Page 2 of A Sweet Destruction

It was just a matter of time before they all spilled out, and there were a particular few I wanted to delay for as long as I could.

Luckily for me, discussing this topic only felt mildly like walking over glass.

“The Bond tracked you down like a bloodhound. Guess it was finally pushed over the edge after three years. You were nothing more than a piece of meat to it, but yay for you, it saved your life.”

Ford had the nerve to look guilty, the gorgeous asshole. “How did you get me out?”

“Flew you over on a leaf. I can control those.” An old tactic, responding with a sarcastic evasion rather than trying and failing to lie.

“Esme,” Ford warned.

I wondered what he would do if I pushed him over onto his ass. Instead, I shook my head. “No. We’re not talking about that right now.” No matter how much I wanted to leave those days in my long-forgotten past, I was smart enough to know that wasn’t reality.

“We will,” Ford responded, all but reading my thoughts. Unfortunately, that half of me still curled up in the back of my mind, perked up at the attention.

What a silly, silly girl.

“Fuck you,” I spit at him, and a little at myself, feeling my chest pinch painfully.

“Esme…” Ford said, trailing off, with far too much pity in his tone for me to handle.

“Don’t take that tone with me like you have any right to tell me what to do. I will not apologize for doing what I needed to keep my head on straight. I was going fucking crazy.”

Well. That was more than I wanted to share.

Ford looked taken aback, eventually saying in a quiet, gruff voice, “I’m…sorry.”

I chuckled at the forced softness in his tone, lest I start crying. “One more time. I didn’t hear you.”

Ford’s head cocked to the side in warning. “And you can’t get any more?”

I should have prepared for this conversation, instead of hoping it would never happen. Maybe then, I would have considered that Ford might actually want me to take the suppressant. That the prospect of me falling victim to the Bond wasn’t appealing.

“No.” My voice sounded distant to my own ears. “Not on Muli. We’ll just have to deal with this.”

Ford’s eyes narrowed in scrutiny, seeing or hearing something I couldn’t. Not while I could taste bile in my throat.

Before he could question it, Peter walked in. His eyes quickly took in our positioning, Ford crouched on the floor looking pissed. I surely looked haunted. “I see you’ve spoken.”

Ford shot up, pointing his finger in Peter’s face in accusation. “How fucking dare you?”

Oh, no. Peter reared back with raised eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

The clear warning in Peter’s tone didn’t deter Ford in the slightest. His hand shot back, pointing at me as he said, “She wouldn’t have taken it without your permission. You knew.”

“Watch your tone with me, son,” Peter snapped, his voice hard but his eyes soft, clearly remembering what had gotten us here. “I recommended a treatment. It saved her life.”

Ford whipped toward me, that sentence exposing too much about the days that followed his torture. All I could manage was a shake of my head, all my energy going towards restraining tears.

Peter barreled on, ever one to prioritize business. “I’ve spoken with our medic and one of the priests. They are both in agreement that the Bond is likely going to resurge. Potentially do so much more powerfully.”

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I will take responsibility for the next part,” Peter said, his eyes sliding to me for a heavy beat. “There is a side effect. It’s not known whether it affects your paranima. It’s only been used as an experimental treatment for those whose Matches have died.”

“You let her take an experimental drug?!” Ford yelled. “What if she—”

“Nothing is worse than what she was experiencing.”