13
SCOTTY
“Get out.”
The Game Master stares at me in a blend of disbelief and bitter fury. Recovering after a moment, he plants an empathetic look on his ruddy face. “Young man, I understand you are upset, but this is my daughter. How do you think I am feeling?”
“I said . . . Get. Out.” Staring him down, I lower my voice. “Before I kill you.”
Nostrils flaring as he stands just inside the door of the infirmary, Joseph’s plain brown eyes shift around the large white room, forcing a stiff smile onto his face for the workers in here.
I step to the side to block his view of Ezla and two of my brothers as they lie motionless on three separate beds. They’re on their backs with serene expressions on their sleeping faces, but nothing about this situation is peaceful.
“Game Master.”
The dark-skinned nurse speaks before he can attempt to strike me down with the tornado he was no doubt planning to release from his mouth upon its angry opening.
Jaw stiff, I spare a brief glance to my right, stepping to the side to give the woman room as she continues, though I can’t keep my glare from Joseph for long.
“A pleasure, as always,” she says with a tranquil quality to her tone and facial expression, and the power-hungry dickhead eats her treatment up as she dips her head at him in reverence.
Straightening his blackish-red-accented suit jacket and lifting his chin, he seems to remember a beat too late that he’s supposed to act humble and charming, and he pastes on a warm smile.
One that immediately falters when the woman continues.
“However, I must say, I think you should respect this man’s wishes.
Bonded form very close connections with those in their group, and the panic and distress are on much higher levels than an average couple’s.
It is best to allow those linked to each other as they are to soak up each other’s presence after such high-stress situations.
Miss Zefron is well taken care of in here by us and her Bonds, you do not need to worry.
And she is perfectly stable; the Avri got to her and her two injured Bonds just in time. ”
Joseph’s jaw ticks, and his smile is evidently strained now as he manages in a somewhat placid tone, “Yes. I understand how that would be the case when Bonded care for each other so very much.”
Shit.
His nearly gritted words have a chill settling into my marrow, but there’s staff in here, so I can only hope my display of protectiveness can be taken for a show I’m putting on for them.
Because right now, I really can’t cover up all the emotions spilling from me, and there’s no fucking way I’m letting him take a step further into this room.
If he truly cared about Ezla’s well-being in the way he should in the first place, he wouldn’t be here so late.
It’s midday now, and he was too busy doing damage control when the audience surrounding The Courtyard was sent into complete and utter disarray when her lithe figure slammed into the ground last night with a heavy thud of her helmet to match those of Alby’s and Tiger’s.
They’ve not woken up since.
Even with Avri, it’s a miracle they actually survived that, and my heart is still fucking pounding, my skin growing clammy as I remember the absolute, all-consuming horror that had taken over me to see two of my brothers plunging straight down to the unforgiving concrete, neither able to remanifest their jets with them only recently blown to pieces by an insane, sadistic man who’s still intent on causing Alby pain after all these years.
And those feelings were even worse with my Bonded.
Just like with Tiger and Alby, no one could get to her in time with Aider’s two bonded Exots still on us.
The Game ended before we could kill Players 87 and 84 to avenge her, and for a good, long moment as I’d stood frozen on that dark green jet, I’d contemplated throwing myself right into the open air to join her down there.
The only reason I didn’t was because Tate very much had the same idea, and I had to stop him as he’d attempted to drive himself and Cooper right into the concrete.
Yeah, I’m fucking traumatised. I will never forget last night. Never will I be able to remove those horrors from my mind or recover from it.
There’s washing machines in here, and Tiger, Ezla, and Alby’s suits are piled on top of one with their other items after having been cleaned and patched up by the Avri within it hours earlier.
And while the infirmary’s beds once held quite a few Players, Aider included—which wasn’t great for him because I did, in fact, try to kill him when we first got here last night before a horde of nurses jumped on me and fucking sedated me—it’s now deserted other than for us.
