Page 68 of Resolve
Silas grips his arm and taps his temple against the vine ball, closing his eyes. “Portals appeared under us at the board member’s house. We fell into cages, and then we were dragged out here an hour ago after a day with no food or water.” He swallows hard, and I wish I still had some of that water left for him. “It’s a fight between us and them. For their entertainment,” he spits out. His eyes flip open, pinning to the scoreboard above us. “Charles said we made our choice, so he made his. They’re betting on how long we’ll last, and the fighting agents get rewards for killing us.”
The half a sandwich I ate now churns in my gut. Maybe eating that wasn’t a good idea.
When I look at Aiden, he’s checking the pulse of a Guild member. He drops his hand, his face tight and hard. He surveys the arena, the agents striding from the doors and then standing to the side, as if they’re all waiting for a signal. Aiden stands, his whip sword stretching and sharpening around his feet.
A bright light and buzzing snaps my attention to the left. Jackson’s blade is stuck in some sort of electrified force field above the bordering wall. There’s a flicker of energy that runs through the air, revealing a dome over us. The door we came through is alreadyblocked by a wall of concrete.
Even if I had the time to break through it, could we all escape together in time?
I peek through a break in the vines. There’s a body in there, but the vines are so dense I can’t make them out. “Who’s in there?”
“Evie,” Silas answers. “She got thrown into that fucking electrical field and stopped breathing. I got her back, but…” He clenches his jaw and stares at the ground.
Kellan walks up behind him and squeezes his uninjured shoulder.
Aiden and Jackson join us.
“Just stay here and protect Evie. We’ll take care of the rest,” Aiden says.
“Are any of the others…?” I start, but he shakes his head, and another wave of nausea rolls through me.
Closing my eyes, I take a slow breath and reach for my gift. It responds eagerly, permeating my body with a soft burn that I revel in now. It floods my veins, burning away the nausea and replacing it with anger. Resolve.
Another bell rings.
The dozens of agents surrounding us break into a run.
“Cover me,” I shout, sprinting far enough away from Silas to try drawing their fire toward us instead of him, and then crouch. The guys circle me without question, blocking any attacks that come our way so I can concentrate. I push my fingers into the gritty sand and send my gift down. Down, and out.
My gift runs deep beneath the surface, hidden as it stretches in every direction. The arena echoes with grunts, screams, and the clash of metal. But I keep my focus on my gift as I keep it going, on and on until it’s beneath the entire arena.
And then beyond it.
I don’t know who the people dining at the tables are. All I know is that they’re betting on our lives, finding entertainment in the bloodshed, eating and drinking while our members were murdered in front of them.
I mark them all.
If I’m lucky, there might be board members in the crowd as well.
I don’t even feel the strain of spreading my gift so far and wide. It fills the massive room from end to end like an invisible trap.
Now.
I draw my gift to the surface, seeking out the bodies above and spreading destruction like a disease. Agents and spectators alike scream when my gift touches them. Stone cracks and shifts under our feet. The attacks stop as people try to run. Or they fall from the pain, and my gift attacks more of them at once, eating away at them until they’re nothing but husks.
Aiden, Jackson, and Kellan suddenly fly off their feet, thrown halfway across the arena.
I whip around to see what caused it, preparing for an attack, just as Charles raises a gun at me from only a few feet away.
Fuck.
A gunshot fires before I can think of what to do next. I’m frozen in place, staring at the gun when the sound registers.
Charles lands face-first at my feet, a hole blown through the back of his head.
My heart thrashes, shock seizing my lungs as I try to work out what the fuck just happened.
I’m not dead.
