run the easy course.”
The easy course? Fuck this, I’m not going back to that freaking class and I’m not sitting around for this utter bullshit interrogation he’s conducting. I grit my teeth again and pull back the sheet that’s covering my legs, wincing at the mud and grass stains all over them. I look like a mess and it takes me two tries to get my legs steady beneath me, but the second I’m sure my legs won’t collapse, I high-tail it out of the room.
North barely has to adjust his stride to keep up with me, his hand wrapping around my elbow to tug me in the right direction when I was about to make a wrong turn.
“You can’t just storm out whenever you’re called out for toxic behavior.”
Icy rage trickles down my spine and when I rip my arm out of his grasp, there’s too much force in it because my gift slips the tight hold I have on it just a little. North frowns at his hand like he’s questioning if he really felt the extra kick of power, and I freak out a little.
Distraction.
I need to get his mind off of it right the hell now.
“You’d know a lot about toxic, did it ever occur to you that maybe you shouldn’t threaten your own damn Bond? That maybe telling me you’ll chain me to your basement probably isn’t the way to go about this whole… mess?”
I say it loud enough that some of the other students loitering around hear me and start murmuring amongst themselves and not only does North notice them as well, but for the first time, I think I might see him look embarrassed.
Not at his actions, but that people are talking about him.
His lip curls and when he grabs my arm again, I feel his gift thrumming through his fingers, pulsing like a warning of the power he hides underneath his polished suits and perfectly sedate smiles.
He’s careful with the way he drags me out of the building, making sure no one can actually tell that he’s physically dragging me through the building and out to his waiting car. “I think that if you hadn’t run away like a selfish, manipulative, childish little girl, we would’ve given you the world. There wasn’t a thing on this Earth you could’ve asked for that we would’ve refused you, but now you’re facing the consequences of your actions for what I’m sure is the first time in your life. It is very clear to me that you’ve been nothing but spoiled your whole life and can’t think of anyone but yourself. Clearly your parents—”
I barely hold myself in check. “Don’t you fucking dare speak about my parents. I will dig the tracker out with my bare hands and be gone, don’t push me.”
The driver hears all of this as he opens the door in time for North to shove me in without comment, shutting it firmly behind me as his asshole boss steps away and then they stand together, ignoring me completely as they have a nice chat about the weather or some other useless bullshit.
I’m raging mad.
That’s a really freaking bad idea, I know it is because my gift starts stirring in my gut, my skin is tingling, and my vision slowly starts whiting out.
I turn into a freaking glow bug and there’s no freaking way I can light up in this goddamn car today with one of my Bonds standing right the hell there. I screw my eyes shut and slow down my breathing, counting and humming under my breath so I have something else to focus on, but I’ve been fighting against my gift for too long for it to quieten down easily.
The panic that soaks through my skin will only make things worse but I can’t stop it from happening. I can feel the sweat starting to bead on my forehead and my breathing starts to stutter and shake so badly that there’s no hiding the spiral I’m in. I might pass out.
There’s a buzzing sound that breaks my concentration.
I blink rapidly, trying to clear the glow from my eyes but even though I can only just see the bag sitting at my feet, I recognize it as my own immediately.
It’s my cell phone buzzing.
I dig around in there with shaking hands until I find it, a text from Atlas there for me and even though my stomach is still a mess of rage and anxiety, the corners of my mouth