Fear My Mortality Read Online Free Page A

belonged. Because that’s what I was and I knew it. Afraid of death. Agonized at the thought of people dying. Weak.
    At the last moment, he heaved me up even closer to him and held me with one arm as he extended his other arm, some kind of device in his hand. He punched numbers into it as we moved. I tried to turn away, but his grip was made of steel. As I braced for the impact, an opening materialized.
    We raced through as the door shut with enough force to take off a limb. The chaos in the Implosion room might have been miles away, it was so silent there. We were in some kind of short hallway, windowless, a door at either end. The Basher turned to the right and pulled me along again.
    “Who are you?” I jerked away from him, but when that didn’t work, I rammed myself against him, pushing us both against the side of the corridor.
    I sensed the air leave his lungs, heard him gasp a breath, but he grabbed me up, not answering my question, dragging me along as I shoved and wrenched against him. “Where are you taking me?”
    This time, he said, “Somewhere safe.”
    I stared in disbelief as we reached the door at the end of the hallway, a door painted blue with a touch screen just like the mahogany door at the front.
    The screen said: Please enter your code .
    He tapped at it and the screen went blank. Maybe he’d triggered some kind of alarm. I waited for the sirens to wail, but in the next instant, the screen flashed again.
    Please proceed to the Mirror Room.
    The Mirror Room. It was supposed to be a myth. Most rooms were open arenas with public viewing booths and video drones everywhere to capture the action. But there were rumors about private rooms, places people went to fight when they didn’t want anyone watching. The Mirror Room was one of them.
    Determination gleamed behind the strip of veil he wore across his eyes. “I’m taking you where nobody can hurt you. Not the Hazards. Not the Bashers, either.”
    “But you’re one of them—”
    “I am what I have to be. For now.”
    To our right, there was a low grinding sound and a panel slid open, revealing another corridor beyond. I could run. I could fight him. But as much as I didn’t want to admit it, he’d just saved me from my first death—and saved me from a hunter drone.
    He said he was taking me somewhere safe and for some reason, I believed him. I didn’t know why Aaron’s brother would tranq my parents and try to tranq me when the walls were crashing down around us and Bashers had infiltrated the Terminal, but I put aside my questions and raced inside with the Basher, slowing down when we made it through and the door closed.
    The corridor stretched out in front of us, curving in the distance. Lights dotted the walls, up high, but other than that, it was a blank walkway. No decorations, no other doorways. No drones, either. It seemed so empty, so safe .
    Around the curve of the corridor, there were more doors, maybe twenty of them all along one wall of the massive corridor, spaced apart so that I imagined a combat room behind each one. Some of the rooms were supposed to be high-tech constructions. In some of them, the combatants didn’t even fight people, but machines instead. Others were medieval, straight out of history, set up with thatched houses and muddy earth squelching underfoot.
    Toward the end of the corridor, the Basher pulled me to a stop. He grabbed my wrists, making me wince, turning my hands up to the light so we could both see the damage: a cut on each, but only skin deep. One of the cuts oozed a little and I frowned at it, watching and waiting for it to heal.
    Dismay filled me as I realized … I was a slow healer.
    “Put your finger on it and press. It’ll stop soon.”
    I did as he said, pushing away my humiliation and fear, avoiding his eyes. I’d deal with my new discovery if I made it out of the horror show I found myself in right then. I waited as he flicked his device toward the door. A flash of light caught my eye as