Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (42 page)

My ID sheath rang only once before I picked up Bunny's call. "Bunny! Please, help me. Don't let this happen to him. I'll do anything, just help me!" I said, basically sobbing by the end.
 

"Calm down. Speak clearly. What's going on?"

"It's Zed, my brother. He took a Seed. He saw me use one right after the last Trial and found one of mine and he just made a wish and took it and now he's passed out and I'm so afraid." I took a deep breath. "He can't be a Player. I'll do anything, just please, tell me how to stop this. He doesn't deserve this." I breathed hard, waiting for his response.
 

"Eve…once the wish is made, there's nothing to be done. If he's been injected, it's already spread through his system. The acclimatization process is already starting. There is nothing I can do. There's nothing anyone can do. But…"

"What?" I snapped. "But what?"

"He would have been tested, too. If he's not a Player already, I can only guess that means he doesn't have the compatibility gene. Which means he's in serious danger."
 

"Explain."
 

"NIX chooses candidates that have the highest chance of surviving the acclimatization process the body has to go through to adapt to its first Seed. You were chosen. He wasn't."
 

"Are you saying he's going to die? No. No, he's not."
 

"I'm sorry," his subdued voice said.
 

It barely reached my ears, as I was too busy throwing Zed's limp body over my shoulder. I thanked the Seeds wordlessly for making me strong enough to carry him, at the same time cursing them for daring to touch him with their taint.
 

I made it back down to the pod I'd arrived in unnoticed, and stuffed him onto the empty back seats. Then I took the driver's seat, sent a Window to Sam, and floored the acceleration pedal on my way back to the base.
 

Sam and Blaine met me at the door and helped to carry Zed in and lay him in Blaine's lab.
 

"Keep him alive," I said. "He took one of my Seeds and it's killing him. So you two need to keep him alive."
 

Blaine hurried around the room, grabbing monitoring equipment and bags of IV fluid from their storage places, while Sam bent over Zed with one hand on his head and the other on his chest.
 

Sam closed his eyes for a few minutes, and then said to me, "I won't let him die."
 

I wondered for a moment if that was a promise he could keep, then shook the thought from my head. Sam could work miracles, literally. He would save my brother, because if he didn't I would kill him.
 

He said, "I can't stop the process that's been started, but if I can heal him fast enough and for long enough, I think I can keep him strong enough to survive it."

"You
think
?"

"I—I will. And Eve, I just want to say, I was wrong. Wrong about everything since the Intelligence Trial. I feel so responsible." His voice broke on the last bit, but his eyes didn't waver from mine.
 

I gave him a half smile. It was all I could afford without cracking into a quivering mess. "I can't judge. I've screwed
everything
up."
 

* * *

The whole team had gathered in Blaine's lab, watching Blaine and Sam work as I paced back and forth anxiously, asking how Zed was doing every five minutes. We’d postponed our departure a few hours to let the two work on him.

Finally, Sam took one last frustrated breath and snapped at me to leave. "The Seed is attacking his body on a cellular level. Keeping him stable is very difficult. It takes a lot of power and concentration, and you're making it harder."
 

I clenched my jaw, but then Blaine laid a hand on my shoulder. "He'll be fine even if you don't stay here and watch over him. We know what we're doing. Especially Sam. Go, get some rest."
 

I nodded and left the room after one last look at Zed. Instead of going to lay down, I went outside in my bare feet.
 

Early afternoon sun shone down with determined strength, and the lack of smog in the air around Blaine's remote property was noticeable in the subsequent lack of burning sensation in my nostrils. I dug my toes into the pleasantly cool grass and breathed deeply. Just as I had begun to force some tension out of my muscles, my ID sheath rang with Bunny's secret number. I picked up immediately.
 

"They've got your face," he said.
 

"What?"

"Your face, they've made drawings from the witness accounts. I've been sticking my nose in as much as possible without getting noticed, and I heard they're calling in some guy that monitors Players with potential. Apparently you were on the watch list because of some bestowals, special accomplishments in the Trials. If anyone can remember any of your information from looking at the drawing, you're screwed, Eve."

“I thought you were the only one who watched us?”

“I thought so, too. But you stood out, did well, and apparently it drew attention.”

"Crap."
 

"Yeah. If they figure out who you are, and they will, I think, then they're going to know I've been keeping your identity a secret. I'll be screwed, and I'm not going to be able to keep you safe."

"God. They're going to question you." I crouched down and buried my head between my knees.
 

"I won't tell them anything, I promise."

"You can't promise that. What if they torture you?" It wasn't really a question, and he knew it, too.
 

"I'm sorry, Eve," he said after a long pause. "I never wanted it to turn out like this."
 

"Yeah." I couldn't keep talking to him. I needed to be alone. "I've got to go, Bunny." I hung up before he could respond, stood, and walked barefoot into the forest surrounding Blaine's mansion.
 

The news wasn't so crushing. They would have found us all, sooner or later, I knew. But it added an pressure just a little too heavy to bear, on top of all the rest.
 

I walked under the weight for a long while, forcing my legs to bear the grueling burden that had built up over my never-ending day. Finally, I stopped, and let it all out in a scream that ripped through the woods around me like a ravenous beast.
 

Birds exploded out of their nests in terror, and small things chittered and squeaked as they raced away through the underbrush.
 

I screamed and kept screaming, pushing everything within me out into the air till my mind was a ringing, empty place. Then I crumpled to the ground and flailed at the dirt and decaying leaves with my claws, ripping at it so I didn't cut into my own flesh.
 

I opened my mouth in a straining, silent scream, flexing my muscles as I lost control of everything I'd been holding back for so long. Barriers inside creaked and cracked and broke, and everything slipped away from me.
 

