SLAM Read Free

they left looks like a three-petalled flower,
each petal the size of a fist. But the cold seeps into her muscle
and numbs the bone-deep injury, cooling her still-sparking temper
as well.
    It was an unfair attack, but in
the Arena, failure is failure. Never mind that no one out in the
real world could do what Abial had done. She flinches away from
thinking about the broken form of her baby brother – a manufactured
picture designed to shock and hurt. A manufactured picture that
worked because Abial had known how to send it. Outside, on a
mission, there’s no way anyone could be familiar enough with her
telepathic frequencies to penetrate her mental defences like that. Or know her well enough to project such an
effectively debilitating image. But Abial had known how, because
they’d practiced together for so long. And she’d used it against
Serena, sneaking a vicious thought needle through her protections.
Showing her the thing she feared most: her baby brother, bruised
and broken. Unsaveable. Dead.
    Once Serena wavered, distracted, another
operative’s slashing thought form – a mental weapon as effective as
any physical spear – had ripped her concentration to shreds. Her
psionic protection – the invisible but solid bubble surrounding her
to cushion blows – was destroyed. So instead of going around her
running body, the rubber bullets used in the Arena had slammed into
her. If the training gun had been one of the energy weapons used by
the Institute, she’d be dead, bled out from a shredded artery and
shattered femur.
    She clenches her jaw, anger
closing her throat. She turned sixteen seven weeks ago. You aren’t
even allowed to try until you’re sixteen, and then only if you’ve completed all
the pre-courses. Serena’s gone into the Arena twice, now, and her
second attempt – today – was thwarted by the very girl who’d been
her training companion for her entire life. Abial, who had passed
the Arena at the age of sixteen and five months, after two
unsuccessful attempts, making her the youngest qualified operative
ever. They’d iced each other’s hard-to-reach bruises, stretched
cramping muscles and beaten each other bloody with good-natured
smiles. They’d grown up together, pitting themselves against one
another and working as a team to hone their skills. Throughout
childhood and into adolescence, they had been the closest trainees
in age and skill, and thus pushed together. Even back when neither
of them wanted to be actual soldiers, and were just training
because it was required of every Psionic at ARC, they were at least
friends.
    Two years ago, when Damon was
taken in the same raid that nearly killed Abial, everything
changed. Now, instead of needing to qualify just so they’d be
allowed outside unsupervised, rather than being forced to remain
underground for their own safety, they wanted to be part of the
bigger picture. They wanted vengeance for their pain. They wanted
to join the ranks of the ARC operatives who fought . And so, working together,
they’d learned more and faster than anyone had before
them.
    But all that’s finished. It was
finished when Abial volunteered to go against Serena during her
test. And now Serena feels like an idiot for not suspecting
something. For thinking Abial was just competing, like they always
did. Backstabber.
    Suddenly she wonders why the other girl did
it. Could the need to hold on to her status as the youngest Arena
success be the only reason? Had it led Abial to betray Serena in
the most personal and cruel fashion possible? Or could there be
something more?
    The thought-memory of her baby
brother’s crumpled body jumps back into her mind. It’s too much to
bear, and Serena digs her fingers into her bruised thigh. The pain
blots out the fake image Abial slipped through her defences , and she sighs, adjusting
herself on the bed. She wants to remember Damon as he was: playful,
silly, and kind. He always knew when she needed a hug, and when she
wanted to be