A figure bursts around the corner, nearly knocking me off my feet. Rei’s eyes are wild, and blood streaks across her temple.
“They’re hunting us.” Rei gasps. “We have to stick together.”
Doubt creeps through me like vines around a decaying building. This could be a ploy to stab me in the back. Maybe Aric put her up to it?
I hold out my knife. “Get out of my face, before I cut you.”
“Did you hea?—”
The air shifts. Aric appears in front of me. His palm is resting on the shoulder of Rigel and Tyson. They fan out behind him, blocking every exit of the tunnel.
Aric straightens slowly, rolling his shoulders. His gaze is fixed on me. Ender never mentioned that powers are not allowed. I’ll have to survive this with nothing but my knives and wit.
“Looks like your luck finally ran out,” Aric says with a cold smile.
Rei edges closer to me, shaking.
Aric’s friendship doesn’t seem to extend to the tests.
“Too weak to fight me alone?” I ask. “It’s not enough to use your powers. You need to assemblethem.”
His smile sharpens.
“Oh,” he replies. “They’re here for her.”
He points at Rei.
“No hard feelings, Rei,” Aric says. “But you drew the short straw. You got put onherteam. And only one of us makes it to the end.”
He lunges, and so do his friends. Rei and I stand back-to-back. I don’t like her, but it’s us against them.
I move swiftly. Rigel and Tyson rush Rei while Aric slowly makes his way towards me.
Rei flings them off with her powers, forcing them to crash onto their backs. It buys us time, but not enough. Aric dodges Rei’s attacks, vanishing before she can strike true.
He appears in front of me, eyes bright, barely out of breath from evading Rei’s attack.
Rei is facing another girl who just raced in here. An Elementalist who wields fire. Lane.
I lunge, swiping my blade across Aric’s forearm, tearing his skin. I’m quick, and he barely makes out the cut before blood pools on the ground.
“Spider’s been busy,” Aric says. “But it’s a waste of his time. You can’t build a Common strong enough to take down a Gifted, let alone an Untamed. You will not survive out on the streets.”
I keep my mouth shut. Everything here is unstable. It could reshape in the blink of an eye. It takes only a single moment for my focus to shatter and for him to get an opening. I don’t have the benefit of mouthing offandsurviving.
The people in Division Eight used to say that death is liberation when you lived a sorrowful life, but I refuse to die when I haven’t yet sunk my teeth into the men who hurt me. So long as I live, there will be no reprieve for the wicked. There will be no leniency for their crimes.
I lift my twin blades, heart hammering, every lesson Spider drilled into me begs to be used. I fix my footing and bend my knees, waiting for him to strike first. I’ll let him tire himself out, and then I’ll attack.
Aric flashes behind me.
His blade flies towards my neck. I spin in time to escape it, and our blades crash. His is longer and slightly curved. Mine is short and jagged like teeth filed down into points. Steel crashes against steel, shrieking in the air like the cry of a wild animal.
The impact rattles up my arms, numbing my fingers.
He strikes again, a blur of motion. Aric aims high and low, feinting left before slashing right. His blade nicks my forearm, tearing the sleeves of my shirt, and another cut catches my thigh.
I give ground deliberately, letting him believe I’ve been cornered.
