The Academy: Book 2 (43 page)

             
“Asa?”

             
The grip slackened and allowed Asa to sit up and cough until he had his breath was back.

             
“Are you okay, Asa? I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

             
Asa nodded as he coughed, looking at Roxanne. Her face was painted with black dirt and a mixture of twigs and dead leaves were tangled in her blond hair. The knees and elbows of her camouflaged suit were caked with dirt, as though she had been crawling. Her general filthiness made her golden-green eyes stand out even more than usual, as they reflected the light, clean and glistening.

             
“Yeah, I’m just glad it was you,” Asa said. “What were you doing in there?”

             
“Waiting for something. We need to hide. I’ll explain.”

             
Roxanne ducked back into the jungle and Asa followed her. “Have you seen anyone else since the team split up?”

             
“No.”

             
Roxanne looked troubled. “They must have taken another route, then. We need to go this way.”

             
As Asa followed Roxanne at a stealthy jog through the jungle, she briefly explained the situation. “Bruce, Boom Boom and I somehow ended up together after the Spinosaurus left. I’m not sure what kind of injuries our team sustained.”

             
“Is Jen okay?”

             
“I don’t know. This way.” She changed direction and Asa could tell by the increased concentration of light that they were moving out the other side of a thin stretch of jungle. “We decided to head for this Home Base. Bruce has an ability—he can sense animals and people without seeing them. There’s more to it, but no time to explain. We were running along the road, and he told us to hide in the jungle. We did, and three members of the Viper team jogged by—Stridor Akardiavna, Lane Black and Michael Spruce. I think that you know Stridor. Michael and Lane are fourth semesters. We watched them go. Stridor was leading them, and he was clutching a KEE in their hand,
our
KEE. That’s their base, right there. If they are able to place our KEE, we’re dead.”

             
They stopped, and Asa took in the closeness of the Viper’s Home Base. He licked his lips, and his tongue was dry. “So where are Bruce and Mike?” Asa asked.

             
“They went ahead of me. The Vipers stayed on the road, mostly, which cost them time. We were able to stay ahead of them by cutting through the jungle. Mike says that he thinks he can burn their base to the ground.”

             
“Won’t that start a jungle-fire? Won’t that kill us all?”

             
Roxanne bit her lip. “We don’t know. But we do know that if we don’t do something, we’re going to be cooked anyways. While they are doing that, I’m trying to find the Vipers and stop them. You can help me.”

             
Asa nodded.

             
“You need to know something, though, Asa. C’mere.”

             
She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him so that her lips were a centimeter away from his ear. She whispered and he felt her breath. “I know that Academy officials are listening in on our conversations. I have an ability, okay? Just trust me.”

             
She pulled back and Asa asked, “What can you do?”

             
She shook her head and looked at the road through the trees of the jungle. Asa watched her lion eyes grow big and she put a finger over her mouth, telling him to hush. They moved slowly over to the edge of the jungle and looked out at the path. They were now only two hundred yards away from the Viper’s Home Base. There was a beaten path directly outside of the tree-line, and then a vast river.

             
Stridor, Lane Black, and Michael Spruce stood on the bank of the river, looking out over the water. Stridor was in the middle, tallest of them. The arena ceiling was changing from blue to a burnt orange as the artificial dusk came over the land. The wine-colored scars on back of his hairless head and his neck seemed more prominent than usual. The metal Shark KEE was dangling from the long fingers of his right hand. In his left hand he held a rifle. Stridor had tied a thick vine that ran across his chest from his shoulder to right hip. Dangling from the vine on his hip was a sack covered in black and white fur, with dark red-brown blood stains on it, as though Stridor had hurriedly skinned an animal before using it and hadn’t taken the time to clean it properly.

             
Lane and Michael flanked him. They both had black hair and Asa didn’t know who was who. Though they were both shorter than Stridor, but they were wide shouldered and bulky—each bigger than Roxanne or Asa.

             
And we don’t know what kinds of mutations they might have.

             
The swift river, reflecting the burnt orange ceiling, was fifty yards wide and between the Vipers and their Home Base. The Viper standing on Stridor’s right side expanded his wings; which were mutated red, like a cardinal’s, and said, “Let’s go.”

             
“Not so fast,” Stridor said, squeezing his teammates arm. “Those green fish worry me.”

             
“What are they?”

             
“I don’t know,” said Stridor, and he picked up a small fallen tree limb nearby.

             
From their hiding spot behind a series of bushes, Asa glanced at Roxanne. She was crouched low, breathing shallowly through her nose. Her left hand was clenched around a dark tree root and in her right she held a dense river-stone, smooth and roughly the shape of an egg.

             
“What’re you doing?” One of the Vipers asked Stridor from the riverbank.

             
He didn’t answer, but said, “back up,” before throwing the tree branch over the water at a whistling pace. Half way across the river, an enormous, scale-covered green fish broke the surface and snapped its sharp teeth down on the flying chunk of wood, breaking it in half, before splashing down into the river again.

