The Gender Game 2 by Bella Forrest (audio ebook reader .TXT) 📕

shirt. As she did, I saw that there was no bullet hole. I exhaled in relief.

Violet squinted behind her mask, her gaze darting around, and I stood up. She seemed on guard, her eyes searching the mist. It took me a second, but I picked up on the fact that the forest had fallen deathly still. I quickly undid her cuffs and placed her gun in her hands. “I’m sorry for leaving you unarmed,” I said as her hand closed over the butt of the gun.

She gave me a side glance, but didn’t respond, her gray eyes darting all around.

“It was right behind me,” she said after a moment. We had pressed our backs together, and were moving in a slow circle. I nodded, keeping my focus alert. Samuel had seemed to pick up what was going on, and was circling our legs, keeping close to us.

The silence stretched on and on, both of us very aware of the impending danger. I kept my hands loose, my breathing even as we moved. I could hear Violet still panting behind me, her breathing loud and sharp in my ears.

“You okay?”

I felt her nod. “Yeah. I just got a sharp cramp in my side.”

“Not enough potassium,” I replied, and she gave a little tsk.

“I know that. Luckily, I’ve got a great excuse.”

“Oh yeah,” I replied, turning my gaze to the canopy. “What’s that?”

“This jerk of a warden wasn’t feeding me properly.”

I chuckled. “This jerk of a warden just saved your life again.”

Violet scoffed. “I don’t need you to save my life, Viggo. Besides, I was doing just fine by myself.”

“Sure you were,” I drawled sarcastically. “I’m pretty sure that I’ve saved your life four times now.”

“No you haven’t.”

“Shall I count?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Because you know I’m right?”

“No,” she denied.

I suppressed a smile. The banter was helping keep us calm. Getting under Violet’s skin was just a perk.

“First, the Porteque gang,” I said. “Second, the centipedes, which I think I should count twice, once for the venom, and the second for the eggs they laid in there.”

“They laid eggs in me?” Violet gasped. I could feel her shuddering behind me, and immediately regretted making her aware of that.

“You know what… never mind. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve saved your life. All that matters is…”

I trailed off, realizing that Violet’s back was no longer pressed against mine. I whirled, and found her a few feet of way, squatting down and staring at a spot on the ground.

Cautiously keeping my eyes on the trees, I peered over her shoulder. There was some sort of blackish liquid soaking into the ground.

“I think you hit it,” Violet whispered, staring at the spot.

“Not me, I shot…”

I trailed off. In my haste to get to Violet, I had paid little attention to the woman I had shot. I moved back toward the spot she had collapsed.

Just then, a bird’s cry filled the forest, and just as quickly as the silence had started, it disappeared under a cacophony of noise. I felt the tension leaving me. Whatever had been chasing Violet was clearly gone.

I hurried over to the massive tree, my eyes searching the ground for her. The woman was still lying face down on the ground. Blood was seeping from the wound in her shoulder. I turned her over, to find her still breathing, with an exit wound on the other side.

The woman was older, with fine lines around her eyes and mouth. She was probably around forty, with short brown hair. It was clear she kept in impeccable shape—her body was fit and muscular.

Violet pushed in behind me. “Oh my God! That’s Ms. Dale,” she exclaimed, immediately dropping to her knees next to the woman.

I frowned. “Who is Ms. Dale?”

Violet had begun applying pressure to her wound. “Give me something to stop the bleeding,” she said, tilting her face up at me.

I hesitated. Whoever this woman was, she was dangerous. It was very possible that she had been sent into The Green to retrieve Violet and the egg.

“Violet, you realize this woman—”

Violet nodded. “Yes, I realize that she is probably here to do what you were going to do, only for the Matrians instead of the Patrians. It doesn’t matter—Ms. Dale was kind to me once. I am not going to let her bleed out and die here. Besides… this seems to be the week that everyone wants a piece of me.”

She said that last bit with such depreciating bleak humor, that I resisted the urge to pull her into a hug. I wanted to promise her that everything was going to be all right, when I knew perfectly well that I couldn’t guarantee that.

I sighed and set my bag down, before going through it for supplies. I didn’t have much left. There were no more instant bandages, and only one blood patch. I had plenty of anti-toxin and anti-venom pills, but beyond that, not much.

“Vi—” I said.

“What?” she snapped. “You shot her, and all she was doing was trying to save my life.”

I sighed. “We have no idea what she was trying to—”

Violet arched an eyebrow at me, her mouth flattening into a thin line. “This is the woman who taught me to shoot, Viggo. She taught me how to defend myself. They picked her to train me for that stupid mission. She is an expert markswoman. She didn’t miss me. She was aiming for the thing chasing me.”

The conviction pouring off Violet’s voice gave me pause, but her drive was one based on emotion, which had no place in the setting we found ourselves in.

“Giving up our limited supplies to help her is risky. We need them so we can guarantee our own survival—”

“Viggo Croft,” she hissed, lifting her hands so I could see the blood covering them. “You shot this woman who was only trying to help me. You and I are both aware of the reason she is here, and you need to get this survival mindset out of your head, and