Chapter 22: Jada
I’m enjoying a nice nap when someone hoists me from my bed. It’s so quick that I barely have time to react. All I catch is a glimpse of a blond braid that occasionally hits me in the face. There’s only one person who could braid her hair in this way.
“Abi, what are you doing?” I ask as I bobble up and down. It hurts my shoulder where I was shot a little, but I ignore it.
“Someone wants to see you,” Abi announces in a cheery and excited voice, “Someone special.”
“Well could you slow down,” I ask in near pain, “you’re gonna rip my stitches.”
“We’re almost there,” Abi says, I guess trying to sound reassuring.
Within about five seconds, I’m laid down on a bed. When I look up, my breath escapes my body from excitement.
“Izzy!” I say in excitment. She smiles brightly and throws her arms around me in silence. I can’t help it, I just start rambling. “How are you? How long have you been awake? Did Abi tell you about my fight? Did she tell you about how she trained me? Did you get to see my first match on television? Did they at least show you or tell you about...”
Izzy clamps her hand against my mouth and has a look as if to tell me to slow down, but she’s smiling. She points to her throat, which is wrapped in bandages, and points to her mouth. She then makes a gesture with her hands, but I only understand when she holds up four fingers.
“She says that she’s not able to speak, but she should be able to in four weeks time,” Abi translates. “It’s a sign language we used to do as little kids.”
“Oh,” I say, “Can you tell her that she looks very good, even though she does look a little run down.”
Izzy taps me and gives me a slight glare as she points to her mouth, then her ear, and then shakes her hands. I look at Abi for a translation, but she’s laughing.
“She says, ‘I’m only mute, not deaf’,” Abi translates.
I look at Izzy, who still has a little bit of a glare in her eyes. “Sorry,” I apologize while looking down.
I feel her arms encircle me in a grasp. When I look back at her, she smiles and reaches for a notepad with a pen already in it. She writes down something and then turns it for me to read: Where’s Xain?
I shrug, but as soon as I do, Katya comes flying in with Xain’s hand hooked in her’s. Izzy gives me a look that I think means “You should have known he wasn’t far behind.”
“Izzy,” Xain immediately approaches Izzy with a huge hug. “How are you feeling?”
Xain steps back and allows Izzy to write down her words. She hands the pad over to Xain to read.
“‘I’m fine, I barely have any pain in my throat,’” Xain reads, “‘The doctors say that I should be cleared to eat solid foods soon.’”
Xain begins to start writing a response on the pad, but Izzy covers it and shakes her head and taps his lips. She nods her head at me and smiles right before she locks her two hands on her chest.
“We really are the best of friends,” I say to Xain. Abi squeals as Izzy beams to look at me with a smile attached.
“That’s exactly what she was trying to say,” Abi explained.
I smile widely as Izzy grabs my hand and puts it in Xain’s. She makes a motion with her hands that I don’t understand.
“I’m not translating that, Izzy,” Abi says to Izzy.
“Even though it’s clear what you’re saying is that they make a cute couple,” Katya chimes in. Izzy smiles slyly and we all laugh, but then something breaks our laughter.
“Izzy!” We turn to see Clay running towards Izzy, who amazingly has her arms stretched out for a hug. We all are in shock that she’s hugging him. She’s not even turning up her nose about it either.
“Did you hear about Jada’s first arena experience?” Clay asks, Izzy nods and places her arm around my shoulder, which shoots pain through my arm, but I don’t show it.
“I think she’s trying to say that Jada did amazingly well,” Xain cuts in and rubs my. Shoulder softly.
“And you almost killed her,” Melissa steps in with a clipboard, but she doesn’t look up.
“No he didn’t,” Katya and Clay almost say at the same time.
Melissa looks up and is about to say something, but then she catches a glimps of something worse: Xain’s hand has blood on it. “What did you do?” She says as she runs over to me and examines my shoulder. She gasps and yells, “You broke her stitches!”
Izzy taps Melissa and shows her slightly bloodied hand and points to herself.
“She says that she broke my stitches,” I say to Melissa, “Not Xain.”
“I probably loosened them when I had you over my shoulder,” Abi says to me. Melissa just glares at Xain.
“It’s still all your fault, you know,” she says to Xain.
“No,” I say, and everyones eyes are on me, “I’m the one who wanted to fight, I’m the one who told them to go away, I’m the one who tried to fight Brute by myself, so it all MY fault.”
“It’s all of our faults, kiddo,” Katya says, “We should have never left you out of our sights.”
“It’s nobody’s fault,” Abi cuts in, but I see she’s translating for Izzy, “The arena is unpredictable, you can’t possibly expect anything to just happen. No one could have guessed Brute would have gone to the base and waited for Xain to show. Jada was in good hands.”
“But still...” Melissa starts but is cut off by Izzy.
“If she had been in anyone else’s hands,” Abi continues, “she would be dead right now.”
Melissa looks up at Xain, who is nervously smiling, but all she says is “So what did Dr. Ken want?”
