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I elbow him in the ribs as I smile at Isolde’s husbands. “Thank you for the invitation.”
ADELAIDE
DAY FIFTY-FIVE
The afternoon sun beats against my back as Talodus throws another punch. I’m quicker than him, more nimble, but he has a hundred pounds on me... So his swing, though not aiming to hurt me, knocks the breath from my lungs when I fail to dodge.
My mind just isn’t into training today.
All I can think about is the supposed beast attack from earlier yesterday morning.
I can’t make it make sense.
We’ve waited, but no one has come forward. No one has shown up to the clinic with damage. And no one has whispered a peep about attacks.
I don’t get it.
The village is tiny compared to where I’m from, so to hear nothing is more concerning than having the entire tribe talk about it.
Did these Mongrels skip the clinic and go home to heal? Don’t they have a family that will worry for them, send them to see a doctor? Were their injuries not bad enough for them to need medical attention? And if that’s the case, then how did they scrape by with little to no wounds?
I need the answers to these questions.
But more than that... I need to know how often this happens.
The beast attacks not being documented are a tremendous problem for our map. If people are being attacked and not coming forward about it, then we’re missing vital information. And if we’re missing information, then my theories are no longer valid. We’ll have to start at the beginning.
Where does the beginning really begin? I can’t even wrap my mind around how far back to look. What I do know is this: the Mongrels haven’t always documented attacks, so we can’t go back too far.
Before I can fall further into this rabbit hole, my ass hits the unforgiving dirt of the Colosseum’s training yard. Once again, I’m reminded that I was sparring hand-to-hand with Talodus, and I asked for this because I was too preoccupied to trust myself with anything more.
“You have to focus, Ada,” Talodus reiterates for the twenty-fifth time today.
“I can’t,” I respond, grabbing his hand.
He hoists me to my feet with a frown. “Why?”
“We’re out here playing games while people are still being attacked, and we’re no closer to understanding why,” I snap, feeling more frustration with myself than him. “I don’t get it, Tal. Why wouldn’t they say something? Or, I don’t know, go to the fucking clinic. They could—”
“Ada?” Talodus calls calmly, pointing his index finger above his head. “This is why we train.”
“What?” I ask, and a beach-ball-size sphere of water drops onto the guard, soaking us both.
He gives me a small smile, though I can see the strain behind it as he repeats, “This is why we train. You’re agitated, and your element is lashing out because you’re not holding onto your control.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, scrubbing my hands over my face. “I just can’t do this right now. I can’t focus when I have so much on my mind.”
Talodus gently pulls me closer. “It’s okay. We’ll end today’s training here.”
I rest my forehead against his chest, feeling the faint flutter of his heart from his exertion. We’ve been exercising for hours, though it’s all been a blur. “Thank you.”
“No thanks needed,” he reassures me, leading us toward the fence where Rin waits. “Ada... You have to understand, sometimes there aren’t answers to these questions. You’re curious, but we don’t always have an explanation for others’ actions. Sometimes you just have to let go and know the people will do what’s best for them.”
Rinya passes my canteen to me as she joins our conversation. “Maybe they’re scared, or maybe they escaped without harm, so they didn’t feel the need to go to the clinic. If there was no harm, we don’t consider that an attack.”
“Kerr said they limped toward the clinic,” I inform them.
“Doesn’t mean they were injured by a beast,” she points out. “They could have fallen while running or strained muscles while escaping.”
