Now he does exactly what I tell him.
“Left foot. Hold. Step. Step. Now.”
We hit the platform together.
The horn blasts.
For one disorienting second everything goes white with noise.
Then the scoreboard ignites above us.
FINAL ROUND QUALIFIED
I bend over with my hands on my knees and drag air into my lungs while the arena screams around us. The metal tastes of salt and electricity in the back of my throat. Sweat runs cold down my spine under the training suit. My entire body is shaking with spent adrenaline and the savage relief of not having fallen apart in the one round where falling apart would have cost us everything.
Bron laughs first.
Not his old performance laugh. Not the one designed for cameras or rooms full of strangers.
This one is raw and breathless and almost disbelieving.
“Tell me,” he says between breaths, “that wasn’t insane.”
I straighten slowly and look at him.
His hair is damp with sweat. There’s grease smudged across one forearm from the lift rail. His chest is still rising too fast, eyes bright with the aftermath of danger and effort and trust that held under pressure. He looks wrecked. He looks glorious. He looks like the man I used to love and the man he is becoming at the same time, and for one impossible second I see both so clearly that it almost hurts.
“That,” I tell him, “was exactly as insane as I expected.”
He grins. “You say the sweetest things.”
The replay screens around the arena flare to life, showing highlights from the semifinal. Us at the first gate. Us on the lift grid. Us crossing the final wheel bridge in perfect synchronization. Overhead, the audience response meter begins climbing so fast it almost looks glitched.
Bron notices before I do. “Tilda.”
I follow his gaze.
The live vote projection is surging.
Comments and support bursts are pouring in so fast they blur into ribbons of light. Our team identifier flashes gold and keeps climbing. The commentators are practically feral with excitement.
“They love a redemption arc!” one of them shouts.
“No,” says the other, more sharply, “they love a couple who actually looks like they’d choose each other with the cameras turned off!”
Bron winces. “That feels invasive.”
“It is invasive.”
“Also maybe accurate.”
I turn my head and look at him. He goes very still under that look, the joke draining from his mouth before it fully forms.
The audience meter climbs again.
Our ranking shift updates live on the secondary board. Strong challenge score. Massive viewer support spike. Top-tier public favor going into the final.
For the first time since this lunatic competition began, a thought enters my mind and does not immediately get rejected as dangerous fantasy.
