#bi!oleander

The first thing you remember when you came to was the blurry door to your left, hazy around the edges, as you blinked your sight back. The next thing you remember is the silence. It had been years since the last time you had truly been alone, the sound of screams, mumblings, or orderly's always around even in the dead of night. It made you...uneasy, you decided. The world didn't feel real without the sounds outside your head. It felt to much like when the doctors were still trying to get your medication to the right dosage. Back when the edges of where you began mixed with the edges of where the world ends - when the dark and the light all felt like one. Your skin a separate being from you, living above your bones, the air between them thick, causing your movements to be slow and sluggish. Back when the voice in your head screamed at you to do bad things, to hurt kind people. To be evil. To take and take and take until there was nothing in the world left to give. To destroy until you find them, your bonds.

When you first told the nuns about the voice you were 13, the beginnings of puberty reeking havoc on your small body. They had brushed you off at first, telling you to pray and speak with God. That through him you could find the answers to the questions you had. That was before the voice became violent.

The next time you told someone about the voice you were 15. The new family you were living with told you that you were loved, that you were safe. The voice told you no one but your bonds could truly love you. That you need to find them this time. That you had to do what ever it took to find them. Kill the family if they try to stop you, but you didn't want to. At this point in your life not many people had been kind to you like your new family was. Not many people told you that you could be - could do - anything you wanted to if you set your mind to it. They told you that you were a bright girl, that you were kind, pretty and smart. They made you feel seen, feel loved. You didn't want to hurt them. You couldn't hurt them. However, the voice didn't like that. So when you couldn't take it anymore, the voice writhing beneath your skin demanding action, you confided in your new mom tears streaming down your cheeks, snot bubbling with each breath. And your new family stuck you in Mayfield Psychiatric Facility. You learned not to talk about the voice after that.

Sometimes while sitting beneath the window in the dayroom before group therapy you would wander why, if the voice was gone with your medication, the doctors decided to keep you in the hospital. Were they as afraid of it coming back as you were? You never told them of the way you could feel it squirm under your skin when it talked to you, so why were you still there? The medication had been working for years, no more squirming and no more talking. The voice was just gone.

Why now? Why was it time now to leave? Where were you and how did you get there and who the hell were these people in front of you? Two stood behind the rest, a Kevlar vest adorning ones chest as a wicked look rest on the others face. A sad looking boy with blond hair sat across the table from you, and beside him an even more miserable looking girl with silver hair, an older gentle men - probably in his thirties- and a broad man, the beginnings of a tattoo peeking out from the collar of his shirt. None of these people looked happy to be here, and some looked to want to kill you where you sat. What the fuck was going on?

"This pathetic thing is our co-central?" the wicked looking man spat, staring down his nose at you. At the sound of his voice the silver haired girl flinched slightly moving forward in her seat. Of all the people in the room, if you had to pick one, she looked to not want to be here the most.

"It seems to be a shared position according to the blood test, yes." The older gentleman said, "My bond however isn't quite sure."

Bond. That word stuck in your throat as your eyes widened slightly. Unsure on whether or not you should speak, your gaze shifts between them all. His bond. That is what the voice had always said, "Find my bonds by any means necessary."

Up until this point you had sat in your uncomfortable wooden chair, back straight, hands folded in your lap. You had not moved an inch since blinking the sight back into your eyes, and you were sure you looked like a deer caught in headlights. It would be plain to see from one look at you that you were terrified, and confused.

"What is a bond," you asked eyes jumping from person to another, "Why is a bond important?" Your voice came out weak and raspy from disuse, functionally mute for the last three years. It's not that you couldn't talk, more so that you had no need. Once the voice was gone, so was your will to do much else than just breath. Life hadn't been all that bad: simple and stress free, all important decisions having been made for you by your weekly roster of rotating nurses, books to read when you got bored, cake on special occasions, and a very limited access to the internet. All things considered it could have been much worse. You just hadn't felt the need to talk. Talking had been what ripped you away from the only family you had ever known. Talking had been the catalyst to every bad thing that had ever happened to you up until this point. And unfortunately for you, you could tell that not talking right now was the worst choice you could make. So, you pushed the words past your lips and let them hang in the room like a noose, ready to string you up and lynch you for your sins.

