“Hey, Lex!” Charles called when I pushed open the door of the Weaponry and Combat classroom. Luther was with him. So were Sasha and Roland. Not to mention half the bloody kids from my year level.
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Nothing,” Charles said. “We’re allowed to visit the senior campus this semester on account of the games.”
I stared at all of them and it dawned on me. They were here to gauge whether I might win the games so they could make their bets accordingly. “Get lost,” I said.
He and Luther fell about laughing. “I mean it!” my voice was becoming shrill. “Scram.”
“It’s a free academy!” Charles said. I turned to Kai, hoping he would do his scary room-clearing thing, but he had stormed off to where Giselle and Matilda were conversing on the mats.
“I know what you’re doing!” I hissed at them before moving away as well. Giselle paid no heed to anybody else in the room. She barely paid me any attention either. She did, however, deign to give Kai a skin-peeling glare. It was the most expressive I’d ever seen her.
“Your presence is not necessary,” she said.
Kai smirked. “What’s the matter?” he said. “Doesn’t this feel like old times?”
For a second, I blinked and she wasn’t fully there. “G,” Matilda said.
Giselle materialised again. The hard line of her jaw said it all. If not for the fact that they were now at a disadvantage, I imagined she’d go back to trying to murder the Council. I thought of the blood vow hanging over Kai’s head. For a second, I hoped she’d do it.
“Thanks for helping me figure out how you do that,” Kai said. I didn’t think Giselle could get any scarier, but her eyes became wintery. “If you so much as make a move to hurt her, I’ll finish what I started.”
With that, he stalked back to where the others were congregating around the bleachers. We would need to have a chat soon about his penchant for threatening everyone who breathed in my direction. If the look on Giselle’s face was anything to go by, he was doing more damage than good.
The point was proven half an hour later when she’d put me on my back on the mat for the hundredth time. She shoved her knee into my solar plexus. “Have you just been allowing the Nephilim to threaten all your adversaries?” she snapped. “If this is your idea of fighting, you might as well forfeit now.”
She dug her knee in. I gasped. Her arm lifted. For a second, I thought she might elbow me in the face. I flinched. The look of disgust she threw me was vastly more hurtful than the hits. “I thought you said you trained her,” Giselle bellowed at Kai.
He simply shrugged. His focus was on me lying there on the mat like I’d been trampled by an elephant. Everything hurt. It made me realise how easy the supernaturals had been on me. They must have all been pulling their punches big-time. Giselle wasn’t the soft type. Every one of her hits connected with ferocity. She didn’t allow time for me to get used to the pace. Either I stepped up, or I got beat down. And boy did I get beat.
When she finally called it quits, I couldn’t move. Charles and Luther made sad faces at me before they left.
I told the other boys I’d meet them for dinner. In reality, I was just going to lie here all night if I didn’t die from my wounds. Giselle’s eyes became unfocused when Kai approached me and attempted to ease my hurt by healing me. Despite his threat, she latched on to his wrist and flung it aside.
“You think you’re helping by being soft on her?” she asked. That was so not the way I would have described Kai’s method of training. “You think that girl is going to pull her punches in the arena?” She wedged her boot under my back and wriggled her foot. I got the message and pushed myself up.
“Any power you have is tied to your name,” Giselle spat. “It’s that name that will be the death of her. So unless you get someone to pick off that Nephilim bitch before the games, you better start thinking about toughening this one up.”
She threw her towel on the mat and walked away. Matilda pumped her brows at me before she followed Giselle out.
I lowered myself back onto the mat. Kai crouched in front of me. “She has a point,” I said. He didn’t speak. “I know you feel bad for her, but you didn’t see the look on her face today after the compulsion.”
Even though her methods were psychotic, Giselle was right. If I was going to beat Chanelle, I had to get a whole lot tougher. That was all well and good except I already felt like I was dying.
16
Dinner was an effort in ignoring the prying eyes and not crying when I tried to move my arm to lift the fork to my mouth. My only consolation was that Sophie wasn’t upset with me over the Max vision.
Astrid pointed at the bruise on my right forearm. “She didn’t hold back then?”
“Did you think she would?”
“I hoped she would tone it down a little considering she’s still technically a felon.”
“I don’t think she cares,” Sophie said.
“She’s right about one thing,” Diana said. “How on earth are you going to even stay alive in the trials if you don’t lift your game?”
I groaned and gave up on eating. I’d been asking myself the same thing. Then something occurred to me. “Are we allowed to use our powers during the games?”
Astrid nodded. “Technically, yes. But I wouldn’t bet on you being able to keep them for long. Most of the others will be trying to find ways to nullify each other’s powers right from the beginning.”
I almost blanched. Without
