Weren’t you saying only yesterday how you didn’t want any friends?
“Somehow, I knew you’d make it,” Imara said, looking up at Gemma through semi-closed eyes.
“Somehow, I’m not surprised you look like you didn’t even participate,” Gemma teased.
Imara half-grinned, putting an arm over her eyes. “Okay, leave me alone. All the drama gave me a headache.”
Gemma shook her head, patting Imara’s leg before limping toward the bed in which the pink-haired guy lay, sleeping. If it weren’t for him, she would be gone, and avenging Nadine’s death would never happen. Forcing the government to see the suffering on Reva would fall short.
He didn’t even know the depth of what he’d accomplished by keeping her in the game. He’d not only saved her life—he’d saved her mission.
Unsurprisingly, he too had managed to get through unscathed. Gemma gently smacked his foot, and he popped one eye open.
“You look like crap,” he said, snapping his eyelid closed.
“Gee, thanks.”
He smirked, his eyes still closed.
“Wake up. I want to talk to you.”
With a dramatic sigh, he ran his hand over his buzzed, pink hair and stared at her, annoyance lining every contour of his face.
“Why did you help me?” Gemma asked, ignoring how much he obviously didn’t want to talk to her.
“What? No ‘thank you?’ ”
She blanched. “You—that’s not—I was going to say thank you!” A cocky smile crept up his cheeks, and she glared at him. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He leaned back against the wall, elbows bent and hands behind his head, looking at her like she was a complete waste of his time.
“You know what?” Gemma scowled at him. “Never mind.” She was halfway through her slow spin—thanks to her bad knee—when he finally spoke.
“Couldn’t let you go home yet, now could I?” Gemma glanced over her shoulder, and he shrugged. “You can pay me back later.”
She narrowed her gaze. “Well, thank you.”
“Anytime,amiga,” he replied with a wink.
She rolled her eyes and continued her slow trek to the locker room.
After letting the hot water massage her aching muscles in the shower, Gemma slipped into her white nightshirt and black shorts, careful not to aggravate her other injuries. She worked a brush through her knotted, dark brown hair until she spied herself in the mirror.
Her blue eyes widened, and her mouth gaped—the gash in her forehead was gone.
The nanobots really did work, after all. Maybe she would feel completely better by tomorrow’s test.
Gemma limped back into the dormitory, her nostrils flaring at the sight of all the severely injured contestants. So many more had returned since she’d left to shower, nearly all of them with a severe injury.
Rami deserved what was coming to him.
She closed in on the bunked bed she shared with Christian—and froze.How in the blazes am I going to climb the ladder with a broken arm and a sprained knee?
Christian was already fast asleep on the bottom bunk; she wasn’t going to ask him to move. She barely knew the guy, and he hadn’t exactly been warm and welcoming when she met him yesterday.
Gemma sighed. If she could reach her pillow and blanket and somehow yank them off her bed, she’d just sleep on the cold, metal floor.
Grabbing her blanket was easy. A simple grasp of the back corner, and it pulled easily off the frame. But the pillow...
