Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (14 page)

I smiled widely, knowing I'd won. "I can. Help me put on some ointment and wrap up all these little cuts," I said, though I knew that wasn’t what he meant. I went into the bathroom and pulled out the small energy cartridge digging into my stomach. It was strange to see it in my ordinary bathroom, something from
that place
infiltrating the mundane life. I wrapped it and the armored vest bands in my ruined clothes to hide it and took a quick shower.
 

I returned to my room in baggy pajamas to find Zed waiting with the medbot. I tossed the bundle of clothes into my closet.

He helped me to rub the disinfectant cream over most of my cuts. "What did this to you? Never mind.” He snorted. “I suppose you won't tell me."

I smiled. "That's right. Thank you.”
 

The sound of the front door opening filtered through the house, and we looked at each other in panic.
 

Zed quickly shooed me into my bed and pulled the cover over me, then slipped the first aid kit and medbot next to my feet as my mother called out to us.

“Go,” I said.
 

“I’ll keep her away.” He opened my door and called, “Welcome home,” to her. He turned and threw me a glance over his shoulder. A look that said I owed him one.
 

I raised an eyebrow and smiled. I did owe him one. But I couldn't repay him with the answers I knew he craved.
 

When he was gone, I rose and locked the door again. Then I returned to my bed and extended my palm. Seeds appeared in a ripple of the air and dropped into my hand. I chose two and held them to my neck, planting them into Resilience.
 

By the morning, I had healed more than I thought possible. "Note to self. Resilience is useful.”

Log of Captivity 2

Mental Log of Captivity-Estimated Day: Two thousand, five hundred ninety-seven.

My link to my master has been growing stronger, but only today did I realize how weak she is. She must be still young, still new. I am needed as a protector, and yet I am confined by these
two-leg-maggots
while she is in danger. I could do nothing but send my words to her again, but I received nothing back. I suspect this is because the
blood-covenant
is still incomplete, only one-sided. I despise my own uselessness. If my
mother-lord
saw me, she would spit at my feet.

Chapter 11

The caged bird sings of freedom.

— Maya Angelou

I opened my window to let warm summer air flow through my room and placed the two black tokens on the windowsill. My own token, sharp and bold, with hidden edges that just might cut if touched the wrong way. The boy's, looping and delicate. It matched him, too fragile to protect himself.
 

An exploding heat inside of me forced its way out. Hatred, helplessness and self-loathing raged in me, and I swallowed them down, slumping boneless to the floor. Small sounds like those of a wounded animal came from my throat as I cried—great, heaving sobs.
 

I'd thought I deserved better than the horror NIX put me through, thought I was just another victim, thought I was good. But it turned out I was just a hypocrite.
 

Zed would have made a better Player than me. He wouldn't have used his first Seeds so selfishly, so stupidly, and he would never have seen a small child gather for a Trial, and then leave to protect himself without a second thought for the boy.
 

I cried until snot and tears soaked into the rough carpet under my face. When I finally stopped, I felt better. Zed would have handled the situation better, definitely, but thank God the universe didn't see fit to punish him that way and make him a Player. However, I
was
a Player, and that wasn't going to change.
 

"Who I am isn't going to change, either." I wiped my wet face against my sleeve. I couldn't change, and I didn't want to. I cared about my own survival. I wanted to live, and I would do anything to make that happen. But if I could do it all again, I'd protect the kid from the beginning. Now it was too late for him, but there would be other chances. Other chances to make sure I didn't regret my actions.
 

I went to the bathroom, washed my face with cold water, and looked at myself hard in the mirror. Blotches covered my face and my eyes were puffy and red from crying, but my gaze didn't waver.
 

I wouldn't feel guilty again, I vowed. I returned to my Skill tokens and picked them up. I would need power to back that promise.
 

* * *

I asked Bunny a question I'd been wondering about for a while. "Do Players ever commit suicide?"

He took his time answering.
 

