Tragic Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #5)(71)

I’m hoping that doesn’t backfire on us all.

We want to have our own opinion of the situation before we get Atlas’, because as much as we all try to stay neutral about these things… it's his mother. The woman did attempt to protect Atlas, and in doing so, protected our Bonded. There's no doubt in my mind that he will have some biases because of that alone.

Honestly, I would too.

We walk through the hallway together, down past the cells. I take a quick look at the sorry state that Aurelia is in. With Jericho here, she has started to eat again, thanks to his coaxing through the cell doors, but she's still thinner than when we had brought her in. Her cheekbones press up through her sunken skin, and her shoulder bones stick out as though they're trying to break the skin.

She watches us walk past with lifeless, apathetic eyes.

North waits until I have gotten Jericho out of his cell, rendering him effectively unconscious with my Gift and getting him into the interrogation seat before he takes his own seat across the table from him.

I wait until his wrists are secured in the handcuffs before I let his mind out of my grasp.

Finally North says, “Speak to me about the camps.”

Jericho blinks as though he's clearing his eyes, but he hears North well enough and answers straight away. “I’ve told you everything I know about them already.”

North shakes his head. “I want specific answers. How many are there?”

Jericho’s eyes narrow—he can sense that something has changed. “Three big ones, five smaller ones. In North America, anyway.”

He’s telling the truth.

It also checks out with the information we have, but North is careful not to look at me. “Which camp do they process prisoners in?”

On and on and on the questioning goes until, finally, I secure Jericho back in his cell, but it's clear that every piece of information that Atlas’ mother has sent through has been backed up. Unless they're both in on it, which is entirely possible and is something that we've taken into account, the information is true.

North scowls the entire way back up the elevator, but I leave him to it. I've formed my own opinions about what's going on, and all that's left now is to tell Atlas.

He controls his reaction to the text message and the information his mother had sent through better than Oli does.

She doesn't say a word, but she chews on her lip like she's trying to bite it right off of her face, her eyes darting between all of us. She worries about how this is going to change things. It doesn't help that we made the decision to wait until dinnertime when everybody was present, and Nox is staring a hole through Atlas’ head as though he'll be able to find some sort of deception in him even though he's been vetted a hundred times at this point.

He's the only one in the Bonded Group whose head I’d sifted through rigorously, the only person who hasn't been given the privacy of their own thoughts, just to be sure that he isn't some Resistance sleeper cell, some jackpot the Resistance hit by having a child end up in our Bonded Group.

I trust him with Oli, and that's the highest form of praise I can think of.

“She’s telling the truth,” Atlas finally says, his food abandoned on the plate in front of him, barely touched.

Gabe is the only one still eating, but after a day of fitting out Sheetrock and laying miles of tiles in dozens of bathrooms, I have no doubt that he's worked up an appetite.

North shrugs and swirls the amber liquid in his glass. He’s slowed down his drinking, but I think we all wanted to dull the edge a little for this conversation.

“From what we can tell, it's all true. Unless you can find some sort of code word in there or something, then we're going to tentatively move forward with this.”

Atlas frowns and turns back to the information, reading over it much slower this time, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that his mother might have hidden some message in there for him.

“What are we going to do with it though? How are we moving forward?” Oli says, pushing her fork through her shellfish risotto joylessly.

It makes me regret bringing it up, because it's the first time she's had seafood since we arrived at the Sanctuary and we've gone and ruined it for her.

Watching her eat is a particular pleasure for North and I.

I answer her. “We're going to set up camp outside the Alaskan Wasteland as we’ve planned, but we are going to put into place other teams to take out some of the smaller camps at the same time. We’ll hit as many of them at once as we can handle. If they're unable to call in for backup, we have a better chance of wiping them out.”

Oli nods and glances back at Atlas, but he is filtering through the pages with a scowl on his face. “There's nothing here. Nothing but the information we can all read.”

North nods. “I was expecting that. I think that our greatest threat in this will be the traps once we arrive. They will attempt to split us up, and we need to be prepared for that. They’ll expect us to hit the biggest camp, to hit where Davies is going to be.”

Atlas rubs at his chin, his eyes darting down to Oli at his side.

North takes another sip of his drink and says, “That's why we're going after the Alaskan one. It's not the most likely or the least likely, so it's the safest bet. They have enough resources to set up traps at every camp, so we need to be prepared for hell… and to give it right back to them.”