Forced Bonds (The Bonds That Tie, #4)(78)

I don’t care if that makes me a monster.

”Bassinger, stay with Fallows, no matter what happens. You can all speak to each other through the mind connection now, right? Use it,” Kieran says, and then we move together down the last slope and into the next phase of hell in the Wasteland.

We’re immediately split up by a Flame, a wall of fire heads towards us that we all have to dive away from and take cover. Atlas shoves me behind an overturned truck, our feet stumbling over the asphalt that is unexpectedly underneath us as we hit a road of some sort. Visibility is freaking terrible, and I have to duck my head to stop my hair from being set alight.

Brutus trots around the side of the truck, unbothered by the heat of the flames, and he sits obediently the moment he gets eyes on me.

Even if Nox still sees me as poison, his bond wants me safe.

Atlas pushes me further into a crouch, his body covering me more fully. There’s the sounds of screaming around us and the smell of burning flesh that’s indescribably horrifying wafting over to us.

Atlas makes a sound like he’s trying not to puke, and I feel a little better about how my stomach is doing flips like I’m about to puke up whatever is left in my guts.

I glance around until I find a small area to one side of us that we can move to and find a more comfortable position. I squat down fully and shuffle over, following the side of the truck until I squeeze through the gap there. Atlas moves with me. When I stop, worried about whether or not he’ll fit through the same gap, because it’s pretty clear he won’t, he just puts a hand on either side and I watch as the metal crumples like wet paper under his strength.

It’s a much hotter act than it should be while we’re about to be turned into freaking barbecued ribs.

Check in, Gabe. Please tell me you still have your eyebrows.

I try to make light of the situation, but I’m anxious as hell about where the hell he is now that I can breathe again.

I got Kieran out of there before he needed a new face. Nox is with us. He’s sending his shadow creatures to take the Flame out now. Just sit tight, Bonded.

Easier said than done.

From the corner of my eye, I see a member of the Resistance taking refuge a few feet away from us. Brutus hadn’t alerted us to the tiny, huddled form, and my bond doesn’t react to her either, but she has a gun strapped over her chest and a vest on that clearly marks her as our enemy.

I can’t take the chance.

I make the decision to take her out right as she lifts her head. She’s young, around my age, but she doesn’t look scared. She looks… ready to die.

Is that comforting?

Should I feel less guilt for doing it if she’s miserable?

I lift my hand as though I’m going to take her soul as well, but then our eyes meet across the blood-soaked path, and… I can’t.

I can’t take her soul.

I mean, I can. My power is sitting there and waiting to rip her soul out for me to consume, but even my bond is pausing, hesitating.

I need her alive.

I drop my hand and swallow, praying that my bond isn’t leading me astray. It can’t be, not really, because it’s always so ready to kill anyone outside of our Bonded Group, so it must mean something.

Right?

Fuck.

Why is this so hard?!

Atlas notices her and gives me a look, but I shake my head at him, not ready yet to let the others know about her. Nox will just kill her, I know it, and… I can’t figure out why I don’t want to do the same.

I wait until the wall of flames finally dies out, more screaming tearing through the air, and then I make my move. I run towards her, still in a crouch, calling for Brutus to follow me. As I awkwardly hop over two bodies on the path, an insurgent Transporter pops into reality next to the girl and lifts a gun, aiming right at my chest.

Before my bond has the chance to deal with him, the girl lifts her hand and his eyes roll up into the back of his head, hitting the ground in a faint. She then aims her gun at his head and shuts her eyes as she pulls the trigger, killing him instantly.

Atlas finally catches up to me and curses under his breath as he shoves me behind his body, but I’m already speaking to the girl as he does it. “You just killed a bad guy, but you’re also a bad guy.”

She swallows and glances around. “I’m a captured girl, actually. I saw someone who might believe me, and I’m taking the chance. Help me. Please. I’m begging you, don’t let them take me back there. You’re with the Tac guys, right? The clothes kind of give you away.”

Atlas stops me from stepping around him and snaps, “We’re not a fucking taxi service, and you’re holding a Resistance issue weapon. You’re saying you’re not a sympathizer?”

She frowns and looks down at the gun, clearly detached from the reality that she’s found herself in. “You can have it. You can take whatever you want from me. I’ll tell you everything I remember. Just, please, take me with you… or kill me. I’d rather be dead than go back there.”

Atlas flinches when she says that, and I reach out to him in our mind connection to soothe whatever it is that’s upsetting him.

My sister said the same thing. She said she’d rather be dead than go back.

I press a hand against his back, a small reassurance I can give him, and then I see three of Nox’s shadow creatures pop between the gap in the truck that we’d squeezed through. The others have found us.