YES. YOU’RE NOT THINKING OF…

—Bunny—

"No, no, I'm not. I'm more the type to cling to life with my fingernails. I don't have the constitution to kill myself. I was just curious."

WELL, I’VE ONLY HEARD RUMORS FROM OTHER MODERATORS. IT HASN’T HAPPENED TO ME.

—Bunny—

"What happens to them—the Players that kill themselves?"

WELL, THEY’RE DEAD. BUT OTHER THAN THAT, WE SEND OUT THE CLEANERS FOR THE BODY, MAKE SURE THERE’S NO SUICIDE NOTE WITH INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE, ETC. NO ONE WILL FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM.

—Bunny—

"What do the cleaners do with the bodies?"

I DON’T KNOW. THAT’S NOT PART OF MY JOB, AND I’M NOT PRIVY TO THAT INFORMATION.

—Bunny—

"Well, I've never seen someone start out as a dead body at the beginning of the Trial. That's happens later," I joked bitterly. "So at least they escaped that."

DEAD PLAYERS ARE TAKEN OFF THE LISTS OF ACTIVE PLAYERS, SO I THINK SO. WHAT WOULD BE THE POINT TO SEND A DEAD PERSON TO THE TRIAL?

—Bunny—

"Yeah," I said, and dropped the issue. But I filed that tidbit away in the back of my mind. All information was important when it came to NIX and the Game. I never knew what might someday save my life.
 

That didn't end up being the information that saved my life. In fact, it very nearly got me killed.

* * *

I held the token the boy had given me to my neck and spoke aloud, experimenting. “I wish I had the Skill ‘Tumbling Feather.’ ”

I felt a familiar pain as it pricked my skin and injected its hidden contents into me.

A window popped up.
 

YOU HAVE GAINED A NEW SKILL: TUMBLING FEATHER

I waited for side effects, something strange or burning or a sense of strength or well-being, but nothing happened. So I held my own token to my neck and spoke again. “I wish I had the Skill 'Spirit of the Huntress.' "

Again, no response in my body.
 

I looked out over the communal park stretching out beneath my fourth-floor window. My backyard. A tree obscured some of the view, its branches almost close enough to touch. I leaned forward absentmindedly to see if I could reach.
 

A small bird fluttered toward me, chirping angrily, and then disappeared into the thick foliage.
 

My breathing slowed as I watched for it to appear again. A flutter, a flap of wings, and a flash of movement between the leaves. I crawled onto my windowsill and reached forward, then pulled myself onto the closest branch. It dipped a little under my weight, but held strong.
 

I crept forward, and found the bird again. It darted away, chittering what I could tell were insults from the tone. My head snapped around to follow its path, and I pressed myself closer to the branch. I wanted to chase it, to see if I could catch it. Then I realized what I was doing. The trance-like state snapped away.
 

I gasped and froze, but before I could move to safety, my vision went blurry, my head started to spin, and my whole body began to burn and tingle. I wrapped my arms around the tree branch and hung on, squeezing from the terror of not knowing if I was about to fall off or not, because my balance was shot. My stomach rolled and I heaved a little, bile spilling out of my mouth. My fingers felt like burning hot knives were piercing through the tips of them, and suddenly something was cutting my skin where my hands overlapped the opposite forearm. It hurt, but I was too disoriented and terrified to loosen my grip. Was I dying? Was NIX finally killing me?

"No," I groaned, and heaved again, spewing sourness as my body started into mini convulsions. I bit my lip until the iron taste of blood spilled onto my tongue. I realized I was probably having an adverse reaction to the Skills I'd just gained. If so, I only had to wait a few minutes and it would subside.
 

So I held on even tighter as both stars and waves of darkness burst across my eyes, my arms bled, and my body burned and shook.
 

But the symptoms didn't subside. They grew worse, my grip on the trunk somehow slipped, and then my body twisted off, and I fell.
 

