Page 264 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

00:14

My head snaps Player 4’s way.

He’s done.

I dart out my trembling hand, palm up for the cube.

He doesn’t give it to me.

Panic envelopes every cell in my body.

Those feral eyes are glued to Ezla’s bonding cube, overpowered by a dangerous reverence . . . a deadly, obsessive worship . . . a lethal hunger . . .

00:11

“Give it to him, 4,” Tiger urges, alarm leaking into his tone.

He looks up.

A blink.

00:09

No recognition.

“He helped you! He’s part of the reason you have her! GIVE IT TO HIM!”

That gets to him.

00:06

In a flash, he slaps the Champion’s bonding cube into my hand, and faster than I’ve ever done anything in my life, I slam it against my own with exactly five seconds remaining on the clock.

15

ALBY

I know the moment the bond snaps into place, because a tsunami of unmitigated, devastating fury tries to knock me off my feet.

And it’s definitely not mine.

Guilt overwhelms me, but the relief is too strong to ignore: I made it. I survived Game 1.

But looking around, I realise many did not.

Bodies are everywhere. Littered all over the arena floor. With the regeneration serum in their veins at 0%, streams of crimson seep from them and the limbs strewn about with no identifiable owner.

Only about half the original number of Players are left standing.

Sadness weighs down on me, nausea flipping my insides over, and I search for any faces from Evot Training School 246 in the cluster of Players in the middle of the arena, the coppery tang of spilled blood snaking up my nostrils.

A huff of relief leaves me, some of the heaviness lifting when I find Jodine and Dex standing with the malevolent Player 59, and Iggy Benson beside a pale-skinned Exot woman and two others who I can’t make out too well from here.

But what’s not at all calming is the sight of Troy Hurst and Aider Cole stood with two other strong men emanating a deadly red glow.

My stomach falls through the ground.

No doubt, the two Exots they’ve bonded are just as bad as, if not worse than, them.