18
SCOTTY
Ezla didn’t stay in our Bonded chambers last night. Didn’t even visit. I’m not surprised, but it just feels . . . off? Odd? Like we’re . . . missing something, as me, my brother, Alby, Tate, and Cooper sit around our dining room’s lustrous rectangular table in chairs so comfy I could sleep in them.
Or someone, as the sixth, excruciatingly empty chair that keeps blaring its absence of an owner every time my eyes can’t help but crawl over to it tells me.
Tate’s fork clatters unceremoniously onto his plate as his fist booms down on the table.
Alby yelps, hands racing to his chest on reflex as his plate wobbles from the force, and my own heart almost passes on to the afterlife at the sudden aggressive break in silence.
“Where is she?” Tate seethes, glare burning holes into me as if it’s specifically my fault that Ezla’s not here.
“She’s supposed to be here. She was supposed to be in my bed last night, and she’s supposed to me on my fucking lap right now or with her gorgeous ass on that chair!
” His voice almost risen to a shout by the end of his raving claim, he jabs a savage finger at the empty chair on the other side of Alby, who’s sat on my right, frozen in place.
I also did not need him putting the image of Ezla’s ass in my head. The shape of which her Avri suit does nothing to hide and that my eyes couldn’t help but flick down to when she’d stormed off after Game 1.
My blood heats.
Fuck’s sake.
Tate continues his tirade, drawing my mind away from those curves to focus back on his fuming expression. “Instead, I’m stuck playing happy families with dickheads who are trying to steal my girl!”
“Wait a minute—"
Tate doesn’t let Cooper finish, not even seeming to have heard his exasperated tone, his enraged stare still digging into me. “You were supposed to help me get her!”
I take a pronounced breath, trying to stay calm and keep my tone even. “And I did.”
“THEN WHERE IS SHE?!”
“I don’t know,” I grit out. “I can’t control where Ezla goes or what she does.”
His glare intensifies.
“How about we do a get-to-know-each-other game?” Tiger interjects, drawing those daggers his way instead.
“Tiger,” I sigh, but my brother doesn’t pause, already on a roll. And nothing can sway him when he’s on one of those.
“I’m Tiger Gold! I’m nineteen, I’m stronger than my brother—”
I frown. “My Score is one point higher than yours—”
“—my birthday is the fifth of April—”
“You sure it’s not the first?”
My gaze rams into Cooper with the force of a hurricane. “What the fuck did you just say to my brother?”
His eyes blow wide. “What—”
I shove to my feet, chair scraping across the floor with an ear-splitting shriek.
“Wait! Jesus fuck, man—calm down! I didn’t realise how that sounded! I didn’t bloody mean it like that! I just meant he’s really upbeat! It’s not a bad thing!”
Stilling for a moment, I scrutinise him.
“It’s fine, big bro. Coops is a real one. All cool beans.”
“I told you not to call me that,” the man in question groans, scrubbing his hands down his face.
Grunting, I make myself sit back down after another narrowed-eyed look at him.
“Sure, sure, Coops.” Tiger waves a lazy hand.
Cooper sighs but says no more.
“Anywayyyyy . . . I’m from EvTS 308—came with my brother, obviously. My favourite colour is . . . hmmm . . . gold!”
“Any particular reason?” Tate drawls, seemingly entirely uninterested in this conversation but involving himself anyway for the hell of it.
A scoff. “Dude, I’m not that arrogant.”
Cooper asks, “Have you ever even seen gold before?”
My brother’s expression morphs into one of extreme concentration, and a second passes before he chirps, “Yup! There’s pictures online, like the ballroom for the Halfway Ball that has gold everywhere!”
“And that’s enough to make it your favourite colour?”
“Uh, no. I just have a good feeling about it.”
He stops for a moment to shove a sausage into his mouth, and, for some reason, we all wait patiently for him to finish his mouthful.
“Okay! You go on, brother!”
With a small shake of my head, I yield and say, “I’m Scotty, and I’m twenty-two.”
They all stare at me.
“What?”
“Is that all?” Tiger pushes.
“Yes? There’s not exactly much to say, is there?”
His eyes roll dramatically. “You’re really not selling yourself here, brother.”
I shrug.
He groans but moves on. “Whatever. Alby, your turn.”
He freezes like a deer caught in headlights. “Uhhhhh . . .”
“Just give your name and age,” I advise.
