19
ALBY
We haven’t seen Ezla in three days.
Not in the Training Centre, not our Bonded washroom, and certainly not in our Bonded chambers. We even tried to contact her through the connection our newly linked bonding cubes allow, but it was like there was a taalk wall between us. So she’s become a ghost.
It’s . . . not nice.
No one terrifies me quite like she does, and yet I want her around. Don’t ask me why; I don’t understand it myself.
Is this a crush?
I’ve never had one of those before, so I don’t really know what to do with that information. Then again, maybe my mind and body are still in shock from surviving Game 1, and I’m either not understanding the signals being sent my way, or those signals are malfunctioning.
“OW!”
My gaze snaps to Tiger and Cooper as the former shakes out his gloved hand.
“That’s exactly why you don’t aim for the head,” Scotty sighs. “Those gloves will protect your knuckles from splitting, but they won’t absorb all the impact.”
“I know that!”
“Then prove it. Again,” Scotty urges with a nudge of his chin, gesturing for him and Cooper to continue sparring.
Tate has also been noticeably absent. We do see him training alone or in passing in our Bonded chambers, but he doesn’t interact with us; he’s been understandably harbouring the mood of a thunderstorm since that fateful day in the Training Centre, and seemingly deciding we’ll never be any help in him and Ezla getting together, he’s given up on the idea of training with us, even though it’s to his own detriment.
My bleeding heart aches for him despite the fact he scares the crap out of me.
“Bloody hell, stop doing that! It doesn’t work!”
“It works on Scotty!
“Do I look like your brother to you?!”
“Hmmmm . . .” Tiger pauses to consider the question seriously. “A little bit, yeah—”
“That’s not what I meant—”
“Coops, I know what you meant. Calm down—”
“Would you stop calling me tha—”
“Enough!”
All eyes dart to Scotty.
Then—
“He started it!” Tiger accuses vehemently, arm whipping out to point a finger at Cooper.
“I did not—”
Scotty’s head tips back as if praying for patience.
After another minute of Cooper and Tiger squabbling, he loses it.
“SHUT UP!”
My heart leaps into my throat even though his anger isn’t directed at me.
“We have ten days until Game 2. Our Bonded is fuck knows where, and another member of our group has gone AWOL.” He takes a breath and blows it out heavily, as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders, and it no doubt feels like it is.
He’s had a natural leader’s role from the moment I first met him, and he’s adopted the same for our Bonded group seamlessly.
So, considering how much of a catastrophe that group currently is, I’m not surprised by his frustration.
“Now, I’ll accept that because I won’t force Tate to do anything he doesn’t want to, and also because his Score is high enough that I’m confident he’ll be fine throughout Game 2.
But you”—he spears a finger in Cooper’s direction—“have chosen to stay with us and train. So I expect you to actually do that without bickering with my brother every chance you get.”
Cooper’s brows dip, but he stays silent.
“What—” My voice comes out too quiet, and I unclog my throat with a short cough. “What about Ezla?”
Silence.
Then, “Ezla will be okay.” Scotty is certain about that, but then, so am I. He knows that wasn’t my real concern.
“It’s just the question of whether we will be,” Cooper drawls sardonically.
Scotty’s lips tighten, but he doesn’t deny it.
“Yeah, well, that’s just another reason to train harder.
If our Bonded does try to kill us, we at least need to be as prepared as possible for it .
. . even if it’s very unlikely we’d survive either way.
” His last words are barely more than a whisper, and a tremor I can’t control racks through my body.
We’re not safe yet. In fact, I think things just got a whole lot more deadly.
***
We train, and we keep training.
The day after Game 1—the same day Ezla knocked Tate off his feet .
. . and not in the good way—we all noticed a screen on the Training Centre’s wall by the entrance doors which had all our Player numbers on it with our Scores beside them.
I’d been filled with a swirl of shock, happiness, relief, and pride to see a 62 beside my 29, as well as the previously lime-green accents on my suit darkening to a more leafy one a fair handful of shades darker.
But now all those feelings are gone, along with a good portion of the confidence that came with them. I’m still the same old nervous wreck.
“Come on, Alby!”
Scotty’s harsh voice makes me flinch, and I swipe at my sweaty forehead with an unsteady gloved hand before raising my Avri axe again. Bringing my arm back, I throw the weapon at the target with all my might.
It connects with the corner before bouncing back.
Racing straight for my unprotected head.
Shit!
Letting out a petrified scream, I duck just in time to avoid my face being split down the middle.
