Page 349 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

“What are we doing in here?” Scotty asks, brows furrowing. “Don’t we want to focus on air training?”

My thoughts exactly.

“Of course. But this room is just as high as the one for Avri jet training, and I have decided it would be better suited; no other Players will be using it, which means anything I teach you stays between us—there is no chance of being copied. It will give us the element of surprise along with the new techniques I will help you with.”

“Oooooh! You’re smart smart!” Tiger gushes . . . and blows her a kiss over his visor. “I mean, obviously everybody already knows that, but I love seeing your sexy brain in action!”

“Same,” Tate grunts, burly arms crossing over his chest. “Your intelligence makes my cock hard, Havoc.”

“Everything makes your dick hard,” I say under my breath.

He glowers. “That’s not fucking true. It’s everything that’s my Havoc.”

“That’s what I said.”

“No, you said—”

“We get it,” Scotty interrupts, fingertips rubbing circles into his temples like we’ve given him the biggest headache in the world already. “Our Bonded makes you hard, and Cooper is very aware she’s the only one who does.”

Tate lets out another grunt, and I think that’s his satisfied one, though I can’t be sure because they all sound extremely similar.

“Let’s continue.”

We all snap to attention at Ezla’s robotically modified voice, and, as always, we do as she says.

40

EZLA

My small fist bangs against the taalk, mouth open as I scream, not caring that it is causing me to lose more air in my desperation to escape, escape, escape . . .

“Let me out!” I try to shout the words, but all that comes out are bubbles and a muffled, warped version of my plea.

I slam my fist against the enclosure again, and my knuckles split, tainting the water red.

“Let me out, Father!”

On the other side of the clear wall, he watches me calmly.

Let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out, let me—

“It has only been half an hour. The test is double that, my dearest. You will be okay.” His distorted words find me in the tank.

I shake my head frantically, the water working against each movement. Slamming my palms into the wall, I scream again, but find liquid flooding my airways when I try to suck in air that is not there. I convulse, chest burning, lungs begging, pleading for oxygen.

The last thing I hear before my limbs start to fall numb and the familiar blackness takes hold once more is my father’s hazy voice: “You will be eleven tomorrow. This is what big girls do. The Avri will keep you alive, Daughter, no matter how many times you drown. Once you fear no more, I will let you out . . .”

***

Shooting upright in bed, I gasp for breath as if I am still drowning, hands grasping at my throat. Sweat covers every inch of me, silky onyx sheets sticking to my naked body.

Stupid fucking nightmares.

I get them almost every night when I sleep in his bed.

I remember that day like it was just yesterday: the pure terror I felt, the way the Avri cleared my airways as commanded, healing me, only for the unforgiving water to take me under again every handful of minutes. My father both wanted to see if he could enable me to breathe underwater using the energy commanded to heal—ordering it to fix any issues before I could die any time it got so far—and to crush any ideas I had of being afraid. And while the former failed due to Avri’s limits in medical use meaning it can only be commanded to heal damage done rather than prevent it entirely before it actually happens, the latter was a success.

I went numb for the first time that day.