Page 115 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

“Please, Ezzy!” Tiger cries, stepping closer now, quivering hands shifting the container of tablets and water away from his chest and hesitantly her way. “Please take one! I love you so much—I can’t stand seeing you hurt!”

“No you do not! You do not! No one can love me!” Ezla bursts into tears.

Everyone freezes.

“No one can love me,” she repeats in the ensuing silence, no longer thrashing about but her body now shaking with her sobs. “No one but him.”

My mouth opens, but I’m stunned speechless.

Head hanging in a defeated way I’ve never seen from her before, a way that guts me, she shifts it subtly from side to side. “You must—you must only believe you love me. Or you do not understand who I truly am. I cannot be loved.”

Cooper is the first to find his voice again, rough and quiet. “You don’t really believe that, Vengeance. Tell me you don’t believe that. You know he doesn’t love you. What Joseph feels for you isn’t love. It’s sick and twisted and—”

“And he is the only one who knows all of me,” she puts in. “How can you love me if you do not know all of me?”

“W-we know enough,” Alby whispers shakily with a sniffle.

“But you do not understand me—”

“Yes, we do, Ezla,” I say firmly but gently, hold on her wrists easing up. A stab of guilt slices into me as I take in the angry red marks left behind, and I softly rub the pads of my thumbs over them, but she jerks away when I go to place a tender kiss to the hurt skin. Jaw ticking, I push past the pain that blooms in my chest and repeat, “We do. We understand who you are, why you are the way you are, and we love all of you. Whatever bits and pieces we haven’t yet learned about your past, we don’t need to know them.” Cooper’s mouth opens to speak, brows dipping, but I continue before he can, “Of course we want to, but you’ve already given so much. We know who you are, Ezla—it’s Joseph who doesn’t.”

“I am my father’s creation. I am exactly who he wanted me to be. You cannot hate one and love the other. We are . . . Are we not the same, him and I?”

“No,” Tate rumbles. “You’re nothing like him.”

“I-I never thought of y-you in relation to h-him, Ezla,” Alby tells her shakily, quivering hands clenched in his lap where they never had the courage to find her. “Y-you’ve always been s-separate from him in my m-mind, e-even before I m-met you.”

“Agreed! You’re so much cooler!” Tiger blurts, rushing forwards before his feet falter again. I can tell he’s really struggling here, just wanting to cheer her up, but his distress and sense of helplessness swirl chaotically through the bond to meet me in Ezla’s side of it. He’s been trying to keep himself under wraps, and I can tell he’s feeling stupid for the jokiness he just tried for.

Ezla doesn’t even look at him when her head lifts. She only stares blanky at the wall before her and her reflection in the glossy black taalk.

That pain spreads, and I glance at my brother, feeling helpless myself as his face falls further.

Ezla murmurs, “And yet he taught me everything I know. He shaped me. I know . . .”

“No, Ezla.” I shake my head firmly. “He didn’t succeed; you didn’t fall for his tricks. He didn’t manage to mould you in the exact way he wanted, and you recognised that his ‘love’ didn’t feel right, even if you didn’t understand that love is meant to feel good—”

“Does mine?”

Everything stills.

I open my mouth to ask her to clarify, heart starting to pick up its pace, but she asks tonelessly, vanquishing the need, “Does my love feel good?”

I don’t think anyone’s breathing.

“It does not for me. Not always. Is it supposed to hurt?”

Larynx refusing to work, I still can’t do more than stare.

“It is so . . . so painful. I have . . . I have been . . . happy, I think.” Someone finally manages to get a sharp breath in at that, but I can’t take my eyes from my Bonded to figure out who. “But along with that has come unbearable pain. I do not want to feel that.” She pauses before continuing, “And then there is the way you are constantly hurting, too, recently . . . like right now. My love is causing you pain. I love— I love you, and it is destroying you, just as my father has destroyed me—”

“Joseph. And no.” Cooper is the first to find his voice once more, and there’s too much emotion in it, too many to identify, but a mess of pain, joy, and love take the lead. “No, it’s not destroying us. To love someone is to bring yourself pain, Ezla—I’ve learned that with you.” Her expression shutters, but he continues, guiding her face his way as he shifts her in his arms, “But I’ve also never felt happier. You are not destroying us. It only makes sense that the more you care about someone, the happier you are with them, the higher your highs with that person are, the more you’ll hurt when they’re in pain. And you’re in a lot of goddamn pain, Vengeance.” Those last words are slightly choked. “But we can get through that with you.”

He pauses to drag in a shaky breath. “The pain seems much more prominent now because there’s so much fucking crap going down, but we’re almost there. We’re almost out. And you . . .” Tears spill down his cheeks, but they’re happy ones this time, ones of sheer relief and overpowering love, and I can tell he really doesn’t give a shit about the vulnerability he has on full display right now. “You love us. That makes me goddamn happy, Vengeance. That’s the best news I’ve heard in my life. Can you feel that?” He presses their foreheads together, one hand moving to cup the back of Ezla’s neck, while the other takes hers and presses her palm to his bare chest, over his heart. “Can you feel how bloody good that makes me feel? Does that feel bad to you? Does that feel like you’re destroying me?”

Swallowing, Ezla’s mismatched eyes move slowly up from her hand over his heart to his face. “No. It does not,” she admits quietly.

“See?” Lines crease Cooper’s face as he smiles a wide smile that I’ve never seen on him before. “That’s how you make me feel. That’s why I love you.”