Reese stumbles into the room, barely holding himself upright. Rebecca follows silently, hesitant. The door slides shut behind them.

  He shrugs off his jacket, but his hands shake too much to do anything else. Rebecca steps in. No words. Just fingers working at the buttons of his shirt. Then peeling the blood-soaked tank top from his torso. His breath hitches when she reaches his ribs, where faint scars mark the presence of recently healed wounds from the battle.

  She doesn’t react. Doesn’t ask if it hurts. These scars have healed, but there are others—invisible, far more painful.

  Reese doesn’t thank her. He just watches. Then he turns, dragging himself into the bathroom. The sound of running water fills the room.

  Rebecca stays where she is. Folds his ruined clothes. Stares at her own hands, stained dark with someone else’s blood.

  “May I?" Rebecca asks, opening the bathroom door. She doesn’t get an answer, so she washes her hands quickly and leaves.

  By the time he steps out, steam curling around his frame, she’s under the blankets in fetal position, facing the wall. He doesn’t hesitate before sliding in beside her, pressing his chest against her back. His arm hooks around her waist. Warm. Solid. Safe, for once.

  “Are you awake?” he asks softly, lips brushing her ear.

  She nods.

  “Let me show you, then.”

  He slides his arm away from her to reach for his phone. Rebecca sits up, her back resting against the wall. He hands her the phone. It’s one of his posts—lyrics from a new song. She reads it, expecting something meaningful. Romantic, even. Or at least something she could understand. But none of it makes sense.

  “I don’t get it,” she admits.

  “Read again,” Reese says.

  She does. The lyrics make possibly even less sense than before. There are lines like: “My hands are tied, my lips are shut,” “You said you wanted defiance, a purpose, a fight,” and “I’m reaching out, you’ve helped me once, don’t fail me now.” Only when Rebecca looks at the caption below does she realize what this is about. It reads: “Check out my lyrics, you genius son of a bitch.”

  Rebecca turns to look at Reese. Their eyes meet. He’s still trying—that’s what his eyes tell her. He’s still looking for ways to communicate with the outside world without Live noticing.

  Immediately after breaking eye contact, he takes the phone from her hands and says he’s going to sleep. He turns off the lights, rolls to his side, his back to her. Neither of them says a word. Sleep drags them both under.

  Near dawn, Rebecca’s eyes snap open from a nightmare. Reese was there, but she doesn’t remember anything else. The air feels wrong. Trapped. She rolls onto her back, and Reese’s arm slips from her waist. He doesn’t stir.

  The room is dark, bathed in the weak city lights that slip through the gaps in the curtains. Her gaze lands on his phone. Silent as a cat, she grabs it, unlocks it with Reese’s face, and checks his last post.

  Her gut twists at the thought of what he’s doing—and what she’s doing. She can’t breathe. She wants it to stop. She wants to go back to the old days, to hug him while he sleeps, and believe his efforts will actually work. She doesn’t want to be distant for one more second.

  Desperately, she scrolls through the comments, hoping for a message from whoever Reese was contacting this time. A cryptic sentence. A keyword. Anything to tell her there’s still a chance. But nothing.

  What she does find is a comment from Contestant 6: “You people still like this loser? He lost all his edge now that he’s obsessed with 42’s lady parts.”

  Rebecca bounces out of bed, stumbling over Reese’s sleeping form. At first, she heads for the balcony, but then she’s distracted by the small pile of clothes on Reese’s armchair. His shirt lies there, blood spread across the fabric in dried, rust-colored smears. Proof of the night before. Proof of what Contestant 6 made her.

  Weak.

  Her stomach turns. She moves without thinking. Grabs the shirt and slips out the door. The walk to Room 6 is quiet. Cameras track her, but no one stops her. No alarms. No drones.

  Inside, the twin sleeps. Face bruised, mouth slightly open, breath slow but wheezing. Oh, the poor ‘victim.’

  Rebecca kneels beside the bed. Stares at him, at the rise and fall of his chest. Then, she shoves Reese’s bloody shirt deep between his lips.

  He jerks awake with a choking sound, eyes wide, body twisting, coughing. His fingers claw at the shirt in his mouth, confusion bleeding into panic. Rebecca grips his wrist. Tight. She leans in. Her lips, just close enough to his ear, and says in a cold, lifeless voice:

  "How does it taste? It’s your brother’s blood."

  He gags and spits out the fabric. Sucks in a breath, panting, eyes locking onto hers in disbelief. Then silence. Finally, understanding settles across his face. Rebecca doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. She just waits. Waits until she’s sure he knows it’s her looking back at him. Only then, she leaves.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  From the corridor, she hears Contestant 6’s manic laugh. Or is it crying? She can’t tell. But whatever it is freezes her in place, her skin prickling. “Look what she did to us, Tommy!” Another sound—like a clap or a slap. Rebecca flinches. “What do I do? What do I do?”

  Goosebumps rise along her spine as she thinks she hears a second voice coming from Contestant 6’s room. Deeper, calmer—eerily similar to his brother’s. “Just let it go.”

  Rebecca clamps her hands over her mouth and sprints back to her room.

  That morning, Rebecca is one of the first to arrive at the dining hall. She wasn’t going to kid herself—sleep was never an option once the first rays of sun pulled her awake. There she sits alone.

  Reese arrives a few minutes later. He doesn’t sit with her, he chooses a table across the room, by the far wall. He doesn’t even glance in her direction. She knows why. It’s because he woke up alone. She never came back to his bed after her detour to Contestant 6’s room. Instead she slipped back to her own bed like nothing ever happened.

