of them can taste me.
Not ever.
Not without risking everything I ran away to keep safe.
I fall asleep in my tiny, uncomfortable bed with my phone in my hand and sweet messages from Atlas bouncing around in my head. He’s so… normal. Scarily so, he just flirts with me and takes an interest in my life, as if we’re two normal people meeting for the first time and not Bonds with a shit-tonne of baggage.
I don’t want to know what my other Bonds will think about him if he makes it to Draven before I figure out how to get out of here.
I make it through the next few days of classes without killing anyone, which is a freaking miracle because this place is teeming with assholes and rude bitches. Sage sticks with me in all of our shared classes and in the cafeteria while we eat. She’s still quiet and kinda broken looking but the more we hang out, the more open she gets.
Her Bond is an actual fucking asshole.
Like, beyond mine even. Okay, maybe his mouth isn’t as bad as Nox’s and he’s not as domineering as North but the fact that he’s dropped her for Giovanna after they’ve spent their entire lives together… absolute scumbag. At least I know my Bonds have a reason for hating me. I betrayed them… in their eyes, I abandoned them.
Sage is the sweetest freaking human, and the shit she gets from everyone is fucking vile.
I wake up on Friday in a grumpy-ass mood and not at all ready to tackle the day, mostly because after my morning classes I only have one afternoon class, but it’s a three hour block, which sounds like torture. What class could possibly need that much time? Something that’s been abbreviated to ‘TT’, like I’m supposed to know what the hell that means.
When I question Sage about it, she winces and chews on her lip like I’m being sent to the freaking executioner's block.
“What? Oh, God, what the hell has North signed me up for?”
She fumbles over her words. “It’s- uh, TT stands for… Tactical Training. You only take that if you’re planning on… joining the Tactical Teamforce someday. It’s pretty, uh… brutal. I know you don’t have an ability so… I don’t know why you’d be enrolled.”
Fuck.
Fuck me sideway, upside down, and twice on Sundays.
Someday, once I’ve gotten really freaking far away from this place and my Bonds, I’m going to send North a letter and tell him exactly what type of utter fucking asshole he really is. I’ll do it in my best penmanship, on proper stationery, because I feel like that shit would cut him even more, the freaking psychopath.
“Right. So I’m going to be put through really hard, like, workouts or whatever?”
Sage grimaces. “Yeah, for the first few hours. Then they’ll… run some scenarios. That’s— ah— that’s where I think you’re going to hate that class.”
Scenarios?
She sighs at the face I pull and continues, clearly hating being the bearer of this awful news, “There’s three different training courses on campus. They’re all full of dangers and you have to join a team and work your way through it. You have to pass all of the courses to graduate so… here’s hoping they put you in a really good team.”
There’s no way I’m getting into a good team.
Even if the teacher isn’t friends with Nox or North, there’s no way I’m going to be put with people who have experience with this sort of shit and be dragging them down. I’ll be put with other inexperienced and lacking students and I’ll get my ass handed to me every fucking class.
Gabe follows us both to all of our morning classes, our usual scowling shadow. I’ve gotten so used to him being around that if it weren’t for my bond keening in my chest for him, I wouldn’t notice his presence anymore.
I wonder if I’ll ever get used to the feeling, if the sharp and vicious pains in my chest at the gaping chasm between us will ever fade into background noise in my body and I won’t even notice it anymore.
I desperately hope so.
The time I’ve been forced to spend in my room alone and studying is already starting to improve my classwork. The overwhelming feeling I’d had on my first day has eased up and I’m no longer drowning during the lectures. Sage even comments that my notes are better than hers, which makes me a smug bitch because she’s a total brainiac.
It’s good