“I know.”
A swing clips my shoulder near the final stretch and pain blooms hot down my arm, but I stay upright. Tilda’s braid has started to come loose at the nape of her neck. Sweat shines along her temple. Her breath comes sharp and even. She doesn’t waste a single movement.
The finish platform is fifteen feet away when the final complication hits.
Of course it does.
The last bridge section tilts under combined weight, not enough to dump us outright, just enough to force a choice. Counterbalance or speed. If one of us goes first, the other getspitched sideways toward the open rail. If we move together too fast, the section swings wider.
Tilda sees it instantly.
“Mirror me,” she says.
“Done.”
“Not done. Do it.”
That almost makes me grin again, but I’m too busy staying alive. We step onto the tilted segment facing slightly toward each other, weight distributed opposite, movement matched.
One.
Two.
Three.
The segment shifts.
The fish below hammer the surface.
Four.
Five.
The final pendulum sweeps above us, missing by inches.
“Now,” she says.
We lunge the last step together and hit the finish plate in the same breath.
The end horn blasts.
For a second neither of us moves.
Then the arena erupts.
The crowd is on its feet.
Commentators shouting.
Screens replaying the trapdoor moment from six angles.
Our completion time flashing in bright gold above lane four.
Not first.
But strong. Safely through. Better than midrange. Definitely enough to survive the first elimination, barring some astonishing act of producer cruelty.
I bend forward, hands on my thighs, laughing again because my body apparently expresses relief through noise. Sweat runsdown my spine. My shoulder throbs where the obstacle hit me. The whole arena smells like water spray, metal, adrenaline, and victory’s uglier cousin.
