10
TIGER
“YES, ALBY! GO ON!” I pump my gloved fist in the air, the other clenched tightly around the emerald-coloured left handlebar of my tribike as I watch my bestie’s one form over my shoulder before he zips after me. I’m so proud of him.
Alby lets out a short, breathless laugh that’s caught somewhere between fright at our current situation and joy at what he’s just accomplished yet again this week, pulling my own laugh up and out of my throat, my grin splitting my face wide open as he comes up beside me.
“Keep up, you two!”
My focus shifts back ahead of me, right hand joining the other on my bike as my chest connects with the hardened energy beneath me, the subtle vibrations of the vehicle travelling into my body. “You got it, boss!”
“On our left! Player 59!”
Sharpened gaze darting in that direction, I take in the boy a few years younger than me and Alby spearing through the arena with a clear goal in mind to maim the poor Evot a handful of feet in front of him.
I’m pretty sure her name’s Jodine; my bestie has mentioned that she came from his Evot Training School.
“Box him in?” I double-check.
A confirmatory nod. “You and Alby take either side—I’ll go front.”
“Got it.” Alby’s voice is shaky but strong with his determination to get this right for both us and himself.
Gaining speed, we move in a V-formation, racing after the younger teenager. My brother begins to inch ahead while me and Alby part further and further, readying to surround him.
But of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
Player 59 snaps his head around at the sound of our bikes, and the hostility in his expression almost makes me second-guess myself. But I forge ahead . . . even as his lips curl wickedly.
Speeding up, he hunts Jodine down, clearly intending to finish the job whether we’re hot on his heels or not.
“Fuck,” I mutter, then raise my voice, “Scotty?!”
“Just keep going!” he shouts back.
Right then, a robotic female voice sounds through the speakers.
“Player 15: Eliminated.”
My eyes pop wide. Already?
Swallowing back bile, I turn my neck Alby’s way to find his face beneath his visor like paper.
Shit. We’re not ready for this. No one should have to compete in these sick fucking Games.
“Focus!”
My brother’s bark snaps me back to reality, and I shake my head hard, willing myself to do as he says. I can’t get distracted every time someone dies.
It happens far too often in these Games.
“NO!”
Alby’s cry has my attention shooting to the right, where a blur of green comes hurtling for Player 59.
Player 28 is too far away to stop before he rams his tribike into the boy’s.
BANG!
They both go flying.
In an instant, their bikes are sucked back into the Avri pads on the bottom of their shoes, the two Players slamming to the ground and rolling a handful of feet away from each other.
“DEX!” Jodine cries out. Spinning around, she belts in his direction as both he and Player 59 struggle to their feet—before Dex launches himself at him, tackling the boy back to the ground.
“Move out!” Scotty hollers back at us as we take in the scene. “Find 63! This one’s theirs! We don’t need them both!”
Alby looks relieved, understandably not wanting to fight the two Evots from his third school. We’ve all seen they’re good people, so I’m right there with him.
“Player 44: Eliminated.”
Another Evot.
“Player 89: Eliminated.”
That’s the first Exot gone.
Working to keep my breathing even, I scan my eyes over the arena, trying to find Player 63—
I stop short.
There’s a lone bottle-green-embellished figure I can make out in the distance, zipping after who’s unmistakably The Bonding Games Champion.
I squint my eyes. Is that . . . ?
Fucking hell.
Player 4.
That’s who he’s so obsessed with?!
He’s insane.
Or suicidal.
“63!” Alby exclaims, yanking my attention away from the psychopath to where my bestie’s finger is pointing.
Player 63 tears across the taalk, his wheels moving so fast it’s hard to see their rotations at all.
Behind him, three Evots draw closer.
“Motherfucker!” I curse.
“We have to go for it!” Scotty calls back.
“He seems terrified . . .” Alby breathes in horror from beside me.
And he’s right: unlike the other younger teenager, this one looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
Even from over here, it’s obvious he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.
It’s proof that not all Exots are bad, and not all Evots are good, despite what so many seem to believe.
Though I guess a fair amount live up to their social classification’s expectations, right now, that’s not at all the case.
“I’m going to try and fight off the Evots. Just— No! Fucking fuck!”
One of the Evots has projected a throwing star, and it sails through the air at full speed—
And slices Player 63’s head clean off.
A choked gasp sounds from my right, more like a sob, and I struggle to hold back my own.
There’s no coming back from that, nothing any Avri in any serum can fix there.
It was fatal.
“Player 63: Eliminated.”
Scotty lets out a growl. A literal growl like a grizzly bear. “I am going to annihilate him.”
Tearing my glistening eyes from the decapitated body, I follow my brother’s murderous glare, locating the killer.
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum.
My jaw hurts from how hard I grind my teeth.
“Player 30: Eliminated.”
“Player 23: Eliminated.”
“Player 20: Eliminated.”
“Player 48: Eliminated.”
“Player 46: Eliminated.”
What the . . .
Twisting my head around, I scour the room for the cause of the massacre.
I find her not too far off.
Near the obsidian wall of the arena, Ezla Zefron streaks along the length of it, a trail of bodies left in her wake.
Her arms are up as she slots her armoury sticks back over her shoulders, before they lower to reattach her hands to the inky-crimson handlebars of her Avri tribike, all while the crowd chants her name:
“. . . Ez-la! Ez-la! Ez-la! . . .”
Jesus fucking Christ!
I look around for her stalker, not finding Player 4 anywhere nearby, but I’m pretty sure he’s alive unless I missed the announcement for his elimination.
“Uh . . . guys . . .” Alby’s voice is a wheeze.
“Ah, shit.”
Following Scotty and Alby’s horrified stares, I find Ezla again.
My lungs fail.
The Bonding Games Champion is charging straight for us.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—”
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I join in with my bestie’s chanting, trembling voice drenched in undiluted fear.
She’s cool as fuck. But also, please don’t come within a mile’s radius of me.
Please, and thank you.
But I’m pretty sure it’s too late for that as she draws closer . . . and closer . . .
“Snap out of it!” my brother bellows. “We have to move! Come on! We can’t beat her!”
“Fuck . . . yeah,” I rasp out, limbs quivering like mad. “Alright—let’s go, Alby! Left!”
Then the three of us are pelting away from the goddess of death with everything we have.