40
SCOTTY
Skin stiff from dried tears, my chin snaps up at the sound of hurried, forceful footsteps approaching.
Cooper’s face has turned sheet white, and from the looks of him, there’s no way he’ll be able to stay on his feet for more than a few seconds longer. “Is she—”
His voice breaks, but understanding at his state has already hit me, and I quickly say, voice unsteady but the most even and soothing I can make it at this very moment, “She’s alive, Cooper.
Exhausted, but alive.” Swallowing, I continue when I see he’s struggling to believe me, hardly calmed a fraction, “Feel her through the bond, Cooper. She’s there. ”
A few tense seconds pass by.
When his shoulders slump and he lets out a choked breath, bringing his gloved palm up to his mouth, I murmur, “But we do have to get her to the infirmary. She’s lost too much blood.”
Stiffening again, he rushes the rest of the way over to us, crouching down to cup Ezla’s head. “Fuck. Shit. Then what the bloody hell are we waiting for? Let’s get her the fuck out of here.”
***
The nurses and doctors in here never ask questions other than what’s necessary—but they definitely gave us a mix of odd and wide-eyed looks when we burst into the infirmary blood-soaked and with an unconscious Champion in our arms several hours ago.
Now, after the nurses insisted we be patched up for our much less serious injuries, my brothers and I sit around our Bonded’s bed as she lies on her back without a twitch.
“She’s been in this position far too often lately,” Tate rumbles darkly from where he sits in one of the chairs we were provided with this time, and I’m slightly concerned he’s about to blow up and destroy the entire infirmary.
His always-intense gaze burrows into Ezla’s flesh as he rests his elbows on his spread thighs and squeezes his large fists together as if he’s debating using them on the first person to irritate him.
I myself am finding it difficult to settle on one single feeling.
Front and centre is of course worry for Ezla, and I fully agree with Tate that she’s been in a vulnerable state like this way too much recently.
That of course brings the familiar guilt over not being able to protect her, but I remind myself that my Bonded would want to throttle me if she were able to hear my thoughts right now as well as the fact that I couldn’t have done anything.
And there’s also the love, the adoration I felt weaving through the terror when she tried her best to protect us the entire time in that room.
That room where, just moments before an even worse disaster struck, a sickening video that turns my stomach at just the thought of it was playing on the big screen.
Seared into my mind, I want to watch Cooper sink that blade through Joseph’s skull all over again for it. And that brings me to the next thing:
Joseph . . . the Game Master . . . is dead.
Gone.
He’s here no longer, and I’m struggling to understand the impact.
No one knows but us, and I don’t have a fucking clue how we’ll break the news, what will happen now, what our next steps are .
. . It’s all way too much to deal with right now.
I can only concentrate on so much at a time, and as unfair as it is, only Ezla’s intelligence, her knowledge surrounding The Bonding Games, can get us out of this mess.
But I’m . . . Holy fucking shit am I glad Joseph is dead.
That much I can tell. The monster who’s tortured my Bonded for eighteen years, who’s committed sickening crimes that would make even the most ruthless criminals shrink back . . . he can no longer hurt her.
Ezla is free.
And that’s what has me unable to respond to Tate right now as I stroke a palm over our Bonded’s freshly cleansed forehead—we’ve spent our time washing her with soft damp towels while she’s been out, and her skin’s now spotless.
Spotless other than for that ever-present scar that didn’t disappear with Joseph’s death.
I knew the Avri wouldn’t just vanish—it is energy, after all—but it’s yet another thing plaguing me.
Ezla’s fucking stunning, unreal no matter what, but that crimson slash holds horrific memories and meaning, and I know she despises it for that very reason.
Because of that, I want it gone for her, but it’s one more thing I don’t have a solution for.
And that reminds me of another one of the billion thoughts spiralling around in my head: The fucking Showmaster. Peter. We didn’t even get what we went to the penthouse for.
And then there’s Joseph’s words.
But it will be too late. By then, the tablets will be ready to go.
Fuck. This is all too fucking much. Killing Joseph was meant to fix all our problems, and it’s damn well fixed a lot of them, but there’s also so fucking many left over.
Scrubbing my free hand over my face, I rub my thumb and forefinger into my eyes as—
“Bonded.”
My eyes fly open in time with the sharp inhales that rush through the air.
