Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (25 page)

Blaine cleared his throat. “Umm…it would take years to teach you guys to do what I do, but I’ve got some ideas for things I could make to help you in the Trials.”
 

I nodded. “Okay, wonderful. I don’t have any skills to share that you don’t already have, but I have ideas, and a plan for getting out of all this. I’m working with Blaine to figure out exactly what the things they put into us are. I’m still working on getting more information and figuring out fine details, but I'll share my plan with you all when I've got something more complete. If we survive till then, that is.”
 

Jacky raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips. “On that note, I need to see everyone spar so I can figure out a good training plan for each of you. Don’t use no special Skills, just your natural abilities. I don’t wanna get someone killed.” She glanced at China.
 

Adam and China both tried to question me about my plan, but I fended them off. I was still trying to figure it out myself, and my ideas and the snippets of things I'd learned hadn't formed into something solid I could share. Giving them hope was enough for now. If I explained what little “plan” I actually had, it might take that hope away.
 

After explaining what she wanted, Jacky paired me up against Adam, and Sam against China. The latter two went first, China dancing around Sam and throwing playing cards at him in place of her knives, along with darting in and “stabbing” him with them. He refused to attack her, but nevertheless failed to properly defend himself.
 

Adam and I were next. Despite the handicap of his healing arm, he seemed more than confident enough in his ability to fight me. “You’re going down, Eve Redding.”
 

I raised an eyebrow and grinned at him. “Go ahead and try.” I was fully aware that I didn’t know how to fight. And without my claws, I would be just a slightly uncoordinated girl flailing against a guy who’d been in his first street fight long before ever becoming a Player. So I steeled myself for pain and humiliation and tried to imitate his loose, ready stance.
 

Jacky grunted to herself, but I didn’t take my eyes off Adam and the way he held his legs, arms, feet, and back.
 

He shot forward, I felt a tap on my chest, and then the world was tilting off its axis. I slammed hard into the floor, half knocking my breath out. I groaned and rolled over, ignoring a tap on my side as he showed me he could have kicked me while I was down.
 

I got to my feet, and readied myself. My subconscious had responded to my instinctual fear, and though I held my claws in, focus sharpened all my senses. I could smell the new plastic of the pads under my feet, my own sweat, and the scent of my opponent.
 

He lunged forward again without warning, tapped me on the side of the head and the side of my left knee, and then kicked my legs out from under me.
 

I didn’t lose my breath when I landed on my back that time.
 

He stretched out a hand to help me up, and a mischievous thought popped into my head. I didn’t pause to think long enough to seem suspicious, but reached out my hand to him. As soon as I had a good grip on him, I braced myself against the floor with my other arm and swung my leg around low to the mat and fast.
 

His eyes widened as my leg made contact with his calf and I felt a flicker of satisfaction as he started to fall.
 

But then my grip on his hand was broken, and he half-jumped, half-twisted over my head and behind me, wrapped an arm around my throat, and squeezed. While not painful, it was definitely uncomfortable.
 

I tapped his arm twice and he released me. I grinned and turned to look up at him. “Sorry. I just couldn’t resist.”
 

Jacky started laughing. “You did well, Eve. Next time isn’t gonna be so easy, I think.”
 

Adam pushed his hair off his forehead. “No, it won’t.”

I stood without his help and prepared for his attack once again. A giddy feeling rose within me, a mix of fierce competitiveness and laughter. I breathed deeply and focused on him.

He lunged, and I followed each subtle movement he made, how far his steps took him, and where he slipped his leg behind my own.

The world tilted in a way that was becoming familiar as my feet were ripped from under me. He thrust his good hand at my face to smash my head toward the ground. It would have been a devastating move if there weren’t thick padding below us.
 

I grabbed his wrist in both of mine and pulled my legs toward my chest as I fell, tucking my head forward so it didn’t land first. When my back hit the mat, I slammed my legs forward into Adam’s chest and pushed upward, using my grip on his arm to swing him over my head and smash him full length onto the mat behind me. As he hit, I released his arm and used my backwards momentum to flip onto my hands and knees. I crouched by his head and snapped my hand to his unprotected neck.
 

