Chapter 11 #2
Bron sees my face and groans. “You like it.”
“I do not like it,” I say automatically.
“You have your puzzle face.”
“I do not have a puzzle face.”
“You absolutely do. It’s unsettling. You look like you’re about to bully mathematics into apologizing.”
I ignore that because it is, annoyingly, almost accurate.
Captain Photonic continues, “One partner may engage the puzzle interface while the other defends the active zone from environmental hazards. Couples must reach the end marker within the time limit or face automatic elimination review!”
A new wave of noise crashes down from the crowd.
Bron rolls his shoulders. “All right. You do the brain witchcraft. I’ll stop us from being vaporized.”
I glance at him. “You’re taking instructions from me?”
He gives me a look like the answer should be obvious. “Tilda, if there are symbols involved, I am decorative backup.”
Despite everything, a laugh slips out of me.
His expression changes the second he hears it—small, quick, soft. Not triumphant. Just… affected.
I hate that I notice that too.
We move to our assigned start position. The platform beneath our boots vibrates with hidden machinery. Across the lane, Vanna and Pajack are already arguing in clipped, professional-athlete syllables. To our right, Zack and Dartha clasp forearms like they’re boarding a warship.
A countdown appears overhead.
Ten.
I flex my fingers and study the first puzzle tower: a waist-high console ringed by floating tiles, each marked with a different geometric sigil.
Nine.
Bron steps closer. “Talk to me.”
Eight.
“The floor sections will shift independently once we start. If I’m right, solving the console stabilizes each next segment.”
Seven.
“If you’re right?”
“Then we move. If I’m wrong, we plummet or get fried.”
He nods. “Beautiful. Love a plan with range.”
Six.
I look at him fully. “Bron.”
Five.
“For the next few minutes, don’t improvise unless I tell you to.”
Four.
His mouth curves. “Bossy.”
“Do you want to live?”
“Usually, yes.”
Three.
“Then listen.”
Two.
His expression settles. Real now. Focused. “I’m with you.”
One.
The buzzer sounds.
Our platform jolts forward.
The first set of stepping plates slides out over the drop in staggered intervals. I move immediately, hopping to the left plate, then the narrow center bar, then the next square as it glides under me. Bron lands behind me hard enough to make the plate shudder.
“Less stomping,” I snap.
“I’m very graceful for my size.”
A hazard beam sweeps toward us from the right. Bron catches my arm, yanks me backward against him for half a second, and the light hisses past the air where my throat was.
My pulse jumps straight into my teeth.
“Move,” I bark, because that’s easier than acknowledging the feel of his hand on me.
We reach the first console. The symbols are already spinning.
I lean over it, scanning.
Three concentric rings. Outer ring marked with elemental shapes. Inner ring numbers. Center glyph pulsing irregularly. Not random—sequenced. The safe path likely corresponds to the symbols with shared rotational intervals—
Bron slaps a hand against the pillar as a dart of blue plasma spits from a side emitter. “Tilda.”
“Busy.”
“Hazards active.”
“I know that.”
“You say that like it helps me.”
I swipe the first symbol into alignment. Wrong. The platform ahead twitches violently.
“Not that one,” Bron says.
“Oh, thank you, oracle.”
He laughs, breathless, and blocks another pulse with the shield baton provided at the start. The impact flares white across its surface. I smell charged air and hot metal.
Think.
The rings aren’t matching by shape. They’re matching by movement.
I rotate the inner band two clicks, align the center glyph with the slowest-moving outer sigil, and hit confirm.
A deep chime sounds.
The next lane locks into place.
“Yes,” I snap.
Bron grins. “That’s my terrifying genius.”
“Run.”
We run.
The second section is worse—narrower platforms, one vertical lift, one rotating bar we have to duck under while the whole lane creeps sideways over open air.
The crowd noise swells every time someone slips.
Somewhere to the left, there’s a scream cut short by a safety harness deploying. I do not look. I cannot afford to look.
At the next tower, the puzzle is physical: weighted blocks with embedded lights, each needing to be placed into a suspended frame without unbalancing the platform. The second I kneel by the base, the entire surface tilts.
“Oh, hell,” I mutter.
Bron plants his feet wide. “What do you need?”
“Counterweight.” I point. “Stand there.”
He moves instantly.
The platform levels a little.
“No, farther left.”
He shifts.
“Too far. Back half a step.”