“Love.” The word is choked-up, and I can’t tell if I’m about to break down in tears or smile the widest smile I’ve ever formed.
“Ezla!” Alby throws himself at her, clinging onto her waist.
Tiger flattens himself on top of the two of them with a half-cried, half-sobbed cheer of, “Ezzy!” and I hear the wind get knocked out of her.
But she only brings her hands up to rest on the backs of their heads while Tate joins in with a gravelly sound made deep in his chest like he’s unable to get his larynx to work right, taking her hand and pressing her knuckles to his lips.
“Hey, Vengeance,” Cooper breathes out, the softest I’ve ever heard him.
He, too, appears like he can’t decide how to feel in this moment with all the shit that everyone knows isn’t over, but his joy eventually wins out, and he grins in a way I’ve definitely not seen on him before either, the look only coming close to the one he wore after Ezla told us she loved us.
He looks so much lighter than usual in this moment, almost cheerful, the faint lines of his normally slightly grumpy-looking face smoothed out, actual tears of joy in his eyes, and I don’t think it was only our Bonded who needed the time to learn how to be truly happy over the weeks.
Cupping the back of her neck from where he sits on my right, Cooper leans in to press a firm kiss to the forehead that turns his way. Pulling back only a few inches to keep himself close to her, he murmurs, breath hitching, “We did it, HC. We fucking did it. He’s gone.”
It’s silent for a moment, and when Cooper pulls back to see Ezla’s face, her lips have parted slightly.
“Love, are you oka—”
“Everyone get the fuck out before my Havoc reaches into your throat and yanks your intestines from your stomach!”
Jolting, I gape at Tate as he glares around the room.
“Out,” Ezla barks when the staff don’t immediately move. “He is one of my Bonds—you obey any one of these men as you do me.”
The sound of shoes scurrying across the polished floor meets my ears as the doctors and nurses all flee the scene in a flash.
When they’re gone and the door’s closed behind them, I turn back to Ezla and try again. “Are you okay, Love? How are you feeling? Do you remember everything?”
Her mismatched eyes slowly come to rest on me.
“I believe I do.” Her words are slow, measured.
“However, what I am remembering is wildly . . . improbable, I am finding.” A pause as her head shifts a miniscule amount on the purest-white pillow beneath it when she shifts her gaze to Cooper.
“But you . . . Please repeat that, Cooper.”
“I said . . .” He takes a deep breath before beginning again, “I said, he’s gone, Vengeance. I killed him.”
Again, Ezla doesn’t make a sound, doesn’t move a muscle. All our attention drills into her, Alby’s and Tiger’s heads propped up to see her properly, though they still hold on to her desperately.
Finally, after far too long, when concern starts to rise in me again, she breathes, “He is gone . . . You killed him for me . . . I am . . . I am free.”
My throat clogs up at those words, eyes blurring. When Tate speaks, I swear I can hear the tears in his gruff timbre too. “Fuck yeah, Havoc. You’re fucking free.”
And our Bonded, the most feared woman in the world, the one who refused to show an ounce of vulnerability for so, so long . . . she bursts into tears.
***
The trip back to our Bonded chambers was hazy.
Ezla’s emotions, her relief and motherfucking joy, have been leaking all over the place, and my brothers and I quickly decided she’d prefer our private space to continue to expose herself like this, even if we were the only ones in the infirmary.
Now, after everyone’s taken the quickest showers possible to scrub our time in the home theatre off for Ezla and got changed, me going first while the others stayed with her before we switched so that she wouldn’t be alone for a second, I lie on my back on our bed in our shared bedroom with an arm around her.
The weight of her head rests on my chest along with her palm, and after taking off the cleaned Avri suit we put on her for our journey back here, we’ve now replaced that for her pyjamas.
Behind her, Tate’s face is nuzzled into her neck, and the weight of his arm thrown over her presses down on me.
Cooper is on my right, and Alby and Tiger are at Tate’s back.
It’s never been this quiet, and I think everyone’s still processing the events of today, but mostly, it’s peaceful.
It’s so damn peaceful despite the knowledge that this isn’t completely over, that there’s still more to do.
Because this was our one biggest hurdle, and we’ve beaten it.
And because Ezla is happy. Fuck is she happy right now.
She’s said the least words of us all in the time between now and the infirmary, but she doesn’t need to give them to us when we can all feel the contentment radiating from her.