it was bad the first time around, but back then, we’d lost the idea of a Bond. The hopes and dreams we’d all had about her, not the girl herself.
Losing the real, flesh and blood Oleander Fallows is like dying a death of a thousand tiny cuts.
Hearing her voice in my head had almost brought me to my goddamned knees in the middle of a debrief with the TacTeam we’d left behind, Team Delta, who had one fucking job. That was to keep her safe. The fact that she’d given me absolutely nothing to go on is both infuriating and completely expected. I’d had to point out to North that she survived in those camps as a fourteen-year-old for two years. We need to stop with the bullshit and just… trust her. For a few days, while we use every goddamned resource at our disposal to find her and bring her the fuck home.
We don’t really have much choice about it. The moment I’d done what she’d asked and spoken directly to Kieran, Oli had blocked me back out. I’d been frustrated until North had pointed out the obvious.
“There are a lot of Gifted who can pick up on that sort of communication. She’s keeping herself safe. She’s keeping you both safe.”
It’s the only level-headed thing I’ve heard him say about this entire fucking mess, and it gives me just a little bit of hope for the two of them, that maybe they’ll figure their shit out when we have her back.
When.