Everything was still except for his heartbeat thumping against my fingers, and after a moment I realized I was panting as if I’d just run a race. Somehow my claws were out, pressed against the skin of his throat. I stood, forced my claws back, and held out a hand to help him up.
 
“Sorry about the claws. I got a little carried away.”
 

He stared up at me, then slowly grabbed my hand and allowed himself to be helped up.
 

“Holy…crap,” Sam said from the sidelines.
 

Jacky walked over and smacked me hard on the back with a grin. “Seems you’re a bit of a natural. Quick to acclimate.”
 

Adam started to laugh. “That was amazing. Let’s go again.”
 

After that, Adam wasn’t so careless and didn’t try to throw me again. Instead, he danced around and jabbed at me, light taps on various exposed areas that I knew would have quickly left me dead if he had one of his butterfly knives in his hand.
 

I tried to learn from his movements, and by the end of our sparring match we were both dripping sweat onto the mat, and I’d gotten a few taps of my own in.
 

* * *

 
“Hey, Sam,” I called. “Do you think you could help me out? I think I tweaked my neck a bit.” I rubbed the completely uninjured muscles.

He gave an innocent nod, “Sure,” and followed me to a corner of the room. He put a hand on my neck, then shifted it around and frowned. “I don’t sense anything. Where does it hurt?”

“It doesn’t,” I murmured to him in a low voice. Only China would have the hearing to make out our conversation, and a glance confirmed she was busy getting instruction from Jacky at the moment. “I just wanted to chat with you.”
“What’s wrong?” he whispered gravely.
 

“Nothing!” I chuckled. “I just wanted to talk about your Skill.”

“Oh.” That didn’t seem to reassure him.
 

“I know there’s something you held back when you were explaining. I respect your right to privacy, but as the team leader I can see some Game information on you, remember?” I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way. “Will you explain the Skill to me?”

His lips were white, but he nodded. “My Skill isn’t strictly for healing. It’s like a sick joke. Whatever I heal, my body assimilates and understands, to recycle as a morphed attack. And the more horrifying and twisted the injury, the better I learn it.”
 

I stared at him for a few minutes. “So…that paralyzing saliva?”

He nodded.

“Show me,” I commanded.
 

He hesitated, but placed his hands on the bare skin of my neck again. Almost immediately, my skin started to go numb. It wasn’t the same as the feeling of the grub-pug’s saliva. Sam’s version made me want to scratch and claw at the numb patch till I ripped it away.
 

“Okay!” I urged, and he touched my neck again, returning sensation to my skin and stopping the torture.
 

“Wow,” I said.
 

“That was mild. It gets worse. Way worse. This Skill is a punishment. I hate it.” He glared at his hands. “I don’t want to use it, Eve.” He looked up to meet my gaze.

“Not even against monsters? You’d fight them anyway, right? That’s a really great Skill, Sam, and if—”

“No! No, I don’t want to use it. Just like with any Skill, it gets stronger the more you use it. I’ll use the healing side, but as much as possible, I want to avoid making it even easier for me to kill someone. I won’t use it.”

I searched his eyes for a second and nodded.
 

“And…don’t tell the others?” he added hesitantly.

“You’re our
healer
, Sam.” When he didn’t pick up my meaning, I added, “And that’s it.”
 

He let out a sigh of relief, and we returned to the others.

Jacky set me up on one of the lighter punching bags and showed me a few simple combinations of punches and kicks she wanted me to practice until I could do them in my sleep. “Your fancy move back there might’a worked, but being efficient and effective is better than being flashy. When you’ve got these moves down by instinct, it reduces the chance of failure.”

She watched me till I started to get the hang of it, and then showed me how to hit with my elbow. “The elbow can do a lotta damage at close range. At the point you’re closest to the bag, start to add that into the combo.” Once again, she watched me attack the bag. “You need practice with combat. But even so, I would trust you to fight at my back.”
 