The axe lands somewhere behind me with a thunk!
“This is why you fucking wear protection!” Scotty’s agitated hand tugs at his sandy hair, almost tearing the strands out at the roots.
Shame colours my cheeks while Tiger jumps to my defence.
“Stop being a total knuckle-head, brother! We get you’re stressed, but so are we!
” He looks at me, concerned with a hint of alarm in his usually sparkling eyes.
“But yeah, please do wear your alien head, Bestie! Despite my many talents, I do not know how to sew brains back together, and I don’t think Avri does either! ”
“Sorry,” I whisper, going to get my helmet from where I’d stupidly left it on the nearby bench with my shoulders curved inwards. We’re all so out of it I don’t think anyone even thought about it until then. I certainly didn’t, and I’m not one to be so reckless.
“I am as well, Alby. I didn’t mean to snap at you.” Scotty exhales weightily, looking at me with a sincere apology in his eyes.
“It’s okay.” The smile I give him is hardly anything more than hopeless sadness. None of us should have to go through this, and with two members of our Bonded group still nowhere to be found, we’re all out of sorts for reasons we can’t entirely explain.
“Gonna go get some lunch. Meet you later,” Cooper mutters, the first words he’s said in a while, before leaving the room without another, demanifesting his own Avri axe as he goes.
Something needs to change here.
Before our Bonded group is decimated before it can even fully form.
***
“Twig!”
No.
It feels like so long ago now that I’d last heard that name, but in reality, it’s not even been two weeks.
It’s Friday now, exactly one week before Game 2, and things are no better with our Bonded group. But I’d got comfortable, at least, with the lack of bullying. I even thought I might have gained some confidence—just a little, but confidence nonetheless.
But the feelings that crash over me when Aider Cole and Tory Hurst corner me before I can make it back to Cooper, Tiger, and Scotty in the private training room we’ve been using today tell me that was all make-believe as I’m dragged straight back to the trauma of Evot Training School.
Stiff as a board, my vision blurs. I train my eyes on my boots, hands balling at my sides.
“Not even gonna grace us with a response?” Troy sneers mockingly, grabbing me by the front of my neck in a meaty, gloved grip so I’m forced to look at him. “Too high and mighty for that now?”
Pathetically, I whimper, and I’m so ashamed of myself and my weakness that it worsens the tears pricking at my eyes, even as my lids flutter rapidly to keep them at bay.
A slow, vile smirk creeps over Aider’s face. “Don’t be afraid to let them out, Twig. You know I love to see you cry.” His voice is smoother than Troy’s, elegant even, and it’s all the worse for it.
Somehow, I stay strong.
Something flickers in his dark eyes—annoyance trying to show its face through that composed mask of his?—before his features smooth over again.
“You know . . . I saw Ezla last night.”
Everything stops.
“She came to me . . . said she was impressed by my skills, by my Score . . .”
Aider’s words sound shrouded in film as the world starts to lose focus around me.
“I offered to impress her with something else.”
With something else . . .
He steps closer, lowering his voice. “And she loved it.”
Breathing completely out of control, I struggle to stay upright.
Why are his words affecting me so much? Why is there both something as green as my Avri and something as red as an Exot’s sluicing through my veins?
“I stretched that tight little pussy of hers so good she’ll feel me for days—”
My fist slams into his face so hard the CRACK! feels like it should be heard for miles.
Panting harshly, adrenaline thrums through my veins, body vibrating with it.
I watch Aider as he slowly straightens, mahogany waves of hair hanging in his face from the way his head had snapped back.
I almost want to be a smartass and tell him, this is why you wear a helmet, just like Scotty scolded me the other day, but I think that’s a bit too far for me, even with my sudden burst of confidence.
His face gives nothing away as he brings the tips of his fingers to his nose. Once perfectly straight, it’s now deformed, crooked, and blood immediately drips over the black material shrouding his hand.
Knuckles throbbing but luckily not damaged due to my own gloves in place, my lips part as what I just did catches up to me.
Oh . . . shit.
I don’t regret it, though.
But I almost do when a grin only the devil himself could wear comes across Aider’s face, crimson trickling into his mouth and staining his teeth. A demented laugh I should have suspected he was hiding inside him all these years he’d kept so composed tumbles from his mouth.
Then he lunges at me.
***
Aider’s thrown across the room to land several feet away with Troy, who was taken down like a domino when his master smacked into him.
Mouth wide open, I gape at my saviour.