Xain clears his throat and says, “He wanted to talk about mine and Jada’s blood, which apparently is why she’s alive.”
“What do you mean?” Melissa asks. All eyes are now on Xain.
“There’s something in our blood that allows us to withstand poisons, or in Jada’s case, be near immune to them.” Xain says. Everyone’s faces are frozen in confusion. I begin to try and ask questions, but then he clears his voice. “That’s also why she was able to heal in just two days time rather than in weeks. I have the same abilities, but hers seemed more significant to the doctor, because her cells can repair, evolve, and fortify themselves. Mine just repair and turn into useful tissues.”
Izzy taps my chest and smiles. It takes me a couple of seconds to realize what she’s hinting at, and I pull it from the chain dangling from around my neck. The phoenix necklace. “I have the heart of the phoenix, I guess,” I smile.
Izzy nods in agreement as she smiles. Melissa is examining my wound again, but this time, she has on gloves.
“Oh my goodness,” Melissa chirps, “You’re not bleeding as much now, Jada.”
“Really,” I say trying not to wince at the pain, “it still feels tender at the touch.”
“Well, I don’t even think you even need stitches,” Melissa says as she puts some sort of medication on my shoulder. I recognize the medicine a second to late and squeeze Izzy’s hand as the seering pain rushed through my body. When it soothes down, I give Melissa a dirty look.
“A heads-up would’ve been nice,” I say through gritted teeth. I see that Izzy is massaging her hand in pain and add, “Sorry.”
Izzy shakes her good hand as if to tell me not to worry about it. Melissa puts some cream on my wound and wraps gauze bandages around them.
“Jada Anderson,” a voice appears at the doorway. It’s a woman with dark hair wrapped in a bun and she’s barely smiling.
“I’m Jada Anderson,” I say trying not to sound nervous.
The lady smiles slightly as she brings over a medium sized square package. “Congratulations, you have you first sponsor gift.”
“Thank you,” I say politely.
She looks at Xain and smiles widely. “Good job, Xain.”
“Um, thanks,” Xain smiles awkwardly. The woman just winks and strokes his face as she walks out.
I almost break into laughter but swallow it as I open my gift. I wonder who it’s from. Inside the box are two identical dagger-like weapons. The blades are very slender and almost as long as my forearm. The hilts are decorated red and black and have “JA” engraved on them. I pick one up and it feels very light.
“Sai,” Xain says, “it’s called a sai. Their usually an assasin’s weapon of choice.”
“Sai,” I repeat as I twirl the new weapon. “Have you ever used one?”
“No,” Xain answers.
“I have,” Abi says in a somber tone, “their similar to a sword and a knife, so you should be able to use them quickly.”
“You won’t train me?” I’m a cross between sad and annoyed, but Abi shakes her head and bites her lips as she turns to me with red in her eyes.
“Sorry, hon,” she says softly, and then she leaves. Izzy bows her head in sadness.
“Remember when you asked why Abi never fights anymore?” Xain asks me. I nod and he goes on. “A little under two years ago, Abi was in an arena game in another district. It was a game of team deathmatch, so first team to lose half its players lost. Abi was with a boy named Sabbin Claud, whom she was in live with. Their team was a few more kills shy of a win, so they fell back.
“They were almost to the back of the pack, in the clear, when a warrior on their team mistook them for another team. He slashed and cut Sabbin’s throat with his sword and he bled out. Abi killed her teammate and kneeled beside Sabbin as he choked on his own blood and died, and then the trumpet sounded to signal their victory.
“Inside the debriefing tunnel, as we like to call it, two guards were reinacting Sabbin being killed and were poking fun at it, so Abi snapped and threw one of her sais at one and slit the throat of the other. More guards came to sedate her, but she killed them, too. Even her own teammates suffered fatal injuries. It wasn’t until they used smoke and a couple of tranquilizers that she finally fell down.
“We begged them not to kill her, so they just decided that she would only be allowed to use practice weaponry and train others in the training center. If she so much as throws a knife at anything that’s not a target or nonliving, they will execute her.”
There’s dead silence. Abi, sweet Abi. It’s hard for me to imagine her a killer of so many.
“We should probably go prepare to eat,” Katya breaks the silence, “we supposedly have a big day tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I ask in a confused manner.
“The capital wants us to come to an interview and banquette for an interview,” Xain explains. “They invited all of us, but mainly want to focus on me and you.”
My mouth opens, but no words come out.
“We’ll explain everything later,” Xain smiles.
“Will she be safe this time?” Melissa slightly cracks a smile at Xain.
“Well why don’t you come as my honored guest and make sure.” Xain holds out his hand. Melissa takes it and hugs him.
“So long as ‘honored guest’ doesn’t mean ‘date’, because then I’d hurt you.” Melissa says right before exiting, leaving Xain looking a bit scared. He looks at me and I laugh.
Clay says bye to Izzy and kisses her lightly on the cheek, which causes her to punch him. She wipes the kiss away in disgust and glares at him as she signs something. I smile and lean over Clay and whisper, “She says if you do that again, you’re dead.”