27
SCOTTY
I killed someone for the first time today. But although there’s the guilt, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.
Luckily, they were an Exot, which is what’s aided in that minimal remorse, and as bad as that sounds, the truth is that it would have been harder to kill an Evot .
. . well, unless it were Troy or Aider. Not just because a good majority of those who wear red Avri live up to their classification’s traits, either; I’m well aware not all of them are bad people, even if those numbers are few and far between.
But I’ve been around Evots all my life, and I know this doesn’t make my reasoning any better, but it was easier to end a life I knew nothing about compared to if I were to end any that feel so similar to mine, those I understand better and empathise with.
Sometimes, Exots still feel so distant from us they seem unreal, even though I see them on a daily basis now.
Only one stands out from the rest, and she’s unreal in a different way.
A way that has me swallowing hard and my insides shifting, fucking writhing for her, with just a thought.
Ezla’s . . . gods, she’s everything I didn’t know I needed in a woman.
Her independence, the way she’s not afraid to ask for what she wants .
. . it’s insanely attractive. She’s not at all shy with me, not like girls have been in the past. And with the ever-growing need to take care of her, even if she’s far from needing it, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to stop myself from making a move on her.
But with the way she responds to Tate’s advances, I know my own wouldn’t be welcomed.
Cooper and him seem perfectly fine, Tate for obvious reasons, but I’m not so sure I trust the former’s outward appearance when we all know that, for some reason, he has an aversion to violence.
I’m also not aware whether this was his first kill or if he killed during Game 1, and it feels invasive to ask.
My brother, on the other hand, has been abnormally quiet and looks more shaken than Alby, who, with all things considered, I would’ve expected to be in a horrific state.
But although his puffy eyes suggest he might have been a half hour earlier, he seems okay now.
And with the way he’s looking at Ezla like she’s the Sun and he’s the Earth revolving around her, I think she had something to do with it.
How she managed that when comfort is the last thing I’d think she’d be capable of giving, I don’t know.
Then again, her presence does seem to bring me an odd sense of contentment along with a whole other hoard of emotions I can’t focus on at this moment in time when I need to be there for my brother.
Pulling ahead of the group as we walk through the glossy black halls to our Bonded washroom, Ezla shockingly still with us—though I’m not as hopeful as Tate clearly is with his manic-looking eyes alight that she’ll actually go inside with us when we get there since she’s never used it before, and I don’t think anything’s changed that would encourage her to—I grip Tiger’s bicep to distance the two of us from the others.
“You need anything? Talk? Spar?”
He shakes his head.
I rack my mind desperately for a solution. I always have one, and I can’t fail him now on what’s likely the most challenging moment of his life.
“Clubbing?”
Tiger’s head pops up at the same time my attention snaps to Cooper. That was unexpected coming from him.
“You want us to go dance?” My voice betrays my uncertainty.
He shrugs, glancing between me and Tiger, then everybody else.
“We just survived Game 2, right? That’s cause for celebration.
” He pauses before continuing, “I know . . . I know that was hard—believe me, I do. It’s .
. .” Disgust scrunches his nose up. “It’s fucking abhorrent what they make us do.
But we’re alive. We’ve done it. And . . .
we have each other. The Games brought us together, and I know I’m not the best at showing it, but I’m grateful for that.
Truly. You’ve all quickly become . . .” he trails off and shakes his head but looks at each of us meaningfully, shooting a quicker, more fleeting glance at Ezla before awkwardly scratching at the stubble that’s recently started to grow along his jaw.
“Yes!” Tiger perks up instantly at Cooper’s last words, and I let out a sigh of relief.
I’ll still happily be here for him when his mood inevitably drops again, but when he’s like this, it takes a lot to bring him down.
“We’re all here together! We’ve made a little family!
And despite everything, if this was the only way to have met you and be in a Bonded group with you, then I’d do it all again!
Especially to meet Ezzy— I mean Ez! Sorry!
” He darts a wide-eyed oh-my-god! look at me before turning the panicked expression on our Bonded.
