Bent (The Gifted Series) Read Free

living in Lakepoint?”
                  Leah nodded.  For the last few years of her life, she was in constant battle to refrain from using her gifts.   It was like not scratching a mosquito bite—make that one hundred bites.
                  “Well, it was ten times worse for Bowen.  Once we give into our abilities they become reflexive.   I’m sure you’ve noticed this over the last three months.”
                  Leah nodded again.  She couldn’t imagine shutting her abilities down. It would be like cutting off an appendage.
                  Reagan further explained. “Just like it took all of my strength to communicate with you in my mind warp, it took Bo just as much strength to suppress his gifts.” She wielded back toward Bo.  “I can’t believe you risked being near us in Lakepoint.  The temptation had to have been brutal.”
                  Bo shrugged. “Well that little lass and her damn aura made it tough.” He swung his hand toward Leah.
                  Reagan snorted, adding, “Yeah, tell me about it.”
                  “Again,” Leah growled, “no one told me I even had an aura!”
                  Tiago wrapped strong arms around Leah’s back and pulled her against his firm body.  He chuckled in her ear. “It’s okay, baby.  You know now, and that’s all that matters.”
                  Leah hated being coddled, but Tiago soothed, and she just loved being wrapped in all that strength and comfort, so she settled against him, welcoming his peppered kisses along her cheek.
                  Mattis thrust out a hand as a sign of truce.  Bo shook it as Mattis added, “I’m glad you’re okay and glad you watched over Leah and Ray, using whatever means you could.”
                  “Well … I’m damn good with these”—he lifted his fists— “and fair with a gun.” He glanced about and then sighed a long exhausted sigh. “Look, I should have called the agency sooner, but I knew Landon had infiltrated some divisions and I needed time to figure out which agency to contact.  When I realized you”—he acknowledged Mattis— “were at Northwest, I made the call.”
                  Declan stepped forward.  “I’ve never known anyone to escape once bent.  How’d you manage it?”
                  “I’m baffled by it myself, but I believe it depends on how long you’ve been kept in that state.  I was captured not long after Caroline was murdered—blokes found me in Edmonton.  They'd been on my ass for nearly a year," he added.   "It took seven months for them to successfully bend me.”
                  “Again, I’m lost.” Frustration noted Leah’s tone.
                  Reagan clarified, “With bending you need a group of hypnotics—the stronger the individual being bent, the more hypnotics required to maintain control over the individual.   It’s quite exhausting really.  To maintain a bent state the hypnotics must remain in a constant state of hypnosis—it’s like a full-time job that literally drains one mentally.”
                  Bo cut in, “Patrice has a strong hold full of hypnotics—it’s all they do.  Eat, sleep, and drink bending.  Once the process is a success and they know we’re under complete control, she assigns us to missions.  Her finest hypnotics always accompany.  Patrice instructs them and they instruct the bent gunman.  We’re just puppets on a string …” Bo’s voice hollowed at the end, clearly remembering.
                  “Anyway,” he pressed onward, “they controlled me for a time, and then I slowly began building a tolerance of sorts.  I continued to play along, biding my time for an opportune moment to escape.”
                  “How?” both Declan and Tiago asked.
                  “We