Page 53 of Tender Thorns
“It could have been worse, right? I mean, what if those bugs were actually effective and touched me?” She shudders. “I feel bad for wanting to thank you for killing him, but…” She leaves the rest hanging.
“I should have killed them all, but they would have me put down if I did,” I admit, hoping it will explain why I didn’t do a better job of shielding her.
“If I went around killing everyone who tried to do me in first, the stench of death would be smothering.” She shrugs in acceptance. “Ziv said you’d know where to go next.”
“Food, I’m supposed to take you to get food.”
“Huh, for the first time in forever, I’m not starving, but I could eat. What’s after lunch?”
“Combat,” I answer robotically.
“Yay, I can’t wait to get my ass kicked again. Maybe I won’t eat. Last time, I wanted to throw up a couple times.”
I have no idea how to respond to her or her chattering. She finally looks over her shoulder and realizes I stopped walking a while ago. “Aren’t you coming?” Her features fall, letting me see her disappointment at the idea of me not accompanying her.
“I’m coming.”
She perks up. “Good, I’m not sure I could find it from here.” Disappointment weighs heavily on me with her explanation. For a moment there, I allowed myself to believe she was happy because she was with me. “I was also hoping we could…I don’t know, talk,” she offers while looking at the ground. The ugly feeling of irrelevance dissipates with her shy proposal.
“What do you want to talk about?” I question hesitantly. I’m not sure how I’m going to respond if she asks what I was doing under her bed.
“Whatever, I’d just like to get to know you, if that’s okay. I mean, I get it if you don’t want to,” she says quickly, as if she’s giving me an out.
“Okay,” is all I can manage, but she gives me a little smile in response, then starts walking again, only to turn down the wrong hall.
ZIV
The first whispers of things going awry in Arnold’s class filter into the arena only a couple hours after I left Briar with Kage. I know someone is dead, but not much else, other than it wasn’t Briar. I felt her through our bond, plucking at strands of emotions I have little experience with, like vulnerability, humiliation, and being violated. The last one was the hardest to ignore. It takes every bit of my concentration to stay in the arena and trust Kage to take care of her.
I watch the clock. She will meet me in the arena when she’s finished, which is both a comfort and a torment. The minutestick by so slowly, I begin to wonder if there isn’t a god messing with time to fuck with me.
When novices gather around a male who just entered the sand, I listen in on his recount of being in Arnold’s class. “It was insane. Doyle would have killed her with the first shot, but she just stood there like he didn’t try to fry her heart.”
“He and Syn grew up together,” a dark-haired female defends, searching the faces around her.
The same male snorts. “He was also fucking her.”
“No, he wasn’t!” she snaps back, but her denial lacks conviction. When she doesn’t receive any support from the other novices around her, she storms away, causing several snickers.
“He was fucking Syn, but so were about five other guys. I don’t know why she cares so much, since she’s fucking Micah.”
“She’s just pissed Doyle wouldn’t try to kill anyone for her. She wants everything to be about her. What else happened?” If this didn’t involve Briar, I never would have entertained this bullshit, but I find myself eager for the male to continue.
“Everyone in the class had a go at her, and Syrinx just stood there and watched.” He whispers the last half of the sentence while looking around like she might show up.
“Then what happened to Eli?”
“Fuck, that was…”
I’ve moved near enough that I can see the wince on his face.
“I’ve never even seen some of the shit he sent at her—huge-ass spiders and bugs with so many legs, I’m going to have nightmares.” He rubs the skin on his arm like he’s imagining the things crawling on him. “You couldn’t even see her at one point, they covered her completely, and then the next thing you know” —he claps his hands, and several of the novices jump— “Eli is screaming.”
“She fought back?”
“I thought so at first, but it wasn’t her. It was Kage.” You can tell by the grin on the male’s lips that he loves all the attention he’s getting, so he’s dragging this out for dramatic effect. “I didn’t even see him move, but Syrinx knew it was him right away.”
“Kage killed Eli? Did he get in trouble?”
