“Touch that word again and I’ll remove your hand.”
“See? Cooperative spirit.”
I should walk away.
I should collect Jesse from childcare, go back to my room, barricade the door, and begin planning how to survive this with a minimum of emotional blood loss.
Instead I stay long enough to force myself through the rest of the briefing because information matters more than comfort.
First elimination challenge:
paired obstacle course,
timed stages,
communication tasks embedded within physical trial,
limited equipment,
public score modifiers,
bottom-ranked pairs at risk.
So the first test is designed not just to exhaust us, but to expose the fault lines.
Of course it is.
As contestants are finally released toward orientation staging, the room fractures into motion. People start arguing in earnest now, some privately, some with the reckless confidence of those who have never learned walls aren’t really barriers when drones exist. Staff usher us toward the central arena concourse in pair order.
Bron falls into step beside me.
I hate how natural his stride still feels next to mine. Hate that my body notices things my mind wants redacted—his warmth at my shoulder, the deep timbre of his voice when he says my name, the way he takes up space without seeming effortful.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
I keep my eyes ahead. “What.”
“You looked scared for a second.”
That stops me.
Not visibly, I hope. But enough that he notices I’ve noticed.
I turn my head. “Do not psychoanalyze me in a hallway full of cameras.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
His expression shifts. Less teasing now. “Something about those rules hit you sideways.”
I can’t let him anywhere near the truth.
Not the edges of it. Not the smell of it. Nothing.
So I put frost in my voice and hand it back to him.
“What hit me sideways,” I say, “is the realization that I now have to trust my survival odds to a man who thinks shoulder-grabbing counts as strategy.”
