I should throw it out.
I never do.
Dax leans over the seat in front of me. “You good back there?”
“Never better.”
“That looked haunted.”
“Everything worthwhile about me is at least a little haunted.”
He studies me a second, then grins. “You’re going to be weirdly popular on this show.”
“Cruel of you to say in front of my current circumstances.”
“What’s in the case, anyway? Please tell me it’s not just a guitar.”
“It is a guitar.”
He looks scandalized. “You brought a guitar to a combat obstacle competition?”
I settle back in my seat. “Dax, if you survive long enough, you’ll learn there are very few situations that don’t improve with musical options.”
He laughs loud enough to draw glances. “You’re insane.”
“Yes,” I say. “But with range.”
He drops back into his row still chuckling.
I look down at the payout schedule one more time.
Final purse. Sponsor bonuses. Victory endorsements.
Enough.
Enough to pay Mysk.
Enough to breathe.
Enough, maybe, to stop living like every beautiful thing in my life is temporary by design.
The thought comes uninvited and sits there.
Because debt is one problem. Not the only problem. Never the only one. But there’s a seduction in imagining a clean slate. A version of me who isn’t juggling creditors and reputation decay and the growing suspicion that I have spent years performing a man I should have become for real.
Dangerous thought.
Useful thought.
The shuttle announcement chimes, informing us of our upcoming approach to Syfer Station and reminding us to have credentials ready for transfer. Around me, bodies shift, straps click, packets fold shut.
I look out at the dark and make myself a promise.
Not the glamorous kind. Not the sort you deliver to a mirror with blood on your mouth and orchestral scoring. Something simpler. Harder.
I will not lose.
Not because I’m noble.
