“Sawyer found the bodies when he was doing a security scan of all of the areas. When he rechecked the security cameras, he found the god-bond muttering to itself in another language. When we arrived back, Nox translated it—it was an old dialect of Latin, some remnant of his time on Earth before. He figured out that we wereconsuminggod-bonds. Their souls, I mean.”
He says ‘we’, but we both know he means me.
I can't find the words to say that to him though. I can't find anything in my jumbled mess of a brain.
“His Bond was already killed and returned to the cycle. He didn't want it returning, only to be lost without him, and so he killed himself to be put back in the cycle as well. He just took Vivian and Xander out with him when he went.”
As per usual, the gods don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves and their own agendas.
The tears start streaming down my cheeks, and Gabe curses under his breath, wiping at them as he murmurs, “Unser was the one who went down there after them, before Sawyer could sound the alarm. He already knew Vivian was dead because of Adella’s reaction. He thought it was a heart attack or something, but when he got down there and saw it all… he went off. He’s a Trigger, you know, so he took out half of the training center. The cells were left standing, thanks to all of the work that Atlas and North had done to make sure that they could contain Aurelia. We didn't lose any more operatives in the explosion, thank God, but everything is a mess. I Transported back here, and when I saw what had happened, I stayed awake long enough to make sure that there was nothing else I could do to help. The rest of the Bonded Group are down there now, figuring it out.”
“Figuring what out? How can you ‘figure out’ something like this?” I croak, and Gabe shrugs, a miserable look on his face.
“I know. I know there's no way around it. I know that there’s nothing that any of us can say or do. What we're figuring out is where to go from here. How to best support Adella, and Vivian's kids and Unser. How to continue the training that needs to happen without a training center, because no matter who dies around here, we have to keep going.”
“That's not fair… he deserves more than that.”
Gabe nods. “I know. We all know it, but what else can we do? This isn't just a job for us, you know, this is life. None of us like it. None of us want to live it, but here we are.” He lets out a long breath again and presses the palms of his hands against his eyes. “Everyone blames themselves. North and Gryphon blame themselves for not letting the god-bonds kill it in the first place. Nox is furious that we didn’t know it could still use its power even with the upgrades to the room. We're all feeling more than a little deflated about this one.”
I feel completely different from what he's describing. It's not deflation or even grief. It's almost an out-of-body experience, the numbness that comes with too much loss culminating in losing someone who was very important to me.
I realize now how much I didn't know about Vivian. I'm sure my Bonded Group knew more about him, having spent years with the older man. I only spent a handful of months with him learning how to trust my Bonded Group, learning how to defend myself, and learning how to grow a backbone in the shortest amount of time possible.
He had faith in me when no one else did.
He saw something in me and liked it enough to watch over me and stop people from giving me shit around him. He pushed me harder than anyone else, formed me into the person that I am right now, though I'm sure he would never say so.
“How many kids did he have?”
It seems like such a paltry question to be asking now, something that I should have asked ages ago instead.
“Their Bonded Group have three. They never really cared about paternity, but two of them were biologically his. Two girls and a boy. They're all only a little bit younger than us. Adella made them both wait years before having kids until they were out of active duty and into a permanent position. She didn't want to raise the kids completely by herself.”
A sob wrenches out of my throat. ”Well, I guess she's going to now, isn't she?
Gabe shakes his head. “She has Unser; that's something. Trust me, I know.”
I stare at him for a moment and see the glossiness to his eyes as he processes all of this right here along with me. The loss of someone he respected as well.
I nod my head, swallowing roughly. “So what are we going to do about Vivian? What canIdo right now to help? I can’t just… sit here.”
“I think Adella wants to bury him here. She has no intention of leaving, and she knows how much this place meant to him. As for our next move, I'm sure North has something up his sleeve. We all know this goes back to the Pain god. Three out of four are gone now. We only have one left.”
I nod my head again, and then I press my forehead against his for a second, murmuring under my breath, “Gene better hope he doesn't wake up again in my lifetime. I will never forget this. I will hunt him and the rest of his Bonded Group down until my last day. I swear to God, I’ll eat his soul without a fucking word of complaint.”
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Atlas
The holein the side of the Tac Training Center is still letting out a long stream of black smoke when we arrive home.
Gabe only stays conscious long enough to find out what’s happened here and if Oli is safe to sleep back at the house before he takes our Bonded home, preparing himself for the conversation he's going to have to have with her when she wakes up.
I don't envy him.
I'm not afraid of having hard conversations with my Bonded. If it came down to it, I could have this one, but there's something still raw inside of me at my parents’ loss. They were people who didn't deserve to live after all of the sins that they had committed, but losing a good man, someone who Oli had known such affection for, is particularly confusing for me.
I worry for a second because I have no idea how Gabe is going to break this news to her. He’s not exactly the most serious of us all, but Gryphon claps me on the shoulder and shrugs. “He's surprisingly good at this shit. You forget that he’s lost as much as the rest of us have. He’s just better at hiding it.”
