Chapter 10 #2
The first planks flex under our combined weight. Below us, the water boils with interested motion. The Razorfins are enormous up close, sleek bodies flashing as they circle, teeth catching light every time one breaks the surface.
I make the mistake of looking down too long.
“Eyes up,” Tilda snaps.
“Right.”
Swinging obstacle first. A massive padded cylinder sweeps across the bridge at chest height, then returns on a shorter arc. Tilda slows half a step, counts under her breath, then slides through at the exact moment the backswing opens.
I follow.
The bridge shivers under my boots.
Second segment. Narrower. Rails only waist high. A split in the path ahead—left wider, right tighter.
The wider path looks easier.
It also looks suspiciously like a trap designed by a producer who understands ego.
I hear Tilda in my head: assume it’s lying unless I confirm it.
And because I am, regrettably, still myself, the thought lands right as a pendulum gap opens on the left and adrenaline slams through me like a dare.
I go for it.
Not far. Two steps. Three. Fast enough to feel clever for exactly half a heartbeat.
Then the plank under my right foot clicks.
Every instinct in me goes cold.
“Bron!” Tilda’s voice cracks through the arena noise like a whip.
A seam opens two feet ahead.
Not a full collapse, not yet, but the beginning of one—a trapdoor panel unlocking beneath momentum, ready to drop the next step clean through into the Razorfin tank.
“Back!” she shouts.
I react on instinct, but not fast enough to be graceful.
The swinging obstacle above changes rhythm with a metallic snap, coming down faster than it should. My balance goes sideways. One boot skids. The rail is suddenly too far and the water too close and the fish are surging upward in a silver-black frenzy below.
Then a hand clamps hard around the back of my harness and yanks.
Tilda.
She hauls me backward with a force born of fury and leverage, dragging me off the trap path just as the panel drops open where I would have stepped next.
The crowd screams.
Not in horror. In excitement.
Because of course they do.
I slam into the stable section hard enough that my teeth clack. Tilda plants herself between me and the bad route, chest heaving, eyes absolutely incandescent.
“What,” she says in a voice so controlled it has become lethal, “did I just say?”
I blink at her.
Above us, the pendulum thunders past.
“I—”
“No.” She points at the trap panel, now slowly resetting over churned murderous water. “You do not get to improvise over carnivorous fish because you felt optimistic for a second.”
The fish leap under the open seam, teeth flashing white.
“Point taken,” I say.
“Was it?”
“Yes!”
“Good.” She grabs my forearm and drags me back to the correct route. “Now stay where I can save your life without paperwork.”
I bark out a laugh.
Not because any part of this is funny.
Because adrenaline is lightning in my bones and Tilda just yanked me back from becoming fish-related content while scolding me like an incompetent intern, and the whole thing is so violently, unmistakably her that something in me goes hot and bright despite the danger.
“Tilda—”
“Don’t thank me,” she snaps. “Walk.”
I walk.
This time I do exactly what she says.
Right-side path.
Short step.
Pause.
Wait for the swing.
Center cut on her count.
The thing is—and this is deeply irritating to admit internally, let alone out loud—once I stop trying to out-charm physics and actually follow her read, the course starts making sense.
Her strategy isn’t cautious in the timid way people accuse caution of being.
It’s aggressive in a different language.
She sees the shape of the machine and threads us through the places where it wants overconfidence most.
“Plate there,” she says.
I avoid it.
“Low under this one.”
I duck.
“Now. Move.”
We move.
The crowd roars when we hit the midpoint platform without another stumble.
Overhead screens cut between our lane and reaction shots from the commentators, who are visibly losing their minds over the “dramatic save.” Somewhere in the noise I hear Captain Photonic booming, “What a recovery from Tilda! Strategy and composure keeping this pair alive!”
Tilda hears it too and mutters, “He can shut up forever.”
“Agreed,” I say, breathing hard.
Second half of the span adds sequence gates. Two floor locks that release the next rail only if depressed in proper rhythm. We figure it out in seconds because she clocks the pattern and I have, at last, stopped acting like the universe will spare me for being handsome.
