15
TIGER
“She should be here. Where is she?”
Chewing on my lip nervously, I glance at Cooper, who’s stood beside me as me and my brothers stand in a line facing the Training Room’s clear double doors.
“Maybe . . . maybe she’s just running really late?
” I say that, but we all know that’s not our Bonded.
She doesn’t do late. But I don’t know what else to say, what else I can do to stop the steadily increasing dread from rising within me.
We left the infirmary not too long after Ezla asked for our bonding cubes yesterday, and we had to go our separate ways, of course, though she wouldn’t tell us where she was going, if she was returning home to her father or heading elsewhere to carry out whatever mind-blowing plan her brain concocted.
Obviously, me and my brothers had all been dying to know, but we couldn’t ask anything out loud, so any queries went ignored since we couldn’t actually snatch her up to make her stay with us and talk things out with the hidden cameras about.
Now, it’s 7 a.m., an entire hour later than Ezla routinely demands we all be here, and everyone is freaking the fuck out.
“I-I don’t like this,” Alby whispers unsteadily, gloved hands fiddling with the helmet in them.
“Me neither,” Tate grits out, shifting in a way that suggests he’s moments from lunging forwards and racing from the room to go and search for our Bonded. “Let’s fucking go. I’ll storm the Techtis Council building and rip every single living thing in there to shreds.”
Scotty shakes his head faintly. “We don’t even know if that’s where she’s gone.”
“Don’t piss me off, Scotty,” Cooper spits out venomously, though he works hard to keep his words low so as not to attract the attention of the other Players in the room—they’ve already been throwing us not-so-inconspicuous glances since we’ve been in here standing like this without the Champion.
“We tried to find her through the bond, and there’s nothing.
No impenetrable wall, not a presence there that might suggest her hiding on the other side, no minor speck of emotion slipping through. There. Is. Nothing.”
A sick feeling rises up in me fast, tied-up stomach queasy.
It’s true—we’ve all tried. And the way Cooper spoke about it describes the situation perfectly. She’s simply . . . not there. And the only way I can think of for her to be so thoroughly gone . . .
My breathing grows shallower, and Scotty lets out a harsh breath from where he stands on my other side, wrapping a steadying arm around me. Or it would be steadying if it weren’t trembling faintly to reveal his own fear and stress over the situation.
“She’s not gone. She’s not dead.” He keeps his eyes firmly on the entrance as he says that, as if willing Ezla to appear, sure she will if he only stares hard enough.
And he tries to speak those statements strongly, as if they’re true facts that he’s sure of, but his voice wobbles minutely on the last word.
Cooper drags an agitated hand through his hair and grabs a fistful roughly, head tipping back slightly as if he might lose it any second now. “This isn’t right, Scotty. The bond, how late she is. This is all fucking wrong.”
“Do you—do you think she tried to do what—whatever she was going to do with our cubes, and it went wrong?” Alby asks, hushed and quavering.
Scotty swallows. He’s quiet for a while, thinking things through, but I know he must have already. This is just him stalling.
Finally he says lowly, “Yes. Yes, I think that’s a real possibility.”
I inhale sharply in time with Alby. Cooper’s jaw clenches, and Tate’s grey eyes flash with the promise of total destruction.
Scotty wouldn’t tell us that if he weren’t convinced of its truth. If it was more likely that we’re worrying for no reason, that he believed less catastrophic things could be true, he would give us hope. He wouldn’t want to cause any unnecessary panic.
“Fuck. We’re going. Right now. We’re going into that building. I don’t care about the consequences—”
“Well, well, what do we have here?” a conceited drawl cuts Tate’s furiously ground-out words off.
Tensing, I flick my gaze to our right.
Aider and his two bonded Exots stand there with matching smirks on their arrogant faces.
Tate lets out a bitter laugh, slightly—or a lot—deranged.
“Oh, someone wants to die today. Showing your faces after what you did to my Havoc? You’re fucking dead—starting with you, 87.
” He lunges with a vicious snarl, and not one of my brothers stops him.
In fact, we all advance as one, even my quiet bestie wearing a menacing glare I didn’t know his innocent features could create.
My gloved fists clench with enough force to crack my knuckles as I prepare to—
“Have you not heard the news?”
Everyone freezes. We all take in Aider’s unwavering uplifted lips, the way neither he nor his two dogs have moved a muscle, unconcerned that we were about to rip them apart right here and now, that we still could.
“What news?” Tate demands—before apparently deciding he doesn’t care and that Aider’s just stalling as he takes another wrathful step forwards.