  Then the twin appears. Grinning, bruised, hunched but arrogant. He strides toward Reese, whistling some sort of off-key melody, and plants himself beside the table. His voice is loud and breathless.

  “Hey! You’ll never guess what.” Reese doesn’t look up. The twin continues either way. “Your bitch of a girlfriend and I? Turns out we have the same sense of humor.” The twin chuckles, shaking his head like it’s the funniest thing in the world. “You know what she did last night?”

  He doesn’t wait for a response. Just pulls something from his jacket and tosses it onto Reese’s tray. The shirt. Rebecca watches the fabric land, stiff with dried blood, and her cheeks blush. Reese’s hand pauses mid-motion, his fork hovering just above his plate.

  “She made me eat your shirt,” Contestant 6 smiles, wide-eyed. “She thought I’d choke. All it did was get me hard. Guess we both liked it.”

  The twin smirks, then sits down at a nearby table, still mumbling things and laughing to himself.

  Reese gives him nothing. He doesn’t look at the shirt. Doesn’t look at Rebecca, either. Just keeps eating.

  But she sees it. The twitch at the corner of his mouth. The way his jaw tenses like he’s holding back something biting, something close to amusement. She’s always wondered. Does he like it? That darkness in her? Does it pull at something deep inside him, the same way his own shadows call to her?

  She looks at him. He doesn’t look back. But he knows . They both do.

  When her phone starts vibrating endlessly later that day, Rebecca knows exactly what’s coming. Another video. Another public flogging. She exhales and unlocks her phone. She tells herself nothing can get to her anymore, that she’s past the point of caring.

  She’s utterly wrong.

  Because the face on the thumbnail isn’t just anyone. It’s Daisy. Her former pupil. A supposed friend. For a second, Rebecca doesn’t move. Her mind catches up slowly, piecing together the weight of it. Daisy—the girl she once guided through adagio drills and turnout corrections, the same girl who used to hang onto her every word.

  The same girl who stood in that circle. The one who pointed and laughed while she lay broken on the floor. The one who accused her of revenge arson.

  Rebecca taps the notification. The screen brightens, loading the video. Daisy appears, sitting upright on one of the couches in her living room, speaking directly to the camera. Her expression is calm, composed, but beneath it, she’s brimming with it.

  “Hello everyone. My name is Daisy and I know Rebecca from way back when she was a dancer,” she begins. “Today I’m here to tell you that… I can’t say I’m surprised about the video that went viral yesterday with her and her supposed friend, Lena,” she rolls her eyes. “Stealing Lena’s man? Classic. Rebecca always takes what other people want.”

  Rebecca’s grip on the phone tightens.

  Daisy tilts her head, feigning thoughtfulness. “You know, I used to admire her. She was my tutor. My dance mentor, if you can believe it.” A soft laugh, almost nostalgic. “She’s talented, no doubt. But she’s ruthless. Always has been. Well, this is us…”

  The video cuts. A past clip plays—some poorly angled rehearsal footage with bad lighting. A younger Daisy struggles through a grand allegro while Rebecca, perfectly poised, corrects her form.

  “Now you have proof that I’m not lying.” Back to the present. Daisy exhales, shaking her head. “There was this audition once. A huge opportunity. A well-known choreographer was looking for a principal dancer. I wanted it so badly.”

  Rebecca knows what comes next.

  “Rebecca already had a lead role secured in another choreography. She didn’t need this one. I begged her—literally begged her—not to go. Just this once. Let me have a shot.” Daisy’s smile is bitter now. “But she showed up anyway. Took the role. Took both roles.”

  Another cut. A video from that night—the audition. Rebecca is center stage, executing a flawless manège, holding her spot with precision, her upper body impossibly clean. In the background, Daisy stands off to the side, eyes fixed on the floor.

  The footage ends. The camera zooms back in on Daisy.

  “You saw me there, didn’t you? Totally devastated. Well, that’s who she is.” Her voice softens, like it’s not malice but simple fact. “She doesn’t just take. She takes and never looks back.” Another sigh, Daisy tries to look sad but Rebecca knows her too well. “And then she tried to accuse us, me and other friends, of breaking her leg. We were congratulating her. Yes, maybe we were a little too excited, only because it sounded like this was going to be her big break.” She purses her lips to avoid smiling. “And then she fell. We had nothing to do with it. And justice concluded the same.”

  The video ends. The screen goes dark.

  Rebecca blinks. She should be angry. Embarrassed. But it’s not her image that worries her. She lifts her gaze. The common room is empty. Where is Reese? She’s barely seen him all day. Deep down, she knows—this video won’t hurt her. It’ll hurt him. Another battle. Another kill. Another rip from his soul. How long is he going to be able to take it?

  The day drags but the nightly battle is announced eventually. Rebecca stands frozen as the numbers are called:

  36 - 42

  She barely hears the rest. Her heart pounds—a thousand kilometers an hour. Her number was expected. Obvious. But Reese… She’s sending him to his death. No. It’s Live. It’s Anya, pulling the strings, forcing her to sever the connection between them. For good.

  Reese stands, his face blank. There’s no sign of what he’s thinking, or feeling. No hesitation. No glance her way. He just follows Contestant 36.

  Not again.

  “Reese,” she calls out. “I’m sorry.” But he pretends not to hear. There’s nothing to discuss—he already said everything yesterday. She knows he won’t let her fight.