Except the room seemed to shrink around you. All six of the people across the table tensed, not breathing, not seeing anything else but you for the smallest of seconds. It's like your words reset their brains, none of them having the slightest idea what to do with your question. That is until Kevlar Vest leaned forward and placed his hands on the back of Silver Hair’s chair. His body language screamed for attention, his eyes trapping yours in an intense gaze you couldn't look away from.

"You don't know what a bond is?" he asked in theory, but in practice more so demanded an answer. His hands tensed around the back of the chair, causing an audible creak throughout the room. Silver Hair squeezing her eyes closed — in fear or maybe discomfort you couldn't be sure — draws your attention before you bring your eyes back to Kevlar Vest.

"That is correct. What is a bond." It almost feels as if you spit the word this time, it tasting of poison on your tongue. What had a bond ever done for you? The mire mention of it had gotten you locked up for the last four years of your life, isolated you from the outside world and all its wonders. From your family who chose to never visit you, leaving you to rot and waste away into who you were now. Cold, empty nothingness, a vessel to the long quiet voice haunting your mind like a ghost.

It’s the sad looking blond boy who answers your question, anger flashing across his face, "A bond is me. Someone made for you. Someone made to love you even if you don't want them to, or even if you don't deserve it." You think for a moment — apparent by the way his eyes flicker from yours to the corner of his looking at the silver haired girl — that maybe he isn't just talking to you. Maybe this is more for her. "A bond is a part of your soul." There is pain in his voice. Pain much like the kind blossoming in your chest the longer you sit with these people. The deep, nagging, loneliness kind of pain that spreads into your limbs slowly eating away at the feeling that things can get better. The kind of pain that suffocates, drowns you until you can't breach the surface to get away. The kind of pain you felt when your family left you at Mayfield.

You don’t react, letting the room refill with silence as you sit there looking at the blond boy. His knuckles are white where they clinch atop the table, eyebrows drawn tight, jaw muscles bulging while he stares back at you, waiting. The longer it goes on, the more frustrated you can tell he gets. His plump lips smashed together in a frown, nostrils flaring, but his eyes never leave yours. A challenge you steadily hold, not because you feel the need to but because his brown eyes are beautiful. His full attention on you sends a thrill down your spine, intoxicating even. And while the emotion might not show on your face you can slowly feel the tips of your ears heating.

He breaks first. That beautiful face of his contorts into a snarl, lip pulling back to showcase straight white teeth as he slams his palms into the table. A screech follows the loud bang as he pushes away from you, chair toppling over in the process.

“Stupid fucking broken bonds,” he spits storming out of the room, door slamming into the wall on his way out. You couldn’t help but feel pity for the boy, his hands coming up to cover his face right before the door clicks back into place. Was he crying you wondered, finally shifting in your seat the numbness in your ass getting the better of you. Did the idea of a bond mean that much to this stranger that not getting one, not getting you, made him upset enough to cry?

The older gentleman clears his throat, right hand reaching into his inner suit pocket to pull out a smart phone, before sliding it across the table at you. “You will use this to get in contact with any of us when you need to, and I expect you to pick up anytime you receive a call from me regardless of what you are doing.” He starts, “While we wait for more information in regard to where you have been you will stay under the supervision of a member of Gryphon’s Tac Team at all times.” His head inclines to Kevlar Vest before he continues. “You will not be allowed to go anywhere without informing me first as you have a strict curfew. You will attend classes at the university once Gryphon has fully vetted you and you will be sleeping-“

Silver Hair cuts him off, “With me in my dorm.” The room erupts into shouts. Tattooed hottie whips his head to the right to look at her while vehemently disagreeing, older gentleman shoots daggers at her while a thin line of black appears around his wrist, Kevlar vest - Gryphon - snaps a quick “not fucking happening bond” and the wicked looking man settles into the wall a bit more comfortably.