She keeps walking beside Alby without a word, clearly not interested in the conversation at all. She doesn’t even bother to look at any of us.
“Uhhh . . . okay! Right, clubbing! I’ve never been clubbing!”
“Me neither.” It’s spoken by the entire group in unison—other than Ezla—which isn’t surprising; only dickheads like Troy, I imagine, would waste credits and free time on that. Or lonely people who have no one to visit, or maybe feel the need to escape.
And that’s when I realise Ezla wasn’t the only one to stay silent. Cooper didn’t say anything either.
“You’ve been to one?” I prompt.
His jaw tenses.
Shit. Sensitive subject.
But before I can tell him never mind, he divulges with a forced plain tone while not looking at anything but the hall we walk down, “A few times. I needed a way to forget. To escape my . . .”
He casts another swift glance back at Ezla, and her helmet tilts to the side almost in challenge.
But he only shakes his head to himself before swivelling his attention back ahead.
Odd. What was that about?
From the curious gazes of the others, I know they’re all thinking the same thing.
Well, Tate’s thoughts are probably a little more violent, his face dripping with so much jealousy at the fact his obsession seems to share something with Cooper that she doesn’t with him that I’m a little worried we’re about to have a dead body on our hands.
I send him a warning glance that’s met with an aggressive huff and bulky arms crossing over a broad chest.
Progress. He would’ve grabbed Cooper and shaken him about until his secrets all toppled out of his head just a week ago.
“Well, now we all get to go together and celebrate and have fun!” Tiger pipes up, his energy infectious and immediately lightening up the hall as we stop outside our Bonded washroom.
“Everyone in?”
My question is met with nods and affirmative words from all but one.
“Ezla?” my brother asks hopefully.
His smile falters the longer she stays silent, standing there stoically.
“Ez . . . ?”
Her robotically modified voice slices through the air, toneless as always, perhaps colder, “Do not be late for training tomorrow. I expect you there no later than usual.”
With that, she spins on her heel and strides off down the hall, leaving us like always without a glance back and with a despondency that wasn’t there moments before.
The heaviness isn’t able to be lifted by my brother’s forced smile or Tate’s call for her to “keep his bed warm for him until he’s back! ”
I sigh. “Come on. Let’s get cleaned up and relax for a while. After dinner, we can head out.”
The dejection clear in all of us, we walk into the washroom.
***
“Lighten up, Tater Tot! This place is so cool!”
A scathing glare is directed at my brother as Tate growls over the synthwave music’s electronic beats, “Nothing is cool without my Havoc!”
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“We can still can fun!”
“Nothing is fun without my girl!”
The bickering mixed with the flash of bright white, red, and green lights bouncing off the gleaming surfaces of the Neutral club is already starting to provoke a throbbing at my temples, and I rub at them as I ask, “Then why did you come?”
Tate’s glower shifts to me as he seethes, “I don’t fucking know!”
“Yeah you do! It’s because we’re growing on you! Come on, Tater Tot! Let’s go dance!” Tiger starts to try and drag him along to the large pure-white dance floor that’s made up of many lit-up square tiles, but the beast of a man stands like a mountain, completely unmoveable.
“No.”
“Tater Tot!—”
While the two of them argue once again, I look around the club, taking it all in. I have to admit that it’s a nice place:
The room is all white—as is so rare these days unless in Neutral Zone where it’s only slightly more common, the pictures I’ve seen showing that the Zone mostly follows the other two’s design in the way that the majority of surfaces are a glossy black and the embellishments the social classification’s colour—including the walls and flooring, the three wide steps leading to a higher level and the seating on it which wraps around the left and right sides of the dance floor, as well as the bar up there at the far back wall that’s parallel to the door we entered through.
That platform is currently packed, both in the seating areas and where clusters of partygoers are stood talking and laughing, using the sizable area between the bar and sunken dance floor as extra space for more freedom of movement to twirl and gyrate as it’s so busy down here.
But the most impressive part of the place is the ceiling, which is the only feature other than some of the strobe lights that aren’t white: