Page 31 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

Half an hour left.

We can’t keep running from Player 100 forever, we have to find someone else to bond now that neither of those boys are available.

My chest squeezes at the thought of them.

So fucking young.

And one of them is dead. His head and body left to be squashed by our tribikes.

But I can’t break down. I’m the one who needs to keep it together, to stay strong for Tiger and the quiet boy I’ve taken under my wing who’s quickly becoming like a second brother to me. I need to keep us all alive. But if not all of us can make it . . .

“I’ll distract her.”

Tiger’s helmet swings in my direction. “What?! No! Why the fuck would you say that? I’m not leaving you!”

“Tiger—”

“No, he’s right.”

A bolt of surprise shoots through me at Alby’s voice, firmed with resolve, albeit with a shake to it. He continues, “We can’t separate. We’re stronger and safer together.”

“Exactly! We stick together! The Powerpuff Girls always stick together!”

I don’t know how my brother can say that so seriously, but now is not the time to mull it over.

The Bonding Games Champion is right behind us.

“Box her in.”

They obey me without question.

Falling back, we silently agree on me and Tiger each taking a side of her, with Alby slowing gradually, planning to get behind her; it’s certain death if he were to try and block her from the front with the way Ezla charges at her opponents with no qualms about potentially damaging herself in the process.

Not that I’ve ever seen that happen. It’s like she’s indestructible.

Maybe she’s made of taalk under all that armour?

But at least he’ll have a smidge of an advantage to prepare himself if she tries to reverse on him and flatten him under her wheels that way.

It’s way too easy to do as planned, and that should’ve been my first warning that this isn’t going to go at all how I wanted it to. But now that I’m in this position, I’m not even sure exactly what it is that I want to do. I could swear I had a plan before I got here. I always have a plan.

“Hello, boys.”

At Ezla’s purring, robotically modified voice, a jolt zaps through my entire body.

“Got something for me?”

A chill glides down my spine . . . and my cock thickens.

What . . . the . . . fuck.

So distracted by her voice, her words, and my body’s bizarre reaction to both—as well as my brother’s outlandish response of, “Oh . . . well, hello there. As a matter of fact, I think you’ve just given something to me,” that matches my body’s tone, as if he’s trying to fucking flirt with her—especially when I did not feel like this when watching her on television . . . I don’t realise what’s happening until it’s too late.

Until my left arm is sliced clean off at the armpit by one of Ezla’s curved Avri daggers.

And my brother’s right one.

I cry out at the same time as him, less from the pain and more from the disbelief—the pain isn’t actually horrific; it’s not nice in the slightest, but not as bad as it should be as I watch the limb that was once attached to my body scatter in a rain of translucent green pixels on the taalk below. I’m just struggling to process the fact that the Champion so easily cut my motherfucking arm off like she’d slice carrots for dinner! I mean, I’ve got one arm right now! There’s not even any blood! As if I’m currently made of nothing but Avri pixels! I’ve seen this on TV, but actually experiencing it . . .