He grits his teeth and lets out the breath he was holding. “Fine. We go there. We stick together. No one is going to act like a cowboy. And until we find Shore, I'm in charge. Look at me, Bassinger. I am in charge.”
Atlas stares at him blankly, and then a slow smirk stretches across his lips. “Sure you are. You'll be in charge for as long as it takes Oli’s bond to just decide that it wants to come out and play. Then we all know she's in charge, because if there is anyone that I am going to trust implicitly and follow every order from on a battlefield, it's going to be my Bonded’s bond.”
Kieran's eyes flick down to mine, and then he shocks me by saying, “Agreed. Get your Tac gear on.”
It’s a freaking miracle.
We are dressed and ready to go in under ten minutes, everyone moving quickly and efficiently to get us on the road. Sage comes with us all to North’s offices to say goodbye, and Felix arrives just as we're about to leave.
He looks at Kieran and gives him a nod, the two of them having formed their own friendship since discovering that they're in the same Bonded Group, and then Felix looks down at me. “If your bond can't heal their injuries all the way, then you need to get bandages and pressure around whatever the injury is. You need to think about blood loss, first and foremost. We’ll worry about infection and mobility issues after, okay? Whatever you can't do, I will fix.”
This is why Felix is in my top five favorite non-Bonds.
I look at him with a grateful smile. “I will get them back to you, no matter what. Even if my bond does heal them fully, I will still get them to come in and check in with you, but thank you. It's good to know for the other members of the TacTeam that I can't do anything for.”
He grimaces a little, his eyes flicking back to Kieran. “Should you be taking me as well, just in case? If someone in the Resistance has managed to injure someone in the Draven Bond Group, then that doesn't bode well for everyone else.”
Kieran is shaking his head before Felix even finishes speaking. “You're staying with Sage and making sure that she's safe. We need as many of our people here while we're gone as possible. It's very likely that Oli’s Bonds have been made target number one for the Resistance or that Nox has thrown himself in front of something recklessly. I’m hoping we’ll get there to find most of our forces unharmed.”
My stomach drops.
That seems like wishful thinking. The throbbing in my shoulder is also still consistent, and I don't want to think about how the injury occurred, let alone the thought of any of them doing this to themselves on purpose.
Kieran is right though, it would be a typical Nox response to throw himself head first at something. He always has been both very sure in his Gift and just a little bit reckless with his own wellbeing at the best of times.
Then it’s time to leave, everything already either said or hanging in the air between us all, unspoken because it’s too terrifying to speak our worries out loud. I give Sage what I hope is a reassuring smile and then turn back to her Bonded.
“Get ready for hell,” Kieran says, and we all take a steadying breath as we grab his arm, the pop sound of our transporting echoing in my ears as we’re thrown into space towards the Wasteland.
It’s a bloodbath.
My stomach revolts the same way it always does the moment our feet touch the ground again, but the moment I look around us at the field of dead bodies and debris, I lose my dinner.
Thankfully, I avoid our shoes.
“We’re exposed here; we need to move,” Kieran says, completely ignoring me emptying my guts up everywhere, and I’m weirdly grateful about that.
Gabe and Atlas are more restrained in their responses than they usually are, but they both get their hands on me the moment I bend at the waist. Atlas gets an arm around my waist as a support and Gabe tucks an errant lock of hair away from my face.
I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth and mumble, “I’m fine, let’s move.”
I'm not sure where in the country we are at the moment, no one had mentioned where this Wasteland was, but there is a clump of charred oak trees that we move over to for some cover. Kieran looks around as though he's sure we're about to be ambushed, and my eyes can't stop flicking back over to the piles of dead bodies.
There’s a lot of them, some in Tac gear, but, thankfully, most of them seem to be Resistance.
“It's not supposed to look like this,” Kieran says quietly once he has us tucked away safely behind the trees. “It’s a new Wasteland. It's not supposed to look like this yet.”
I swallow roughly and nod before giving him a shrug. “Like you said, once North, Nox, and Gryphon arrived, they probably changed their tactics and got more people in. That would be the smart thing to do, if they’re on the offensive.”
His mouth presses into a firm line as he nods, glancing around at the area, and then he curses under his breath. “We're not going to find them without having to risk ourselves in a big way, and I'm not sure how I feel about that, Fallows. Gabe and I have experience, and Atlas is bulletproof… your bond coming out would be helpful, but it’s a risk all on its own. We might have to consider splitting up.”
Well, fuck.
I think about it for a second, then the answer to that problem huffs a little puff of air behind my ear.
It’s so obvious that I almost feel stupid.
I reach up and grab Brutus, bringing him down to the ground and waiting until he grows to his full size before I give him a quick scratch behind his pointy ear.
“I need you to find Nox for me. North and Gryphon too, but I know that your connection with Nox will get you to him much faster. We need to know who's injured, and we need to get to them as quickly as possible. Can you do that for me, baby?”
He stares at me with his void eyes for a minute, his head tilting as though he’s thinking about it, and then he's off, moving faster than my eyes can track.
As he becomes a blur of smoke, I straighten back up. Atlas slips his hand into mine, his eyes glowing with a white ring around them. I'm not used to seeing that on him because his power is usually so intrinsic, but I know that he has been practicing his ability to shift the power on to others, and there's a pretty good chance that I'm bulletproof right now.
Gabe is more serious and solemn than his usual smiling self, looking out at the damage around us with a very critical eye. He’s been out in the field before, his Gift strong enough and his connections within the Bonded Group getting him an early pass, and I find myself intensely curious about what he’s seeing and assessing out there that I’m not.
“We're just going to wait until the shadow creature brings them to us? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a better plan than splitting up, but we’re burning valuable time here,” Atlas says, watching Kieran carefully. He hasn’t attempted to question anything about the plan so far, and I hope we’re all about sticking to it.
Gabe shrugs. “It won't take long. Brutus probably already has them alerted that we’re here and is bringing them back. The shadow creatures are way more useful than you’re giving them credit for.”
I’m desperate to reach out to them all and check in.
I can’t though. I don't want to distract or startle them by speaking to them with our mind connection just yet. I'm very aware that the slightest distraction could get any of them killed, and it's just not worth the risk.