And I was enjoying at least a smidge of a damn break after Tate, Cooper, and I had been informed of our Bonded’s and brothers’ success with the Avri treatment the nurses and doctors in here had been working on tirelessly the entire night, when this fucking piece of shit before me came in and ruined it like he ruins everything.
“Yes,” the nurse beside me replies, either too oblivious or too well trained to comment on his slipping composure. “So as humbled as we are by your presence, I think we’d all appreciate some peace and quiet and alone time in here for this Bonded group.”
Her tone is placid enough that Joseph can only accept what she’s saying unless he wants to ruin his carefully constructed persona to reveal the monster beneath, and he gives a stiff nod, evening his tone.
“Of course. Please keep me updated. You are very aware of how protective I am over my daughter.”
Burning anger encourages me to wrap my hands around his neck and just squeeze, but somehow, I refrain.
When the nurse nods and he finally leaves, I turn my eyes on her with an uncertain, “Thank you.” Because I’m not sure how much she got from that situation, if she’s oblivious to our severe dislike of one another or if what she was saying about Bonded groups really was the only reason she interrupted.
She doesn’t give me any indication. “You are most welcome. Do go and spend time with your Bonded group—the boys should be waking soon.” Then, with a polite dip of her chin, she turns around and walks away.
Blowing out a breath, I do as she says, dragging a hand through my hair, which seems to be permanently messy recently.
It makes me feel all kinds of out of sorts because it’s kind of just become a routine over the years to comb my appearance into the order I’d prefer my life to be in.
It’s my way of coping with the violence we’re forced into, though I’ve never really struggled too much with that with a living ball of sunshine by my side.
A ball of sunshine whose light I thought was snuffed out for good last night.
Tate’s been holding Ezla’s limp hand and staring into her being nonstop since we’ve been in here, hardly giving the staff space to work.
That’s not at all out of the ordinary—it’s rarer to find his attention on anything that’s not her—but he looks so .
. . dead right now with his knees on the floor and his cheek on the bed, his body slumped over.
I don’t think he’ll have his head on straight again until she wakes, and it’s impossible to break him out of it when he’s in a state like this.
“Ezla!”
Tiger shoots upright in bed, and I jump out of my skin.
I’m by his side like a shot.
“Tiger,” I say hoarsely, leaning down and crushing him to me while his head whips every which way. “It’s okay. She’s okay,” I rasp, pulling back when he continues trembling violently, moving about without pause. Understanding I’m not who he needs right now, I jerk my chin our Bonded’s way.
His neck whips to the side.
Then he scrambles out of bed, the thin sheet almost tripping him up as his half-naked body drags the entire thing with him. And I’m rushing around the bed to help him when he simply lets it topple him over, falling onto Ezla’s bed and throwing his arms around her.
I freeze as he breaks into heart-wrenching sobs that shake his entire body.
Movement from my right alerts me to Alby waking, and confusion and a shipload of horrified fear drenches every inch of him.
Limbs quivering as much as Tiger’s as he pushes himself upright, he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t have the capacity to be self-conscious as his own white sheet falls into his lap to expose his bare chest. “What— Where . . . E-Ez? W-where’s Ezla? ”
“She’s—”
But his hazel eyes widen, filled with tears as they land on her before I can tell him.
He rushes to get off the bed without a thought for anything but our Bonded, uncaring about his unsteady legs as he sprawls on top of her just like Tiger did.
Taking up her lower half on her left where Tate is, his long arms wrap around her waist as he buries his face in her stomach.
I swallow. Neither he nor my blood brother had a single care about their own well-being.
The last thing they would have remembered a split second before hitting the ground would have been them falling from the sky together, in horrendous pain from the missile Aider fired, and Ezla sinking far too many feet away up above them, no way to get to her even if they could have manifested their Avri jets again so soon.
They’d been torn up and bloody, their suits a complete mess with entire chunks missing, nothing like the perfectly smooth skin they’re sporting right now, and yet all they cared about upon waking was her, if she was okay.
We’ve fallen so hard for our ruthless Bonded, and this is only more proof that not a single one of us could go on without her.
If she dies, we all die.