             
“How are we going to get across?” the Viper on Stridor’s left side asked.

             
“We’ll have to fly higher than those fish can reach, is all,” the other Viper responded before looking to Stridor, his younger teammate, for approval.

             
“If we fly any higher than just above the surface, Lane, the pterodactyls will get us,” Volkner said, an edge in his voice. “They’re watching us.” He looked up at the edge of the roof of his Home Base where the creatures were staring at him over protruding noses and jaws.

             
“So how do we get across?” the other teammate said.
He must be Michael.
Michael had long wavy black hair that was tied up in a ponytail with brown and green thorny vines. His skin was the color of milk chocolate, and his nose was covered in rough scars. His nose was unusually small, almost non-existent, as though it had been cut off in the past and he could only find small fragments of it to suture back on.

             
Stridor searched the bank, and then turned, glaring into the jungle. He studied the bush that Roxanne and Asa hid behind and Asa’s breathing stopped entirely. He stared at Stridor as his blue eyes fixated on the spot where the two Sharks lay crouched. His eyes were the blue of deep, icy waters. He studied the bush for what felt like minutes and Asa felt sweat gather on his brow.
Please let the foliage cover us,
he thought. Lane and Michael stared at Stridor. Finally, Stridor’s eyes moved further along the jungle, away from the bush.

             
Asa let out a breath of relief and became aware of his heart hammering against his ribs. He continued to watch his opponent as Stridor looked for something to help him safely cross the river.

             
As sudden as the lightening-bolt had come that had struck Adam Trotter dead, Stridor turned, aimed his rifle towards the bush, and fired, all in one swift movement. Asa saw a huge spark and a cloud of smoke erupt from the base of the rifle’s barrel. He heard a bullet race through the bush beside him, knocking leaves to the ground and whistling between him and Roxanne, who were unharmed.

             
As soon as the shot was off, Stridor was reloading his gun with a bullet from the fur sack tied at his hip, and running towards the jungle at the same time. Michael and Lane stood flatfooted, looking dumbfounded next to the water. They watched Stridor’s charge of the jungle with concerned expressions, as though they believed their teammate had gone insane.

             
Roxanne took two steps to the side, so that the bushes no longer concealed her. She reared back, stretching the river-stone behind her in preparation to throw it. Michael and Lane still hadn’t moved. She propelled the stone with a velocity that would be the envy of any non-mutated professional baseball player directly at Lane’s face. Moving quickly, Lane had his hands up to guard himself before the stone made contact. He was able to deflect the speeding rock, but not before it made sufficient damage. The middle finger of his right hand broke into a fractured, deformed appendage as the rock ricocheted out into the river behind him. Howling with rage and pain, Lane stepped backwards, slipped on a wet stone, and fell into the moving water where he made a great splash.

             
Though Lane was an enemy, Asa gasped in horror as he saw the tops of the green fish rushing towards him. Lane wildly screamed once, and then was dragged into the rushing water. Blood and bubbles of muffled cries came to the surface and he was dead.

             
Stridor had now reloaded, but so had Roxanne; her right hand gripped another stone. She was rearing back when Stridor pointed his gun at her.

             
Asa initially thought the next occurrence was a trick of the light; he assumed that his eyes had deceived him. Just as Roxanne had in their first Winggame match when she punched her opponent in the face, she moved faster than any human—mutated or otherwise—should have been able to. Asa had grown accustomed to seeing Multipliers and graduates demonstrating incredible speed and strength, but this was something else entirely. One moment, she was on the ground, and the next, had leapt ten feet in the air. Stridor’s bullet went harmlessly below her, ripping through the jungle.

             
Michael Spruce was in the process of running when Roxanne leapt with unbelievable speed. He froze immediately and Asa could read on his face that he was as shocked by what just happened as Asa was.

             
Then, also too fast to be possible, Roxanne flung the next rock over the earth at Michael. This time, there was no deflection and her throw met its target. Michael’s nose smashed into his face and blood splattered before him. His eyes stopped moving, and he fell backwards, into the river where the hungry fish awaited him, and dragged him under.

             
Stridor did not seem fazed. His icy blue eyes looked like he was playing chess, thinking of his next move; there was nothing in them that suggested he might be caught in a death match that has just turned from three on two to one on two.  He sprinted forward, and this time he did not bother reloading his gun. He reached the bush just as Roxanne landed, and in the last moment her eyes widened in realization of what was happening. He swung the rifle, slamming her skull with the wooden butt of the gun. She whimpered and crumpled, instantly unconscious. Three lines of blood ran from her skull down her dirty face.

             
Stridor stood over her limp frame, and selected a bullet from his sack.

For a moment, time slowed down. Asa heard the chirruping of birds around him. He watched as Stridor’s slender finger’s moved the bullet. Asa could see the tendons move in Stridor’s arm, and a thin layer of sweat upon the surface of his skin. Stridor was staring down at Roxanne, about to kill her. He did not look around for another attacker, and Asa thought,
He hasn’t seen me! I think that he doesn’t know I’m here!