Page 38 of The Bonding Games: Part 2

It’s true—we’ve all tried. And the way Cooper spoke about it describes the situation perfectly. She’s simply . . . not there. And the only way I can think of for her to be so thoroughly gone . . .

My breathing grows shallower, and Scotty lets out a harsh breath from where he stands on my other side, wrapping a steadying arm around me. Or it would be steadying if it weren’t trembling faintly to reveal his own fear and stress over the situation.

“She’s not gone. She’s not dead.” He keeps his eyes firmly on the entrance as he says that, as if willing Ezla to appear, sure she will if he only stares hard enough. And he tries to speak those statements strongly, as if they’re true facts that he’s sure of, but his voice wobbles minutely on the last word.

Cooper drags an agitated hand through his hair and grabs a fistful roughly, head tipping back slightly as if he might lose it any second now. “This isn’t right, Scotty. The bond, how late she is. This is all fucking wrong.”

“Do you—do you think she tried to do what—whatever she was going to do with our cubes, and it went wrong?” Alby asks, hushed and quavering.

Scotty swallows. He’s quiet for a while, thinking things through, but I know he must have already. This is just him stalling.

Finally he says lowly, “Yes. Yes, I think that’s a real possibility.”

I inhale sharply in time with Alby. Cooper’s jaw clenches, and Tate’s grey eyes flash with the promise of total destruction.

Scotty wouldn’t tell us that if he weren’t convinced of its truth. If it was more likely that we’re worrying for no reason, that he believed less catastrophic things could be true, he would give us hope. He wouldn’t want to cause any unnecessary panic.

“Fuck. We’re going. Right now. We’re going into that building. I don’t care about the consequences—”

“Well, well, what do we have here?” a conceited drawl cuts Tate’s furiously ground-out words off.

Tensing, I flick my gaze to our right.

Aider and his two bonded Exots stand there with matching smirks on their arrogant faces.

Tate lets out a bitter laugh, slightly—or a lot—deranged. “Oh, someone wants to die today. Showing your faces after what you did to my Havoc? You’re fucking dead—starting with you, 87.” He lunges with a vicious snarl, and not one of my brothers stops him. In fact, we all advance as one, even my quiet bestie wearing a menacing glare I didn’t know his innocent features could create.

My gloved fists clench with enough force to crack my knuckles as I prepare to—

“Have you not heard the news?”

Everyone freezes. We all take in Aider’s unwavering uplifted lips, the way neither he nor his two dogs have moved a muscle, unconcerned that we were about to rip them apart right here and now, that we still could.

“What news?” Tate demands—before apparently deciding he doesn’t care and that Aider’s just stalling as he takes another wrathful step forwards.

But he stills completely when Player 87 says, “About the Champion, of course.”

Dizziness muddles my head in an instant, and Scotty’s fingers dig into my shoulder.

Me and my brothers don’t speak. I don’t think any of us are even breathing as he continues, “There was a . . . situation in the Avri labs yesterday. Heard there was a bloodbath.”

“Caused by my Havoc?” Tate demands, his eyes taking on a bloodthirsty look, pupils expanding as if he can’t help but be excited by the thought of Ezla in action even now.

One that instantly disappears when Player 84 speaks. “No. By her father.”

I gape.

The Game Master . . . Joseph, who’s always put on a charming front . . .

Brows pinched, Scotty says, “What? That doesn’t make sense.”

And it really doesn’t. We might know how unhinged and cruel the Game Master is, but no one else does, and he wouldn’t just drop his years-held public persona like that.

What the hell is going on?

“Why not? He did it to protect his beloved daughter. Apparently, those in the Avri labs were treating her poorly. Threatening her,” Aider tells us.

“And how do you know this?” Cooper demands forcefully.