“No! Stop trying to spread your boring influence!” Then Tiger turns imploring eyes on Alby. “Bestie, don’t listen to him! Express yourself! Like a butterfly!”
Elbow resting on the arm crossed over my middle, my thumb and forefinger trap the bridge of my nose. “You don’t have to, Alby.”
“Um . . . okay,” he squeaks, before clearing his throat and trying again, his fair skin stained a deep pink, “Okay. I-I’m Alby White.
I’m nineteen, and I’m from Evot Training School 246.
Umm . . . I’m not sure if I have a favourite colour .
. . Maybe—maybe just green? Or blue? But I haven’t seen any blue in a while . . . other than the, uh, sky . . .”
When he trails off, Cooper starts speaking, and I’ll give him points for that because it seems he’d recognised Alby’s steadily increasing anxiety. “I’m Cooper Nealson. I’m twenty and went to EvTS 290. My birthday’s in a couple months.”
Seeing that’s all he’ll share, our attention all falls on Tate.
“Tate Callow. 202. Twenty-one,” he grunts.
At least he participated.
“And Ezla’s mine.”
This is going to be a long seven weeks.
***
We all stand in the Training Centre, frozen in place.
After finishing breakfast, we decided we’d come here to get to know each other’s fighting styles better since we’re now a Bonded group and will be working together to defeat opponents in the upcoming Games—some of whom we’ve attended school with for years.
I try not to think about that.
Which is pretty easy at this very moment when all of my being is focused on the lithe helmeted figure darting around inside the Simulation Hexagon.
It should be impossible to move that fast, with so much skill. Yet Ezla Zefron makes it look completely effortless. And maybe for her, it is. With a Score of 99, I can’t imagine many things posing a challenge for her.
With my own Score of 83, I’m usually quite proud of myself, and I was pleased with my performance when I used the Hexagon a couple times myself over the past week, easily passing Level Hard with the time set to 10.
But Ezla puts me to shame.
There’s six levels and six times to choose from: for the levels, there’s Easy, Medium, Hard, Advanced, Expert, and Master, and for the times, which are in minutes, there’s 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30.
I’m almost certain Ezla has the simulation set to Master – 30.
However, I can’t be completely sure because the entirety of the room is crowded around the large taalk shape, hiding the control panel; Players glowing both green and red watch my Bonded’s display in awe, utterly mesmerised.
My Bonded.
Christ, that feels weird to think.
I never thought much about who my Bonded would be before the Games.
I always knew I wouldn’t mind whether the relationship between us would be romantic or platonic, and I’m not sure why, but I’ve always had this feeling that me and my brother would end up here together.
I didn’t see another option. I’d prefer we weren’t generated at all, but me being with him is the best scenario I could’ve hoped for.
And with all the planning that feeling provoked, the need to ensure both me and my brother were completely happy with the Exot or Exots we’d choose was always paramount.
But never in a million years did I expect that person to be the Champion.
She was never even an option.
It’s not because of any fault of hers, rather the opposite—she was so far above our level we didn’t even consider that we could attempt to bond her.
Not until we were left with the options of certain death if we ended up without a Bonded at the end of Game 1, or pretty certain death by attempting to claim the only available Exot left in the arena.
But by some miracle, our limbs didn’t end up scattered around The Dome in a morbid display of victory like that poor Evot’s did in last year’s Game 1 as a result of Ezla’s wicked ways.
Instead, The Bonding Games Champion became mine.
And four others’.
Dragging my gaze reluctantly away from the woman parrying, slicing, spinning, and kicking out too quickly for my brain to process, I settle it on those men.
Alby and Tiger were a given, as we’d agreed to bond the same person before Game 1, but the other two are new, and I don’t know what to make of them yet.
They don’t seem like immediate threats, but the one with the piercings worries me the most: I can’t deny I wouldn’t mind a romantic relationship with Ezla—not that it even seems possible with how she is, but she’s .
. . I’ve never felt drawn to someone like I instantly was to her the moment that robotic-like voice met my ears—and my brother obviously is all for it as well.
So what worries me here is, with Tate so clearly obsessed with her and liable to snap at any moment at just the mention of her name from another man’s lips, I’m not so sure he’d submit to the rules to not kill anyone in your Bonded group if we made a move on her.
Although, I think as my eyes slide back to the Simulation Hexagon to see the many eyes on my Bonded, both women’s and men’s alike, some more lusting than others . . . I think I can understand his jealousy as a spike of the bitter emotion stabs into me.
Huh. That’s never happened before.