“She is my bond too,” the girl says none of her earlier timidness showing through, “We have to cohabitate or else our bonds will be aggressive towards each other you know this. Let Gryphon interrogate her and then let her come home with me.”

“I agree,” the wicked man states, “Let your giftless poison bond take the pathetic one home with her. Better she gets herself killed than to keep ruining all of you.” The venom in his voice surprises you. Towards you it makes sense, you're a stranger, but he knows her. They came here together, so why is he being so hateful to her?

“Nox,” snaps the tattooed hottie, “talk about my bond like that again and I’ll kill you.” The hate in his eyes convinces you he means it too.

Nox opens his mouth to reply, a slight spark in his eye like he wants the other to try to kill him, but before he has a chance to say anything the older gentleman cuts him off.

“Shut up, the both of you. There will be no killing around my bond.” The sentence hangs in the air for a minute before Nox strolls out of the room, throwing a “don’t get yourself killed brother” over his shoulder. That only leaves the four of them and you.

Gryphon draws your attention back to him, his voice steady and calm as he begins to ask you questions.

“Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know.”

“I have no memory of coming here. I don’t know.”

“Where did you come from.”

“Mayfield Psychiatric Facility, North Carolina.”

“Why were you there?”

“Schizophrenia.”

A look of confusion passes his face before he continues his questions, his arms across his chest, hands splayed over his biceps.

“Are you with the Resistance?”

“The who?”

“Yes or no.”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“Yes or no.”

“Fuck, no.”

He pauses again, eyebrows furrowing deeper this time as if trying to taste a lie in the air.

“Are you here to hurt my bond?”

“I don’t know why I am here.”

“What is your gift?”

“My what?”

He turns from you now to look at the older gentlemen,”She has no idea what is going on, that’s the truth. I cant find anything else out without hacking her brain.”

Frustration finally wins out and your calm crumbles. Almost everyone in this room had been rude, dismissive, or just plain fucking confusing. They were acting like you are a criminal and they don’t even know your name!

“I don’t know what the fuck is going on or who the fuck you people are.” You say through clenched teeth, “I don’t know what the fuck you want from me either. I’m just as confused as you are so stop treating me like some kind of monster.” Like your mother did the night you told her of the voice. The fear in her eyes, the shake in her voice, the way her hand trembled on the steering wheel as she forced a smile across her face haunted you. She acted like you were someone to be afraid of, a ghoul in the night ready to tear apart her family. She acted like you were something shameful, a stain on her otherwise perfect family. Maybe she was right, you think looking around the room at another family it seems you're destined to tear apart.

“I think that’s enough,” the silver haired girl states, moving to stand. “Let me take her with me.”

The older gentleman sighs moving to pull his own cell phone out before placing it to his ear. “Let me have them move you into a double then.” All fight drains out of him for a moment before he straightens back up. “If your grades suffer from this Oleander you will face consequences.”

A tight smile graces her lips before her words, dripping with poison are spat at him, “Of course Mr. Draven. I’d hate to disappoint you anymore than I already do.”

Her hand reaches out to grab your phone, sliding it into her pocket, before reaching back out to you. “Come on. I’ll take you to the car where we can wait for them to be done.”

You hesitate, unsure if you should follow this stranger to a secondary location, but the alternative was to stay here in this room with these angry looking men. You choose Oleander. As you clasp her hand in your own, deep in your chest you feel the voice wake up slightly as if to say hello. It’s ghostly trindles squirming the smallest bit before disappearing again. It’ll be time to take your meds again soon, you think, to keep yourself safe.

Your face warms as another thought passes your mind. Trailing behind Oleander, hand in hand as she leads the way felt right. Like all the hardships up until this moment needed to happen so you could end up here, with her.

Bond.

Master List || Next

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So I wrote this because I just read the new TBTT book Broken Bonds and that sent me on a SPIRAL . Did you know there are like 5 fucking fics for this book series? It kills me and I read every last one I could get my hands on. I’m like FIVE SECONDS from translating the ones in other languages because I need more from this world.