But he stills completely when Player 87 says, “About the Champion, of course.”
Dizziness muddles my head in an instant, and Scotty’s fingers dig into my shoulder.
Me and my brothers don’t speak. I don’t think any of us are even breathing as he continues, “There was a . . . situation in the Avri labs yesterday. Heard there was a bloodbath.”
“Caused by my Havoc?” Tate demands, his eyes taking on a bloodthirsty look, pupils expanding as if he can’t help but be excited by the thought of Ezla in action even now.
One that instantly disappears when Player 84 speaks. “No. By her father.”
I gape.
The Game Master . . . Joseph, who’s always put on a charming front . . .
Brows pinched, Scotty says, “What? That doesn’t make sense.”
And it really doesn’t. We might know how unhinged and cruel the Game Master is, but no one else does, and he wouldn’t just drop his years-held public persona like that.
What the hell is going on?
“Why not? He did it to protect his beloved daughter. Apparently, those in the Avri labs were treating her poorly. Threatening her,” Aider tells us.
“And how do you know this?” Cooper demands forcefully.
Aider’s eyes flick to him. “Didn’t you know? My father is now a trusted member of The Council.”
“What?” Alby gasps, all colour leaving his face.
He shrinks back when Aider’s attention moves to him next. “Yes. He was just recently granted a position.”
Moving out of my brother’s hold, I come to Alby’s side and glare at Aider’s smug face.
I fucking hate this guy. I already want to kill him, and if he uses his father’s new status to hurt my best friend any more than he already has, I swear I’ll make his death the most painful one ever witnessed.
“So he told you? And why does that mean our Bonded shouldn’t be here?
” Some panic I can’t hide seeps into my next question, especially as I remember the absence of Ezla’s presence in the bond. “Is she okay?”
He shrugs as if he doesn’t much care either way. “Who knows? The only ones who have any more details would be Ezla and her father, and they’re safety tucked away in the Techtis Council buildi—”
Tate’s already storming away, shoving his helmet on his head as he does. White-knuckled fists shaking, the muscles in his arms strain against his Avri suit.
Scotty curses, rushing after him, encouraging the rest of us to follow.
Aider’s malice-filled eyes sparkle as he watches us hurry away, and I shoot him the dirtiest look the world has ever seen over my shoulder.
“Tate, what are you doing?” Scotty hisses as we move full speed through The Bonding Games Headquarters’ central building.
“What the fuck do you think I’m doing? I’m going to get our girl.”
We turn the corner into the next glossy black hallway, red and green strips speeding along beside us, and Scotty demands, “Do you even have a plan? How do you expect us to get into that building?”
“Don’t fucking know,” Tate grunts, not slowing down for a second. Then again, none of the rest of us are either.
“Maybe we should just blow the place up?” Cooper suggests as he keeps stride with us at my side. “We could fire missiles on our Avri jets.”
“Great idea, Cooper. We’ll just put every innocent in that building at risk, we’ll put our Bonded at risk, by blowing a fucking fifty-story skyscraper up. Not to mention, we’d all be executed right after.” Scotty directs an incredulous look his way. “Was that an actual suggestion?”
“Fuck, sorry. I’m not thinking clearly, okay? Give me a damn break—I just want Vengeance back.”
“Okay, so any other suggestions? Because I can’t think right now.” Scotty rubs a hand over his face, distress leaking from him freely.
“We . . . we could actually use our Avri jets.”
I almost trip over my own feet as my head whips Alby’s way. He’s put his helmet on, and I decide to put my own on since it’s starting to look more and more like we’re heading into battle. “You want us to blow the building up too?”
“No! No, of course not! I wouldn’t want to put Ezla in danger like that!
I meant we could use our jets to get on the roof maybe?
Didn’t—didn’t Ezla say she’s on the top floor?
And the roof usually always has a way to get into the top floor.
I-I mean . . . if she’s there . . . I think that’s where she’d be .
. . ?” Alby’s throat bobs, his words weakening like he’s less sure his idea’s good at all the longer he speaks.
“Yes!” I all but shriek, before lowering my voice as I repeat, “Yes, Bestie! Good idea.” There’s no one around right now as we continue moving through the wide halls, but I don’t want to attract anyone’s attention who could be around the next corner.
Scotty sighs heavily. “I’m pretty sure us flying around on our jets will be a bit too conspicuous no matter if we’re firing missiles or not.”
“What other choice do we have? The entire building is see-through,” Cooper says grimly.