Page 48 of The Bonding Games: Part 1

He freezes like a deer caught in headlights. “Uhhhhh . . .”

“Just give your name and age,” I advise.

“No! Stop trying to spread your boring influence!” Then Tiger turns imploring eyes on Alby. “Bestie, don’t listen to him! Express yourself! Like a butterfly!”

Elbow resting on the arm crossed over my middle, my thumb and forefinger trap the bridge of my nose. “You don’t have to, Alby.”

“Um . . . okay,” he squeaks, before clearing his throat and trying again, his fair skin stained a deep pink, “Okay. I-I’m Alby White. I’m nineteen, and I’m from Evot Training School 246. Umm . . . I’m not sure if I have a favourite colour . . . Maybe—maybe just green? Or blue? But I haven’t seen any blue in a while . . . other than the, uh, sky . . .”

When he trails off, Cooper starts speaking, and I’ll give him points for that because it seems he’d recognised Alby’s steadily increasing anxiety. “I’m Cooper Nealson. I’m twenty and went to EvTS 290. My birthday’s in a couple months.”

Seeing that’s all he’ll share, our attention all falls on Tate.

“Tate Callow. 202. Twenty-one,” he grunts.

At least he participated.

“And Ezla’s mine.”

This is going to be a long seven weeks.

***

We all stand in the Training Centre, frozen in place.

After finishing breakfast, we decided we’d come here to get to know each other’s fighting styles better since we’re now a Bonded group and will be working together to defeat opponents in the upcoming Games—some of whom we’ve attended school with for years.

I try not to think about that.

Which is pretty easy at this very moment when all of my being is focused on the lithe helmeted figure darting around inside the Simulation Hexagon.

It should be impossible to move that fast, with so much skill. Yet Ezla Zefron makes it look completely effortless. And maybe for her, it is. With a Score of 99, I can’t imagine many things posing a challenge for her.

With my own Score of 83, I’m usually quite proud of myself, and I was pleased with my performance when I used the Hexagon a couple times myself over the past week, easily passing Level Hard with the time set to 10.

But Ezla puts me to shame.

There’s six levels and six times to choose from: for the levels, there’s Easy, Medium, Hard, Advanced, Expert, and Master, and for the times, which are in minutes, there’s 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30.

I’m almost certain Ezla has the simulation set to Master – 30.

However, I can’t be completely sure because the entirety of the room is crowded around the large taalk shape, hiding the control panel; Players glowing both green and red watch my Bonded’s display in awe, utterly mesmerised.

My Bonded.

Christ, that feels weird to think.

I never thought much about who my Bonded would be before the Games. I always knew I wouldn’t mind whether the relationship between us would be romantic or platonic, and I’m not sure why, but I’ve always had this feeling that me and my brother would end up here together. I didn’t see another option. I’d prefer we weren’t generated at all, but me being with him is the best scenario I could’ve hoped for. And with all the planning that feeling provoked, the need to ensure both me and my brother were completely happy with the Exot or Exots we’d choose was always paramount. But never in a million years did I expect that person to be the Champion.

She was never even an option.

It’s not because of any fault of hers, rather the opposite—she was so far above our level we didn’t even consider that we could attempt to bond her. Not until we were left with the options of certain death if we ended up without a Bonded at the end of Game 1, or pretty certain death by attempting to claim the only available Exot left in the arena.

But by some miracle, our limbs didn’t end up scattered around The Dome in a morbid display of victory like that poor Evot’s did in last year’s Game 1 as a result of Ezla’s wicked ways.

Instead, The Bonding Games Champion became mine.

And four others’.