I cross center.
“Hold.”
He braces.
A retracting rail sweeps through the gap where my leg would have been if he’d moved a second earlier or later.
“Good,” I say.
He glances up at me with quick, fierce attention. “You too.”
We repeat the process through the next two shifts, climbing in careful, ugly, efficient bursts while the crowd noise becomes a distant animal roar under the pounding of my own pulse. Vanna and Pajack appear on the adjacent route for three breathless seconds, neck and neck with us, then lose time when their lower rail locks unexpectedly and forces a manual reset. Zack and Dartha are somewhere below. Another pair is gone entirely.
The final obstacle is almost insultingly theatrical: a suspended rotating wheel bridge leading to the finish platform, with the bridge itself changing angle every few seconds while overhead magnetized sweep hooks try to force rushed competitors into bad jumps. It is exactly the kind of ending designed to tempt desperate heroics.
Bron looks at it once and says, “Nope.”
I almost grin. “Correct.”
The wheel turns. I count the rhythm. It is not random. None of this ever is, no matter how hard production tries to sell chaos.
“Third rotation after the left tilt,” I say. “We step, don’t jump. Keep your weight low. If the hook drops, freeze.”
“That thing drops and your instruction is freeze?”
“Yes.”
“Wild.”
“Bron.”
“Right. Freezing. My destiny.”
The wheel shifts left.
Once.
Twice.
The third rotation begins.
“Now.”
We step onto the rotating bridge together, knees bent, center of gravity low. The metal beneath us is slick with condensed mist from the cooling vents, and the whole structure hums like a living thing. Overhead, one of the sweep hooks descends with a mechanical shriek.
“Freeze,” I say.
Bron freezes.
The hook passes so close to his shoulder that I feel the displaced air move against my face.
Then it rises.
“Move.”
We move.
The finish platform is right there now, bright under the stadium lights and close enough to taste. The crowd is on its feet, the noise shaking through the wheel structure in wild uneven waves. A month ago that would have gotten into Bron’s blood. I know it would have. He would have smiled at it. Fed on it. Used the sound as fuel for some reckless lunge at glory.
