Forced Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #4)(12)

There's every chance I would be sitting in one of these cells, waiting to die or to rot away, because once upon a time, I’d lapped up every last bit of my parents' propaganda and indoctrination.

It’s sickening to even think about.

Gryphon steps ahead of me to unlock my sister's cell and move her into the interrogation room. She doesn't fight him or attempt to use her Gift in any way, which is strange to begin with, but when he steps out into the hallway with her and her face turns up to mine, I see the white ring of light around her iris that is Gryphon's Gift hard at work. He’s hacked into her brain to ensure her complete and utter obedience while he’s interacting with her, which is both incredibly smart and a little terrifying.

He’s a much bigger weapon in this fight than I’ve ever given him credit for.

She looks thinner and more haggard than I have ever seen her before. I already know that North wouldn't torture her through starvation or that form of deprivation, but clearly her time in captivity is not treating her very well.

Not to say that they're above treating prisoners the way that they deserve, but being my sister has clearly afforded her more allowances than the other prisoners ever received.

Gryphon adjusts the grip he has on her wrists and then marches her into the interrogation room. She complies with his every order without a word. It's not until he has her restraints secured to the chain running up from the concrete flooring and her ass in the hot seat that the white ring in her eyes disappears.

He moves around to the other side of the table as I watch her blink back into herself.

The sneer on her mouth when she finally looks up to see Gryphon standing there is instant. Every inch of her is radiating that ingrained loathing that we were raised to have for these people, the ones who are so far beneath us that they’re practically a different species.

Her voice is thready and cracks when she speaks. “I don't know why you keep coming here to see me. There's nothing left in my brain that you haven’t sifted through already, nothing there that hasn’t been picked over, so either kill me or leave me to rot away in peace.”

Gryphon nods slowly to her and then jerks his head towards the open door where I’m standing. I’m obscured from her view but watching her every move through the double-sided glass. “I brought someone here to see you. I thought maybe you would want to speak to someone familiar instead of me for a change.”

For a small moment, I can see the tiniest shred of hope in her. “You’ve captured Jericho? He came for me?”

There’s a pang in my chest at that. The one Bonded she has that actually loved her, the only one who treated her as though he truly loved her, of course she’d be hoping to see him before her inevitable death here in captivity.

“Your brother, actually,” Gryphon says, and the hope in her eyes dies out.

She doesn't look happy about it or even relieved, which is strange because she saw me at the camps and must have already guessed about my ties to the Dravens. I would have thought she would want to use me to get out of here.

I'm not offended by her dismissal though, and I slip through the doorway easily, taking up the seat across the table from her. Gryphon looks between the two of us and then steps out of the room, shutting the door firmly behind him.

I didn't need him to tell me that he was going to be watching us both through the double-sided mirror.

“What have you gotten yourself into, little brother?” Aurelia says, shaking her head as her lank and filthy blonde locks fall around her face.

I make sure I keep my eyes on hers, never wavering so that she knows that there’s no shame in me as I reply, “I found my Bonded. I’m a part of the Draven Bond Group. I went into those camps where we found you with every intention of helping to find and destroy every last Resistance member that I could find.”

She blinks at me and then nods slowly. “Did Mom tell you? Or did you find out by yourself? You should take the girl and run, Atlas. You should do what Jericho and I should have done a decade ago, and just get out of here before they get to you.”

Jericho.

She’s still only worried about him, no mention of the others.

When I say this to her, she just shakes her head back to me, her voice breaking as she admits, “I don’t want the rest of them. I don’t want to go home to Father. I want to see Jericho one last time, and then I want to die, Atlas. I want to fucking die here.”

My stomach turns. Gryphon had told me that she had been a shell of a woman in his interrogations but… I was never expecting this. “Aurelia, how can you say that? How can you—“

She cuts me off, her voice shrill and panicked, “If I get out, then I’ll have to go back to them all. I don’t want to! I went to the camps to die. I went there to be done with all of this, Atlas. I just want to be done.”

She starts to sob, and it takes everything in me to stop myself from walking around and pulling her into a hug because she’s just… broken. Desperate. So far into her own misery that she’s completely given up.

“Aurelia, what’s been happening? Give me something, anything, and I’ll try to find Jericho for you.”

I might be lying to her, I’ll go to hell for saying it, but she chokes on a sob and sputters back, “We’re better off dead, Atlas. What they have planned for us all… we’re better off dead.”