“Left. Right. Hold.”
“Got it.”
“Now shift.”
“Moving.”
“Don’t overstep.”
“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 gets pitched 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 runs down my spine. My shoulder throbs where the obstacle hit me. The whole arena smells like water spray, metal, adrenaline, and victory’s uglier cousin.
Beside me, Tilda is breathing hard, one hand braced on her knee, the other fisted at her side like she’s restraining the urge to throttle me retroactively.
“That,” she says between breaths, “was a spectacularly stupid choice.”
“Yes,” I say immediately.
She straightens and looks at me, shocked by the lack of argument.
I wipe wet hair back from my forehead. “You were right.”
Her mouth opens. Closes.
“I know that’s upsetting to hear in public,” I add, “but I’m trying to grow.”
A helpless sound escapes her. Not quite a laugh. More like one came close and got denied at the border.
The overhead screen changes to live audience metrics.
A bar marked VIEWER FAVOR SHIFT surges upward beside our names.
Bron + Tilda.
Dramatic save.
Strong teamwork under pressure.
Engagement spike.
“Oh, hell,” Tilda says.
I glance up and bark out a laugh. “They love us.”
“They love a near-disaster.”
“Same thing on television.”
Our popularity score keeps climbing. Not top of the board, but a significant jump, enough that even from here I can see sponsor staff taking note. The commentators are eating it alive—her precision, my “reckless charisma,” the tension, the recovery, the visible chemistry in conflict.
Tilda looks like she wants to set the metrics on fire.
I, unfortunately, understand the value immediately.
“Useful,” I say.
She turns to me. “Do not.”
“Do not what?”
“Start acting like public affection scores are a substitute for competence.”
I raise a hand over my heart. “After the fish incident? Never.”
That finally does it. The corner of her mouth twitches before she catches it and kills it dead.
But I see it.
And something warm and dangerous moves through me that has absolutely nothing to do with audience points.
The elimination results take another forty minutes to finalize as all pairs run.
We cool down in the contestant holding zone with towels, electrolyte packs, and too many cameras.
Dax and his partner make it through by sheer stubbornness.
Sonya looks murderous but alive. Three pairs don’t finish clean.
One gets medically pulled after a nasty beam strike.
Two more are on the bubble with terrible times.
When the official board posts, our names sit comfortably above the elimination cut.
Safe.
I let out a breath I don’t remember holding.
Tilda reads the board once, then again, as if distrusting survival on principle. “We’re through.”
“We are.”
She nods once. Small. Controlled. But the relief under it is real.
A production runner darts over with the manic cheer of someone under orders. “Congratulations! Viewers responded strongly to your recovery dynamic. You’ll have a post-challenge interview slot in media bay three.”
Tilda stares at her. “No.”
The runner blinks. “It’s mandatory.”
“Of course it is,” I say.
Tilda closes her eyes briefly, then exhales. “Fine.”
As the runner scurries off, I look at Tilda.
At the damp braid and the fierce set of her face.
At the intelligence still crackling behind her eyes.
At the reality that if she hadn’t seen the trap, if she hadn’t pulled me back, if she hadn’t forced me onto her route, I would very likely be in a med bay getting fish teeth counted out of me while a producer discussed my narrative arc.
The admission lands with humiliating clarity.
Her strategic thinking didn’t just help.
It saved us.
Maybe saved me.
I rub the back of my neck. “For the record…”
She glances over. “What.”
“You were probably the only reason we stayed in the contest.”
Tilda studies me for a second as though testing for sarcasm.
She doesn’t find any.
“Probably?” she says.
I huff a laugh. “Fine. Definitely. Happy?”
“No,” she says. “But I do appreciate accuracy.”
Then she turns toward the media corridor, towel draped over one shoulder like she’s heading to war and not an interview, and I follow because I’ve learned at least one useful thing today.
When Tilda says there’s a trap, there’s a trap.
And if I want to survive this contest, I’d be a fool not to listen.