I grinned in surprise at the compliment, and used my shirt to wipe some sweat from my face. “You know, aren’t you supposed to start off training me with basic blocks and evasion? Defense first?”

She laughed and cracked her knuckles. “The best defense is an overwhelmingly powerful offense, I always say.”
 

With that, she left me to my practice. I alternated between starting the combo with my left and right hand, and repeated until my knuckles were raw and bleeding, my wrists wobbly and weak, and my shoulders felt like they were being ripped out of their sockets every time I moved my arms.
 

Sam placed a hand on the bag in front of my face to get my attention, and jerked his head to China standing on the mat. “Time for cool-down.”
 

China told us to follow her lead, then ran us through some seemingly easy movements that were in fact anything but easy. Something like yoga, mixed with a martial dance. Each movement was slow and controlled, and she watched us all in the mirrored wall across from the mat, correcting our form when needed.
 

I was shaking like I had a car battery attached to my central nervous system, and was deeply relieved when China finally had us sit down. We folded our legs, laid our hands on our laps, and closed our eyes. As I breathed deeply, I became aware of the blood rushing in my veins, and the air entering and leaving my lungs. The sweat on my skin was cool, and I could feel the currents of the air moving around me. Heat radiated off my flushed skin in waves. I focused harder, and realized I could hear the others breathing. I could smell their sweat mixed with the piney scent of the cleaning liquid we’d used all over the place. Outside, the wind blew gently. I knew because it made a low, smooth noise as it parted and cut around the corner of the house above. I reached farther all at once, and something different happened.
 

My eyes were closed, but whiteness fogged the backs of my eyelids. As I concentrated harder, it solidified. My body hurt with cold and fatigue. I felt something come alert then, and then a sense of amazement. My wrists and ankles started to hurt, and I realized that my body was yanking against something, though I wasn’t consciously moving it. The room around me shone with painfully bright light, and as my view changed, chunks of hair fell across my face and blocked some of it out. Dirty blonde hair, not my own almost black strands.
 

A deep, croaking voice spoke in a language I didn’t know, but that seemed familiar all the same. Adrenaline built until I couldn’t keep my concentration, and I felt my mind ripping away from that place despite something trying desperately to grab and keep me there.
 

My eyes opened and I jerked violently backward, an awkward half-shout bursting out of me. I looked around at the familiar base again, and held my hands up in front of my face, moving them deliberately. I was there. I was me.

The others stared at me, and Sam said, “Are you okay?”
 

“Cramp?” Jacky asked sympathetically, stretching her own forearms. “Stretch it out.”

I shook my head. “No, I, um…” I swallowed and lost track of what I was saying for a moment when a window popped up, telling me I’d leveled up Perception and Focus. “I had a mini hallucination, or maybe…a dream? I couldn’t have fallen asleep in that amount of time, right? I saw a white room, and I couldn’t move my arms and legs…”

“You’re probably exhausted. You should go home and get some rest. We all should, actually. There’s only so much our bodies can take in one day,” Sam said.
 

My head pounded with a headache so strong it felt like something was literally pounding on the inside of my skull. “Yeah, you’re right.” I needed to be strong, not seem panicked and crazy. But I remembered where I’d heard that language before. It had sounded in my head when I was first made a Player. "I’m going to go get some juice. I think I might be a bit dehydrated.” Hey, it was probably true, judging from the amount I’d sweated out.
 

Instead of getting a drink, I plunked myself down in front of Blaine, who was scribbling formulas onto the screen of a glass pad in tiny, scrawling handwriting. “I need you to figure out what they put in my head, and what it’s doing to me. I just had a hallucination," I said.
 

He kept scribbling for a moment as if he hadn’t heard me, and just when I was about to repeat myself, he stopped writing, put the pen down, and said, “Great! I have been wanting to do more tests, but the others all seem a bit wary of me, and I haven’t been able to get a willing subject.”