Reese speaks louder than everyone else. Rebecca recognizes his voice from afar. He stands amid a cluster of contestants, laughing and gesturing dramatically. Now, not only do the twins surround him, but also three young women and a boy with distant eyes and grayish skin. They’re all criminals, but he really looks like a delinquent—the type that would make Rebecca cross the street if she had ever run into him outside.
They all look at Reese like he’s some sort of deity. He loves it. His desperate need for attention strikes her as almost pitiful—reminiscent of a small child whose mother is too distracted by a drunken husband or unpaid bills, seeking attention, approval, or any form of parental care.
At that thought, a soft chuckle escapes her lips, barely audible above the noise yet somehow carrying through. From the corner of her eye, she notices a shift among the group around Reese. His attention wavers, then homes in on her quiet laugh. He pauses mid-sentence, his gaze prowling the hallway. Does he see her? Does he know it was her who laughed? She holds her breath. He looks at her, but his expression gives her nothing. His dark, fathomless eyes unnerve her. After a beat, he resumes his loud talk, but that brief pause—that faint hesitation—tells her he might have noticed. She hopes not; the last thing she wants is the ire of a self-proclaimed celebrity and his fanatical admirers. She already suspects how unforgiving this world of Live can be, even after just a few hours.
When Reese finally finishes his theatrical display, his gaze snaps back to Rebecca. He pushes through the growing crowd, despite some of them asking where he’s going and pleading him to stay. He just ignores them. He’s lost interest in them, and their disappointed faces show they know it. His focus is somewhere else now—on her. On Rebecca.
He approaches her from the side and starts talking immediately. His voice softens to the point of sounding intimate. That’s a voice not everyone gets to hear, or that’s what he wants her to believe.
He speaks clearly, with a melodic tone, yet the unease Rebecca feels—because of him, because of all the other contestants watching her like she’s the luckiest person in the world—warps his sentences into an unintelligible blur in her mind.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“There are people in here that clearly don’t belong, you know what I mean? Shoplifters, pottheads. But you, who obviously do, look more delicate than any of them. Let me give you a hand.”
Rebecca’s eyes go wide as she lifts her face to meet his. Whatever that was he told her, his eyes give her just as little. They’re so dark she can’t tell where the pupil ends and the iris begins.
Fortunately, an announcement cuts through:
“Contestants, return to your designated quarters. Preparation for the nightly events starts in thirty minutes.”
For the first time since she woke up, Rebecca is glad to obey.
“We have to go,” she says simply.
She turns around without a glance. Initially, he doesn’t move from his spot, he’s probably still looking at her, but she doesn’t turn around to confirm her suspicion. The hall empties abruptly. For a second, she’s thankful for the silence. Until the mechanical thrum within the building and the upbeat music return. Her adrenaline fades, leaving behind only the twisting in her gut, which is starting to feel routine. She reaches her room—Room 42—and hurries inside, closing the door quickly behind her.
Inside, she hardly recognizes the space as part of the same facility. A minimal, feminine yet sterile design greets her. Silent—a world apart from the chaos in the hallway. Beyond the bed, a small private bathroom extends. On the wall in front of the door, a round mirror reflects her intense, contemplative face. She studies her reflection, sifting through fragments of Reese’s words; the scattered pieces are everything she needs to recognize his manipulative tendencies. For a moment, she considers accepting his help, but the thought vanishes as quickly as it appears. His offer feels less like genuine interest and more like a ploy to break through her guarded shell. Still, she cannot shake the sting of turmoil—he has prodded an old wound, a latent pain she carried long before Live invaded her life.
Drifting onto her tiny private balcony, Rebecca gazes at the glittering cityscape. The hypnotic neon lights burn her eyes and force her to tilt her head back to read the nearest signs. The night sky is behind it all, but she only catches the shreds that squeeze between the buildings. Perhaps for the first time all day, she truly understands where she is, why she’s here, and what it all means. And she sees only two possible futures ahead of her: either submitting to the game—pretending to be someone she’s not, shamelessly licking other people’s butts, destroying her character with white lies, everything she so determinedly avoided in the dancing world—or dying.
