Page 252 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

“The one and only Exot who has managed to live as an Unbonded five years in a row! The ruthless . . . the exceptionally intelligent . . . the completely unforgiving . . .”

He keeps speaking, but I can no longer hear him. My vision tunnels, the blood rushing in my ears drowning out the ground-rumbling din of the crowd and turning it into nothing more than white noise.

“Oh, god . . .” It’s a breath of air, hardly discernible.

At the centre of the parted Exots, there she is. Making her way through the Player-made walkway, Ezla Zefron’s Avri glows like the spilled blood of her victims, stained darker by her inky venom. On either of her upper arms, her Avri creates the number ‘100’, glaring lethal daggers at the world around her. Mirroring mine, two small square outlines sit just below either collarbone, but then hundreds of tiny versions trail down her inner and outer legs in single uniform lines, copied like this on her forearms from elbow to wrist. A small gap in the blackish-crimson squares at the top of her thighs gives way to the belt-like Avri strip circling her hips, no thicker than an inch, and from TV, I know her back contains another square outline, this one directly between where we keep our two armoury sticks on the upper edges of our shoulder blades, and her spine from the middle of her back to where any dimples would be displays ‘EXOT’ vertically, the ‘E’ levelled with her lower ribcage and the rest of the letters trailing down underneath. And lastly, the sleek black helmet embellished with sparsely placed luminous energy that’s kept her features hidden all these years tops off the entire look, warning me even further away from her and giving the impression she’s more an otherworldly creature of mass destruction than a human being.

Shit, I can’t breathe.

Literally.

Sable splotches crowd my vision, my breaths starting to become uncontrolled, hectic even.

My panic attack only halts mid-motion when the Showmaster’s words act more effectively than a bucket of ice water would:

“Let the Game begin!”

Mouth dropping open in horror, I wonder how I missed so much of what he said.

Until I recognise how enraptured I’d been by a certain goddess of death.

A goddess of death who’s charging right at me.

I’m sure the unmasked terror that must be splashed over every millimetre of my face would be comical in any other situation. But as it is, every Evot is too busy scrambling out the way to laugh at my expense, parting just like the Exots had to make way for Ezla Zefron as she manifests her Avri tribike beneath her, not at all above flattening one of us with the thing. In fact, she seems like she hopes to crush at least one person along the way.

A harsh tug on my neck has me flying backwards into a solid wall just before her front wheel speeds by the exact spot my head had just been in.

“Focus, Alby!”

Scotty.

“Bikes! Now!”

Blinking hard in utter shock, I whip my head around in every direction, struggling to process everything that’s just happened and everything that’s still happening. Everyone’s already whizzing by on their bikes!

Why is everything happening so fast?! Oh my god, I’m going to die—

“Alby, let’s move!”

Tiger.

Fuck! Move, Alby!

Scotty’s already manifested his tribike, and his brother isn’t far behind. And I . . .

I will not be a liability.

Shoving air back into my lungs, I move.

Bolting across the taalk under my feet, I picture the lime-green tribike in my mind, each and every tiny detail, and I command.

TAKE SHAPE NOW!

And it obeys.

10

TIGER