Unbroken Bonds (The Bonds That Tie #6)(89)

The Pain god knew that whatever vessel it was moved into, it would gain access to that power, the same way that while the Shadows are an indicator of the god-bonds, it isn't the only thing that we can do. The Draven line gave me the god-bonds, but my mother's gift of the Madness had given me the Dread that terrifies all of those who hear my name. North’s mother had passed on the Death Touch to him.

The gods have access to these things now, a growing arsenal of weapons, and if the Pain god is able to take over the body of another Top Tier Gifted, it could kill the soul within and take control of the vessel. It could slowly start to collect whatever powers it desired, and it might just start with Oleander and work its way through our Bonded Group. Shapeshifting into a dragon with the shadow creatures at its beck and call, the Neuro ability to hack into anyone's brain, and the ability to inflict gruesome, bloody deaths by tearing bodies to pieces, all wrapped up in one crazed god-bond.

I can't imagine anything worse.

If we allow that to happen, we might as well say goodbye to the human race, because the Pain god will just consume and kill and maim over and over and over again until there is nothing left. This goes beyond just wanting to give our god-bonds the life that they have been yearning for or living a life with our own Bonded Group in peace. As selfishly as I want those things, this is about whether or not the world is going to be taken over by, quite frankly, the root of all evil.

“What they really want is to be able to shift vessels. They want to live forever, and none of them give a shit about who they live within. They don't care about lifetimes or sleeping or any of that. All they care about is power—”

“But none of them have a Gift to manipulate souls within a vessel,”Atlas finishes off for me, a scowl on his face as he rubs a hand across his chin.

He's been surprisingly quiet about the entire mission, keeping to himself and taking Oleander at her word when she said that she trusted me and wanted to do this. He hasn't spoken to me or looked at me. He hasn't questioned me in any way, and he hasn't started a fight either, which is definitely a change.

I have no doubt that if anything happens to her, he will be the first person to kill me.

It won't matter if the Pain god comes looking, I will already be a corpse if he has anything to do with it. It really would be a test of whether or not the Cleaver can take on the shadow creatures, though I suppose that if Oleander and I are wrong and something does happen to her, I won't fight back.

I don't think even the guilt I've had on my brother's behalf will be enough to keep me around if something does truly happen to her. I’ve always felt an obligation to stay here for him, even in my darkest days after he’d found me and killed my mother for what she’d done to me.

“This is fucking stupid,” Gryphon says again, his eyes flashing to white as he lets his Gift kick in.

He scans the area, almost as though he’s developing new techniques to settle himself, and I choose not to say anything about it, not to him or to the rest of them. I keep my eyes on Oleander, and when the Pain god finally strikes, pushing everything it can at her until I know her bond is forced to take it all, I square my shoulders and prepare myself.

I glance over at my brother. “They're coming.”

North nods, a scowl on his face as he watches the same scene that I do, Oleander’s body slumping down to the ground as the Pain god and the Transporter take her once more, Transporting into the Wasteland before us.

“I want this over with,” he says, and I nod slowly, lifting a hand as the shadows fall away from my body and begin to fan out.

The TacTeam personnel all lined up behind us in neat rows stay calm as the shadows overtake the area. The original personnel have seen it all before, and the new recruits were warned about how tonight will go. There’s an air of trust that has never been there before, a preparedness that was hard won.

Tonight.

Everything will be finished tonight, their death or ours.

We feel the moment that the Pain god appears in the Wasteland, moving Oleander’s unconscious body into the impenetrable area they’ve built specifically to keep us out.

The walls of the Wasteland are strong, the strongest Shields that we have come across; which is exactly how I knew that this is where they would end up. Hundreds of Gifted have been brought here to work together to make the entire area impenetrable.

When the scouts came across it, we knew right away that it would be endgame for the Resistance. We spent a lot of time trying to infiltrate it but failed again and again.

Except that was part of our plan as well.

The god-bond doesn't realize the strength that we have taken from our Bonded, the unprecedented growth in our abilities, or the fact that the Draven family has taken in the powers of the gods over hundreds of generations. Instead of their manipulations of the Bonded Groups affecting us in a way that would weaken us, it has only made us stronger. It has only made the arsenal of weapons that we have at our disposal even more formidable.

It's given us a way in.

“We need to go now,” North says under his breath, and I nod, glancing over at each of them for a moment just to be sure that they're all as ready as I am.

Gryphon gives one last command to the Tac unit at our backs, and then each of them grabs my arm. The Shield can protect against Transporters that aren't welcome within the Wastelands, but they can't protect from something that's already in there.