Page 53 of Lies That Bleed
I turned to Alek, giving Kohen my back. I couldn’t deal with this right now. He was playing games. Iknew it. My father murdered his. There was no way his kind gestures were authentic.
“Do you think we will get put into wing training soon?” I asked Alek. “I bet Instructor Ashendell will be our trainer.” He was hawk bonded, like her. All those who bonded with a beast of the air had special “wing training.” Just as those who bonded with a water animal had water training.
He nodded. “That’s exactly what I think,” he agreed and popped a piece of bacon in his mouth. We all chatted casually for the next ten minutes until the lights went off in the room, plunging us into darkness.
“This is a drill, get ready,” I told everyone. Elaine warned me about this. Random attack drills. A mean thing to do on day two.
The mess hall door was kicked open and low emergency lights flicked on as a dozen instructors wearing gas masks walked inside. One had a bullhorn. “This is a drill to assess your readiness for battle! Prepare to be tested!” It was Ashendell. I recognized her voice.
I pulled off my shirt, sitting in just my sports bra, and wrapped the shirt around my nose and mouth.
Everyone at my table looked at me like I’d grown two heads, everyone but Kohen. He stared at me with eyes that felt like they were on fire, blazing right through my soul.
“They are wearing masks for a reason, you idiots!” I told everyone at my table.
Tetra and everyone else followed my lead, pullingoff their shirts and wrapping them around their mouths. I then grabbed my plastic knife and crawled under the table. Everyone else followed my lead.
That’s when the smoke grenades went off.
“You’ve just been fired on,” Ashendell screamed through the bullhorn. “In the middle of breakfast while you are still barely awake. Your weapons are back in the armory, your creatures are outside, and the enemy is about to attack. What do you do?”
Coughing rang throughout the space as our fellow students gagged and choked, their eyes burning and running with tears. Still, there were fifty of us and twelve of them.
I had an idea.
Leaping up onto the table top, I pointed at the instructors. “Even without weapons, there are more of us than there are of them!” I shouted. “We rush them on three!” And my entire table stood at the ready as the rest of our fellow cadets began to fall in line.
“One.” Even though my fellow cadets were coughing and throwing up, they stood and grabbed a plastic utensil, food tray, whatever they could. The instructors fanned out, anticipating the attack.
“Two!” We spread out as well, forming two lines of twenty-five people each.
“Thr—”
“Congratulations. You passed.” Instructor Ashendell pulled the bullhorn to her lips. The lights came on,the doors behind the instructors opened, and the smoke stopped.
My eyes burned. Tears streaked down my face, but when Instructor Ashendell yanked off her mask, she was grinning at me.
“Lesson of the day,” she screamed into the bullhorn. “Have a weapon on you at all times.”
Then they left, like nothing had just happened.
“Holy hell,” Tetra said, standing in her hot pink sports bra with her shirt still bunched over her mouth and her rubber cane raised like a bat.
“I need fresh air,” I called out. My eyes were burning. I ran for the back door that the instructors had just left out of. There were no windows in here. What a stupid design. It was like being in a sarcophagus.
I stepped out of the mess hall and into the hallway, but stopped when I heard voices around the corner.
“We’ve never had a drill solved that early,” a male instructor was saying. “That’s a record.” I didn’t recognize his voice.
“Well, yeah, she’s the future empress. What did you expect?” Another male voice I couldn’t recognize through the mask they wore. But I didn’t want to eavesdrop and get in trouble, so I backed up only to stop at what I heard next.
“Not if we take care of her in here she’s not,” an older male said. This one seemed like it might be familiar, but the damn gas mask was making it hard to hear.
Take care of her?
My chest heaved at the threat, and I was about to march over there and demand he remove his mask and show himself when a hand came around my mouth and dragged me backward. I was going to fight when I smelled that it was Kohen. His fingers permanently smelled of fragrant spices, which I had grown to love.
Damn.