Then something within the aching emptiness reached out to me. It enfolded me, wrapping around and holding me together with warmth and darkness.
 

I shuddered and sank into the comfort.
 

It spoke to me, but I couldn't understand.
 

I shook my head and my concentration slipped from the sound.
 

Hesitantly, warmth pulsed acknowledgment of my hurt, a feeling rather than words.
 

I shook my head again. I wasn't hurt, not really. I was just broken, defeated. Like a small beaten animal.
 

It questioned. Who hurt me?

I remembered Zed's eyes as he passed out from the Seed, the snake-man and China, the Trials, and the masked duo at the beginning who'd started it all. NIX had done this to me. NIX had broken and destroyed me.
 

Anger seeped into me then, and along with it, strength. It showed me what it was like to crush my enemy with power enough to lay a blanket of dread and reverence over all who would oppose me.
 

The feeling was wonderful. But I was weak. I couldn't even save one person from NIX.
 

It gave me the solution. Become strong.

It was simple. So simple. All along I'd been going about it wrong. The only way to defeat a huge power was with an even more overwhelming power. Fear was the most effective tool against my enemies. Along with that understanding, more strength flowed into me, and the warmth bound me tighter and tighter till I opened my eyes and saw the forest around me.
 

I lay in a fetal ball at the base of a tree, and I was alone. I sat up slowly, feeling as if I might fall apart if I moved too quickly. But inside, a burning mass fed strength to me.
 

Hours must have passed, because the light was different, fading and yellow as it slanted through the leaves above. I stood and looked around. At my feet the ground was scored and gouged, and there was dirt under my nails, but no sign of anyone else.
 

I took a cavernous breath and let it swirl in that ball of heat within me, then blew it out. "Time to plan," I said aloud, and typed Bunny's number into my ID sheath. When he called me back, I said, "I need to restore Chanelle, Kris, and Zeke's info into NIX's database without NIX knowing. And you're going to help me."

Log of Captivity 4

Mental Log of Captivity-Estimated Day: Two thousand, six hundred twenty-nine.

The lacerations I tore into myself trying to escape throb. I felt her come close to where they keep me captive, and I struggled to join her as I know she wished, but I failed. I failed to go to her side, and she was hurt. She reached out to me in pain later, and I, useless as I am, was only able to give her my anger as fuel. It is the one thing I have in abundance. She grabbed it like a true
warrior-queen,
and rose again. She grows quickly, even without my help. Thank the gods, for if she were weaker, I would be the first
blood-covenant-champion
to let their master die before even meeting her.

Chapter 30

Do not go gentle into that good night.

— Dylan Thomas

I spoke with Bunny for a long while, brainstorming and asking questions while still keeping my newfound goal hidden from him. He may have been willing to help when I and my team were innocent, helpless victims, but I didn't know if he'd ally himself with a wolf baring teeth in his direction. When I was ready, I sent a message to the group asking them to gather for a meeting. Then I headed back through the darkening forest, planning my persuasion.
 

They were all sitting, waiting for me nervously when I arrived back dirty-footed and somewhat disheveled.
 

Before talking to them, I went to Zed's beside and bent over him.
 

He was breathing shallowly, and sweat beaded up on his skin. An IV needle pierced through his arm and fed fluid into him.
 

Sam cleared his throat. "He's stable," he said. "I'm checking on him every ten minutes, but the Seed seems to have moved past the first stage and I'm just waiting for the second to start."

"And you can handle it when it does?"

"I will keep him alive through this, Eve. I promise." He drew himself up straight, and looked me in the eye with more steel in his bearing than I'd ever seen.
 

I nodded. "Okay." I turned to address the whole group. "I've got a new plan."
 

Adam leaned forward. "Oh? A better way to hide from NIX?"

"No."
 

He tilted his head to the side, and the rest of them just gave me blank looks.
 

"The old plan isn't going to work," I continued. "It's only postponing the inevitable. Soon they'll be tracking us through the Trials. Even if we somehow manage to keep surviving through them, how long before we're too badly injured to escape afterward? NIX may not have our information, but they have my face, and maybe some of yours, too. And soon—”

"What?" Sam's faced paled and he interrupted.
 

"Bunny contacted me earlier and told me they had sketches from the witness statements of my face. Someone outside of the Moderators was keeping track of me specifically, and they're going to recognize me."

Adam shrugged. "Well, that sounds bad, but…" he paused and frowned. "Oh. They'll be tracking us through the cameras. If they know our faces, they might not even need to wait for a Trial to try and get us. They'll just have to find us in any monitored area. Which means we'd have to stay away from civilization in general…" he took a deep breath. "Which means we're going to be hard pressed to lose them after the Trials, because satellite imaging will be on us and we'll have to be creative to escape its eyes. It's not impossible, but…" he trailed off again, and lapsed into glowering silence.
 

Blaine adjusted his glasses. "But is not the point of all this to buy yourselves time? It’s not like you can just give up. Either run or sit there waiting for them to come for you. Even if there are some unforeseen difficulties, it does not change the situation."
 

"Buy ourselves time? Time to what? Keep running? Always be looking over our shoulders, living in fear? You have Kris and Zeke to consider, which I understand, but nothing is going to change if we don't force it to. The situation can only worsen with the playing board the way it is now. We're screwed, either way. But," I paused, "There is a third option."

They stared at me in confusion, as I’d been saying the opposite only hours before.

I took a deep breath before continuing, "We take pre-emptive action. Rather than letting NIX control this, we change up the rules a bit."

"What do you mean?" Adam said.
 

"I mean, I want to do more than figure out how to escape being Players in the Game. I want to completely stop NIX from coming after us."

"And…how do you propose we do that?" he asked.