He glances over his shoulder. “You know, in another life, this could’ve been foreplay.”
I slam a block into the lower slot. “Speak less.”
He laughs again, and this time I hear strain under it. Good. We’re both suffering.
A pair of hazard drones rises from the rail with a nasty little whine. Bron swears and swings the baton, knocking the first one aside before it can fire. The second clips his shoulder with a burst of sparks. He hisses.
I look up. “You hit?”
“Still handsome.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“I’m fine.”
The word comes out tight.
I slot the final block. The frame flashes green. The platform stabilizes with a heavy thunk and the bridge ahead extends.
Bron flexes his stung arm once, jaw hard.
I’m on my feet before I think about it. “Let me see.”
He blinks at me. “You’re stopping?”
“For two seconds. Arm.”
He offers it, almost cautiously.
The sleeve of his challenge shirt is singed near the shoulder. Underneath, the skin is reddening around a shallow burn. Vakutan durability means it isn’t as bad as it could be, but it still sends a hot mean streak of worry through me.
I hate that too.
“You should’ve ducked faster,” I mutter.
His eyes stay on my face. “That sounded an awful lot like concern.”
“It was criticism. Don’t get excited.”
Something in his mouth softens anyway.
I step back at once. “We’re losing time.”
The last major station is a nightmare of moving columns and mirrored panels covered in directional arrows. Half the symbols are decoys. Below us, the mist churns in the shaft like breathing.
I wipe my palm on my pant leg and force myself still.
“Okay,” I say. “Listen carefully. The mirrors are projecting false routes. Watch the reflected arrows, not the lit ones.”
Bron squints. “That is a hateful sentence.”
“I know. Start on my count. Left, center, hold.”
He nods.
I track the pattern—one column rises, another rotates, a hidden arrow flashes in the reflection and not on the face. There. There.
“Left,” I say.
He moves.
“Center.”
He moves again.
A shock pulse erupts from the rail. He takes it on the baton, grunting with effort.
“Hold.”
He braces.
I slam the control sequence into place, one, four, two, three, reverse pivot, confirm—
The whole tower lights gold.
A bridge shoots out to the finish platform.
“Go!” I shout.
We sprint.
The final stretch is chaos. Platforms jerking underfoot. Crowd roaring. My lungs burning. Bron at my side instead of behind me now, matching pace, one hand hovering at my back without quite touching. Close enough to catch me. Careful enough not to throw me off balance.
We hit the finish marker together hard enough to stagger.
A horn blasts overhead.
“Lane Seven advances!” Captain Photonic bellows.
The audience explodes.
For a second all I can do is bend over with my hands on my thighs and drag air into my lungs. My heart is trying to kick its way out through my ribs. Sweat trickles down my spine under the training suit. Everything smells like ozone, hot steel, and adrenaline.
Beside me, Bron is laughing. Not performance-laughing. Not flirting. Just raw relief, bright and breathless.
I straighten slowly.
Across the arena, the results ribbon updates. Our names flash green.
Advanced.
Bron turns to me, flushed and wild-eyed and far too beautiful under all this noise. “Tell me you didn’t enjoy that a little.”
“I’m not a complete psychopath,” I say.
His grin widens. “That’s not a no.”
I should step away.
Instead I’m still standing there, too close, breathing the same charged air, feeling the aftershock of him listening when I told him to listen. Following when I said move. Guarding my space while I solved the path in front of us.
The dangerous part isn’t the attraction. I know what that feels like.
The dangerous part is the shape of trust.
A camera drone floats nearer, hungry for reaction.
I turn from it immediately. “Don’t make this into anything it isn’t.”
His voice, when it comes, is softer than I expect. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
That is such an obvious lie I almost laugh.
But the horn sounds again, calling the next heat, and the moment breaks open. Crew members wave us toward the exit ramp. The crowd keeps roaring. Somewhere behind us, another couple starts screaming at each other under the stadium lights.
Bron falls into step beside me as we head off the course.
“We make a pretty good team,” he says.
I keep my eyes forward. “We make an effective team.”
He hums. “That’s the least romantic phrasing available.”
“Good.”
He glances at me, smiling with one corner of his mouth. “Still counts.”
I don’t answer.
Because ahead of us the competition keeps moving, the cameras keep watching, and I know exactly how dangerous it would be to start believing that surviving something together means you’ve survived each other.