Page 10 of Inextricably Tied

Harbinger’s about to tell him as much when a strange feeling tugs in her chest. Experimental. A line of rope disappearing into the dark with something at the other end.

“Oh no.”

Flint turns back to her, worry surging next to something else.

Someone else.

Harbinger’s throat tightens. “I’m connected to it.”

It takes a moment for Flint to understand. “You’re…” He whirls on Tamneth. “You said it wasn’t alive!”

Tamneth’s glare slices toward Harbinger. “It’s not! Not by any normal metric. Doesn’t need to breathe. Doesn’t have a pulse. Doesn’t eat or sleep.”

Flint grinds his teeth. “But?”

“But,” Tamneth continues, “it is sentient.”

Harbinger steadies herself on the table. Just like that, she’s bound to an unknown variable. Something that doesn’t feel like anything else she’s touched. Something that’s not the dead weight of an object, nor the constant ebb and flow of another person.

And she’s stuck with it.

Forever.

A sickening feeling churns in her stomach. Déjà vu, a cracked egg spreading over her mind, tiredness dulling her senses before the brush of invisible fingers across the back of her neck.

“So you used her.” Flint’s anger whistles like a tea kettle. “Without her consent. You’ve tied her to this thing for the rest of her life, and you don’t even know what it does!”

Tamneth lifts his chin without the decency to look ashamed. In fact, he looks a little proud. “It’s a small price to pay to protect the public.”

Flint closes the space between them, clawed hand raising, but the guards lift and cock their weapons toward Harbinger.

“Careful, Mr. Flint.” Tamneth’s voice is low and level, an eerie knowingness in his expression. “I’d hate for your temper to get the best of you again.”

Again?

Confusing emotions string through Flint when he looks at her: fury, shame, biting nostalgia. But all Harbinger can make out is the tension through his shoulders.

Slowly — slowly — Flint takes a step back. There’s no use fighting back here. Not when they’re deep inside OID headquarters, surrounded by weapons and false claims and political pull. Harbinger clenches her fingers around Flint’s forearm, to stay close. “Where’s the rest of it?”

Tamneth lifts a brow. “The rest of what?”

“The night terror. You said there’s more. That it’s sentient. Where’s the rest?”

Flint’s body is still tight with rage. “Harbin, forget it. Let’s —”

“I can’t,” she whispers. Her fingers dig into Flint’s arm, voice just loud enough for him to make out. “If I’m connected to this thing, I need to know what that means.”

There’s a long moment before they both turn back to Tamneth. Harbinger locks her helmet visor back into place, and Tamneth steps back to allow them through the door. She keeps a hand on Flint’s elbow as he tries to calm the bitter hatred spiking through him.

She can’t think about it. Can’t focus on what this means, because if she does…

There’s a subtle pull on her consciousness.

What the fuck? What the fuck? She’s been so careful to keep these connections at bay, and now, this thing…

Who knows what this means for her abilities? Her body? Her life? She nearly lurches over a trash can, desperate to expel this disturbance, but it’s not that easy. It never has been. She’s never gotten to choose who and what has access to her.

Only once Flint steadies her does she realize she’s leaning into him. She gives her best reassuring squeeze, but he’s too wound up to relax.