Chapter 4 #2
If I win the final round, I can pay Mysk in full.
Not stagger. Not stall. Not charm. Not negotiate for another week like a man rearranging deck chairs on a sinking ship.
Full.
The number lands in me like a struck bell.
For the first time since Mysk walked into my apartment with his theatrical drapery nonsense, the panic loosens around the edges.
It doesn’t vanish. I’m not blessed. But it changes shape. Becomes something I can grip.
Possible.
Across the aisle, a contestant with shaved silver brows glances over. “You look like you just found religion.”
“Worse,” I say without looking up. “A financial strategy.”
She barks a laugh and goes back to her own packet.
I keep reading.
Hazard disclosures are, somehow, both detailed and evasive. There are references to environmental variability, controlled kinetic elements, psychological pressure tactics, resource scarcity simulations, and “audience-integrated event enhancements,” which sounds like a war crime done by committee.
“Delightful,” I mutter.
The packet warns contestants that public favor can affect sponsorship opportunities and optional advantage bidding. Good. I can work a crowd. It’s the one muscle I’ve always trusted.
I make notes in the margins with the packet stylus.
Early rounds: avoid obvious alpha idiots.
Use underestimation.
Conserve strength when cameras want fireworks.
Smile through pain.
Never volunteer for group leadership unless the group is already on fire.
That last one, frankly, is just universal wisdom.
The shuttle hum deepens as we settle into cruise.
Around me, contestants do what frightened ambitious people do: posture, pretend, pray, scroll, nap. The influencer has finally shut up and is now watching old highlight clips with predatory intensity. Dax, three rows ahead, is making friends with someone built like an avalanche.
I flip another page, then stop.
There’s a flat compartment in the inside pocket of my guitar case. I know it’s there because I put things in it I don’t want to explain to myself.
Without quite deciding to, I unlatch the case and slide two fingers inside.
The photograph is old enough that the edges have softened.
I pull it out and stare.
Tilda.
Me.
A cheap instant print from years ago, slightly overexposed.
We’re standing outside a street food stall under festival lights, shoulder to shoulder, both of us laughing at something off-camera.
I remember the stall: grilled river skewers, too much spice, a vendor who flirted with everybody equally and meant none of it.
I remember Tilda stealing the pickled onions off my plate because she claimed mine looked better seasoned.
I remember her mouth curving before the laugh actually arrived, like joy surprised her and then won anyway.
In the picture, she’s wearing that dark green jacket with the torn cuff she never replaced because “fabric still functions even if men don’t.” Her hair is loose. Windblown. One brow lifted. Beautiful in the unshowy, lethal way she always was.
I look younger. More certain. More stupid.
“Ah,” I say under my breath. “There you are.”
The ache comes low and old.
Not dramatic. That would almost be easier. No, this is the quieter kind. The bruise you stop noticing until somebody presses a thumb directly into it.
We were a disaster with excellent chemistry.
That’s the kind version.
The truer version is that I loved her in the selfish way men sometimes do when they still think wanting and deserving are interchangeable.
I loved her heat. Her mouth. Her fury. Her intelligence, even when it pinned me to the wall of myself.
I loved how unimpressed she was by my reputation, how she cut through my nonsense like she’d been born with a blade in her hand.
I did not, however, love her properly.
Properly would have meant stability. Honesty. Showing up when charm stopped being enough. Properly would have meant not mistaking my own restlessness for destiny. Not asking her to build a future on a floor that kept moving under her feet.
I turn the photo over.
On the back, in my own old handwriting, is a date and one line:
Still can’t believe you agreed to dinner.
I smile despite myself. “Neither can I.”
The shuttle lights dim slightly as we pass into a quieter segment of the route. Outside the port, stars burn cold and clean against the black.
I think about the last real conversation we had.
Not the final texts. Not the ugly drifting aftermath.
The last one that mattered. Tilda standing in a doorway with her jaw locked, asking me, very calmly, whether I intended to build an actual life or just keep decorating the edges of one.
I made a joke. Of course I did. A slick, clever, cowardly little joke.
She looked at me like something inside her had gone tired all at once.
I’ve replayed that look more than I admit.
Not every day. I’m not that sentimental. But enough.
The thing about memory is that it sharpens whatever still has hooks in you.
A flight attendant pauses by my row. “Can I get you anything, sir?”
I glance up.
“Do you have absolution?”
She blinks.
I smile. “Water’s fine.”
When she moves on, I tuck the photograph back into the guitar case, but not all the way. Just enough that I can still see the edge of it.
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.
Not because I think pain purifies.
Not because I trust fate to finally grow sentimental about me.
I will not lose because I’m out of room for failure. Because there is a line behind me made of broken doors, ringing comms, old choices, and men who think fear is a collection strategy. Because I know exactly what waits if I fall short, and it is not instructive character development.
The image of Mysk’s curtains flashes through my mind and I bare my teeth.
“No matter what it takes,” I say quietly.
The woman with silver brows across the aisle glances over. “What was that?”
I smile at her, all ease. “Just psyching myself up.”
She snorts. “Try not to die in the first round. It’s depressing for the rest of us.”
“I’ll do my best.”
But in my head, the promise has already set.
No matter what it takes.
The shuttle banks. Station lights bloom ahead like a jeweled wound in the dark. Contestants straighten, adrenaline rising in the cabin like heat. Somewhere beyond this transfer is the host planet, the games, the cameras, the absurdity of survival turned into ratings.
Fine.
Let them watch.
Let them cheer.
Let them underestimate me because I arrive carrying a guitar and a smile and a body built for pleasure before warfare.
I’ve survived worse rooms than an arena.
And this time, I’m not walking in with nothing to lose.