Forced Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #4)(41)

The only two council members who have been cleared fully by Gryphon are Rockelle and Hannity, the two that live in the Sanctuary alongside us, and I’ve already spoken to both of them and come to an agreement. I've also spoken to Vivian and Unser about their opinions on the matter and, as high level TacTeam leaders, their opinions matter to me. I would trust my Bond’s life with either of them, as well as my own, and if they have something to say about how our community is being governed, then I want to know about it.

I have, of course spoken, to Gryphon and Nox as well.

It's not something that Oleander, Gabe, or Atlas have been involved in before, otherwise I would have spoken to them all at dinner about it. With everything else that went on last night, I didn't want to distress my Bonded with anything else because there was more than enough of a clusterfuck of information for one evening.

I don't know whether I desperately want Oleander to be right about my parents or if I want her to be wrong. The thought that the Resistance might have taken a real Bonded connection away from the people who brought me into this world and loved me so much fills me with a violent rage, but there's also a relief there. The potential that my bond and the shadow creatures are incapable of hurting Oleander is intoxicating and… maybe the poison that broke my brother was not something that had gone wrong in a happily Bonded Group.

Maybe what happened to him is the Resistance’s fault as well.

I shake my head to clear the monsters out of it, because there's no denying that following that path is strong enough to drown me.

I've lost more days than I want to admit to at the bottom of a bottle trying to drink away those memories. I will never begrudge Nox for wanting to do the same because while I might live with the knowledge, he lives with the experience.

Neither of us shoulders that very well.

An alarm sounds on my phone to remind me to leave on time to get to the summit, and I quickly check in mentally with my Bonded, mostly to reassure myself and remind myself of why I'm doing this.

She answers straight away. I'm just going to spend the day with Sage and Sawyer going through everything until we figure it out. Can we let her out if we get enough proof of her innocence together?

Irritation rolls down my spine, not at Oli, but at the terrible situation that her friend has ended up in, thanks again to the Resistance. I’m confident now that Sage did not intentionally kill Dara and that something else has happened.

I have known her family for too long and am now watching her father almost kill himself in the Sanctuary, going through blood types and trying to fix the mess that has been made of his family's legacy. There's also no way that the sweet, broken little girl who befriended my Bond, even when her own Bonds couldn't see past our own shit to do so, could ever be a member of the Resistance.

I realize this might sound naive, but when you have been dealing with those people for as long as I have, you start to see patterns and similarities in things. I was surprised when I heard that the blood groups had been messed with, but I also wasn't shocked into disbelief over it. Knowing their tactics, it made complete sense that they would go after Bonded Groups in hopes to weaken the bloodlines.

I find myself chuckling quietly to an empty room at the thought that maybe they had planted my mother with my father in the hopes that it would thin out the shadow creatures and instead, they had ended up with two more shadow manipulators in the world, both of us more powerful than our father, thanks to the extra abilities our mothers had given us.

Serves the sadistic assholes right.

I tuck the paperwork under my arm and stalk back out of my office without another word, ignoring Penelope when she tries to smile at me again. The fact that she has removed her work jacket and is wearing nothing but a lacy camisole underneath is all I need to see to know that she is going to be fired and I will have to find someone else to fill the role. Preferably someone male, competent, and uninterested in social climbing; so basically a fucking unicorn.

Rafe meets me at the elevator, once having been Transported in, and I enjoy the trip down to our car together catching up with him. He and his family had lived in our mansion for more than two decades, and I had watched his children grow up, move out to go to college, and travel the world. Neither he nor his wife are Gifted, but they are some of the most loyal and kind people I have ever met. When everything had happened with the Resistance, I knew there was no way I could leave them behind. Even if we weren't close, they would be targets for what they might have seen from being in our household for so long.

“Two new grandchildren, congratulations! You must be so eager to visit them.”

Rafe grins and shrugs. ”We're hoping that things will settle down soon and we can go see the twins, but we're not going to rush there and potentially put targets on our family.”

I frown and nod, stepping out of the elevator with him and walking over to the car together. “I’m sorry it's come to that, Rafe. I would never ask this of you, and it kills me that you have to stay with us and miss out on this moment.”

Rafe opens the back door for me and as I slide in, he smiles his same warm smile at me. “This is what family does. We don't just stick together when things are happy and fruitful. You have always taken care of us, and we will stick by you now for as long as we need to. My Maria and I are safe with you. And we're more than happy to video chat with the babies until it is safe.”

I nod, still not happy about it, and let him shut the door behind me, pulling my phone out again as it buzzes in my pocket. There's a stream of news articles and questions from reporters about today's summit waiting there for me, and I have to take a deep breath before I open any of it.