Page 838 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

“Hmm . . . I do see where you are coming from.”

“Yes, Wifey! And just think of the way we’ll get out the limo—”

As Tiger launches into an enthusiastic monologue of exactly how our “fabulous night of magical wonder” will go, I keep my eyes on Ezla, and I don’t miss the way her spine has loosened for the first time, nor the way her lips twitch.

As though she could almost smile as she listens to him speak.

51

EZLA

After leaving the Bonded chambers, back in my own clothes and with a spew of vicious curses, desperate pleas, and heated arguments from five overdramatic men echoing in my ears, I stride through the halls of The Bonding Games Headquarters’ central building with all my armour back up.

Armour that should have never come down.

Something is changing within me, too fast over the most recent few days especially. And I do not like it.

Weeks ago, I would never have been so stupid—never would I have eaten dinner with anyone other than my father and whoever else he occasionally requires me to when we have guests. Certainly not weak Evots.

Yet the term weak does not seem fitting for my Bonds. Not a single one of them.

But that does not explain or excuse my behaviour.

I wonder if Father will kill me for this.

And I wonder if I should have stayed.

But it would make no difference to my physical well-being, and so I keep moving, unfeeling as always.

Except it is harder to be so when I do feel recently. Too much.

Get rid of it, Ezla.

And I try, I have tried. But they are stuck in me like a fucking virus.

Pausing when I reach my destination, I extend my thumb, and the biometric scanner on the wall before me reads my print through my fitted gloves; the glossy black door beside it rises with a gentle whoosh into the wall above, and I keep moving forwards without a hitch to the next identical door revealed, inputting a code into this one that is added for extra security. Another empty stretch, but the double doors fifteen feet away are glass this time, signifying the end of the hallway that takes me from this building to the Techtis Council’s, and these swing open when they sense me, admitting me into the hellhole.

Workers mill about, Neutrals, Evots, and Exots alike, but I pay them no mind as they spring out of my way, hardly able to bask in the thrill I normally do at the terror permeating the over-cleansed air while I march across the expansive, luxurious lobby to the silver lift on the far wall. Of course, this is one of the rare buildings in Techta where you will find black less common than other colours—in this case, the silver accents and colourless shiny glass everywhere, The Council’s overinflated sense of self-importance clear in every line of the pretentious place.

Providing my fingerprint once on the panel outside the lift to allow me access, I step inside, then scan my thumb another time for admittance to the floor I need. Then I wait like a sentinel, spine perfectly straight and head held high as I am carried upwards, higher and higher.

The doors open on the top floor.

Entirely dedicated to the Game Master and his beloved daughter, the penthouse has everything and anything one could possibly need or want and two never-ending floors to share it all between: multiple training rooms that are smaller than those in the Training Centre but just as effective, a swimming pool, two dining rooms, two lounges, multiple bathrooms, a bar, a spa room, a games room, a library, a home theatre, a kitchen . . . And if it were not for my experiences, I might have loved it.

But I despise it.

I despise the smell, the scent of freshness mixed with that ever-present woody black pepper snaking throughout. I despise the vast masses of empty space in every room and the echoes they create, how they alert the monster living between these walls to my presence every time I am here without fail. And I especially despise the fact that there is enough space for multiple bedrooms, and yet there are only two. And that is only the case at all because one was to be my room as a child before I moved in with my father for good when he deemed me old enough.

I was thirteen.

Without allowing any room for fear, I keep striding onwards, moving through the penthouse to the smaller dining room my father likes to have us eat in when we are alone, which is very unfortunately close to all the time. At least when we have guests, he has to pretend to not be a pervert and is more careful about where he puts his filthy hands.

Walking through the open doorway and into the dining room, I stop short.

Everything on this level is actually closer to the T-shaped building of the Headquarters in the way that it is covered in gleaming onyx, but there is only luminous red Avri to decorate the taalk since my father can never resist flaunting our status; he believes us to be superior to Neutrals and Evots, and I will admit, I had believed the same as him. That I still do. And yet I am not blind.

My Evots are worthy. Every one of them.