The wind brushed my skin like a caress as I plummeted, and I slammed into the branch below and bounced off. Then the next branch, and the next. I felt like a little metal ball in one of those old pinball machines. But somewhere on the way down, I started to understand the twisting of my body, the pushes and pulls that moved it. I caught a branch with my arms and almost ripped them out of the sockets trying to slow myself. The next branch I hit with both feet, but still slipped.
 

Then I slammed into the ground, but spread some impact through my ankles and knees before throwing myself sideways. A few bruising tumbles later and I came to a stop, four stories below where I'd started out, and still alive.
 

I crawled to my hands and knees, making a mental examination of my body. The wounds from the day before, though somewhat better, were all still there. Duh. The pain, shaking, and sensory disorientation were gone. A few cuts, definitely some bruises. But nothing serious compared to what I'd been through lately. Except that below my face, pressed into the weak grass, short bloody claws tipped my fingers.
 

I rose to my feet and held my hands in front of me, curling and uncurling my fingers. Everything was strangely clear and light, as if the sun had gotten brighter. I looked around to make sure I hadn't been transferred to a Trial without realizing it, but it was the same world I'd always known. The same backyard, unexceptional except for me, the girl who'd just fallen four stories out a window and landed on her feet.
 

My forearms bled from puncture wounds, no doubt caused by the claws, when I was clinging onto the branch for dear life. I spit red and tried to wipe the blood from my ravaged lip. I was shaking, tired and feeling half-drunk. I took a few deep breaths to steady myself and shut out the outside world. “Display Characteristic Skills,” I choked out.
 

 
I swallowed. “Oh. My. God.” This type of thing was something I hadn’t even imagined. The bonuses were amazing. “Bunny! What just happened? This Skill, it’s—I’ve—” I searched for words, hitching.
 

HEY. LOOKS LIKE YOU’VE GOT A COUPLE CHARACTERISTIC SKILLS. AND ONE IS QUITE GOOD. THE PERCENTAGE OF SPIRIT CLASS SKILLS IS VERY LOW, FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND.

—Bunny—

A few moments passed while I took it all in, and then a slow smile spread across my face. “Lucky me.”
 

I slunk back into my house and hid out in my room, and hid the empty Characteristic token shells in a side pocket of my pack. Somewhere along the way my nails returned to normal, which I was grateful for. I decided to skip school, and stayed in my room trying to make the claws come out again.
 

Zed helped to cover for me again with my mom, though not without some frustration when he saw the new cuts on my forearms. I felt guilty for causing him so much worry, but I couldn't tell him the truth. Even if I did, it would do nothing but cause him more stress.
 

I fell asleep at some point, with the sun shining on me through my open window, and woke when a shadow passed in front of the light, darkening my closed eyelids. Something poked my shoulder.
 

I jumped and shot straight up, attacking.
 

By the time I registered that little China was the one standing in front of me, I had both of her thin arms squeezed in my hands, the claws were bared, and my lips pulled back from my teeth in silent menace.
 

Her eyes and mouth gaped open, surprised and speechless.
 

I relaxed my grip on her and sat back onto the bed. "Sorry, China. You surprised me."

"Yeah, apparently." She rubbed her arms where I'd grabbed them. "You weren't at school today, what happened?" Her eyes caught on the cuts and bruises that covered my exposed skin. "Are you okay?"
 

I frowned and nodded. "Yeah. But why are you here?" I pushed my hair back from my face as if scraping the cobwebs from my mind. "How did you know I wasn't at school?"

"I go to Jefferson High, Eve. Didn't you know?"

I looked her up and down. She didn't look old enough to be a high school student.
 

She must have seen the doubt on my face, because she said, "I do!" and punctuated her words with emphatic stomp of her small foot. "Why does everybody think I look like a little kid?" She crossed her arms.
 

I chuckled. "Well, maybe you would be more convincing as a high school student if you didn't stomp your foot like a little girl."