V

  Rebecca finds it comical, painfully comical, that after everything, Reese and her still sit together for breakfast. The groups have already been decided; there's no room for a solitary island with a broken heart. They said their respective hellos, but after that, neither of them has uttered a word.

  Rebecca picks at her food. She's done after one bite. Did the synthetic paste always taste like glue? She keeps her gaze fixed on her plate, acutely aware of Reese’s presence beside her.

  Lena sat with them for a while, the only buffer keeping the silence from turning unbearable. But she had finished her breakfast in a rush and left. Leaving them alone, with their unresolved mess.

  Finally, Reese shifts in his seat. He reaches across the table—not toward her, but for the shared pitcher of synthetic juice. His fingers brush against hers as he grabs it. The touch, though brief, is electrifying, jolting Rebecca in her seat.

  He seems completely unaware—or pretending to be—of the shock he just caused her. He takes a sip, followed by more silence, then he drains the whole glass.

  When he's finished, he clears his throat, loud enough for people at the adjacent table to overhear. He sets the glass down but doesn’t let go, running a finger along the rim.

  “So,” he begins, his voice lower than usual. Rebecca trembles. “About last night…”

  He pauses, his gaze finally meeting hers. Rebecca can’t read his expression—partly because he’s been so guarded, but also because she can only steal quick glances at him.

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small, finely carved wooden bird—Rebecca recognizes it as a sparrow, its tapered wings spread in mid-flight. He holds it out to her, the delicate figure resting in his open palm.

  Rebecca stares at it, drawn by the precise details of its carved feathers and outstretched wings, yet utterly baffled by its meaning. Is this an apology? A symbol that he wants to be free? Or did Contestant 22 leave it in his room last night, and now he thinks it belongs to her? Does he even remember what happened—and who he was with?

  She swallows, whatever the answer is, she will only find out if she asks, she just hopes it doesn’t hurt too much. “What is this?”

  Reese’s hand remains extended—steady, patient. He doesn’t retract the offering or try to explain it away. He simply waits, his gaze locked on hers.

  Rebecca, clenching her fists at both sides of her tray, presses, “Won’t you say anything?”

  At last, he lowers his hand—just slightly—still offering the bird but now hesitant, the hope in his gesture dimming. “It’s a gift,” he says, his voice low, almost a murmur. He no longer looks at her, and a faint flush creeps up his face. “To remind you of what’s important.” He tilts the bird, letting the straining fluorescent light catch on the polished wood. It gleams, and for a moment, the tiny wooden feathers seem to come alive.

  “A fan sent it to me,” he continues, straightening his shoulders against the back of his chair. “She, uh… said she was inspired by a song I wrote about my dad. In the message, she said it was her favorite—it's one of mine too.” He clears his throat. “He always used to say that even in a cage, you can still dream of flying high.” His gaze drifts upward toward the ceiling, longing for something Rebecca can only guess at.

  “My dad was an artist too. He liked working with wood. Furniture, mostly, but he wasn’t good at business. We were poor. Proper broke. Didn’t stop my dad from thinking he’d make it big. Then my mum left us. She wanted a better lifestyle. And she got it, with her new family.” He sighs.

  “That’s when my dad told me to always fight for what I want until I get it. He never did, though. He never really believed in himself. But he believed in me.”

  His eyes return to hers, and the intensity of his stare makes her heart skip a beat.

  “I’ve carried it with me ever since I got it because it reminds me of where I come from—and where I want to go.”

  "Right," Rebecca replies, her voice rougher than she intended. He’s right, though. For a moment, the turbulent confusion of emotions—the jealousy, the hurt—had clouded her focus.

  She’d forgotten what truly matters: survival.

  Her feelings for Reese, whatever they are, are a dangerous distraction—a luxury. She can’t afford such a thing in this twisted game of life and death. Especially since she knows, has always known, that it’s nothing more than a performance. It’s all part of his strategy to build his image, to boost his popularity. To become richer. More famous. Probably both.

  He told her from the start—he wanted to sell a love story, not live one. Not with her.

  She pushes back her chair, the scrape of its metallic legs against the polished floor grating in her teeth.

  “I’m going to training,” she announces, turning her face away from his gaze.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she catches the red flash of one of the cameras. Her urge to flee intensifies with the realization that thousands of eyes—if not more—are on her, watching, judging, pitying. Mocking.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Physical exhaustion is the only escape she’ll find. It will drown out the image of Reese sharing his bed with another woman—and the stinging memory of his casual good morning kiss.

  But before she can turn away, his hand shoots out and lightly grips her wrist. “Wait,” he says in a low, urgent tone. “Are you seriously going to run every time I try to talk to you?” Rebecca freezes. Her breath halts, the only sign of movement is the slow, subtle shift of her lashes. His fingers tighten slightly, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep her in place. His touch sends a shiver up her arm; she can’t tell if it’s warmth or unease. He looks at her, silently pleading for her to stay. In that moment, Rebecca wonders if his insistence—this effort to hold her back—is his way of admitting he’s about to lose her, or if it means she’s the one on the verge of losing him. Does he even care? To her, it… seems so.

  A voice in her head screams, "Don't give him another chance—go, run. End this absurdity." Yet something keeps her rooted to the spot—perhaps a hope that whatever he says will change everything, make it better, take away the pain. Or maybe it's just a morbid curiosity to see what game he's playing now.

  She gives in to curiosity—maybe hope, maybe even plain stupidity—and slowly sits back down. She fixes her gaze on his hand, wrapped around her wrist, watching his veins pulse beneath his skin. The others are watching, and the cameras keep rolling—they never stop—but she lets it all fade into the background. Right now, there’s only the two of them in that dining hall.

  “Damn it,” she mumbles under her breath.

  She lifts her eyes back to his face, searching for answers in the depths of his dark brown eyes. “Okay, I won’t run this time,” she says. “Just explain to me, why should I listen?”

  Reese nods as he releases her wrist, his hand hovering just above the table, as if reluctant to break their connection completely. “Last night…” he begins. “I needed… company.” He looks away, his gaze drifting toward the other contestants—some of whom are openly listening. “After the battle…” he trails off, shaking his head slightly, the muscles in his arms flexing beneath his shirt. “I felt awful.”

  Rebecca’s eyebrows furrow. “Why?” she asks, the hurt in her tone unmistakable. Sleeping with someone else wasn’t the only way he had betrayed her—she’d almost forgotten that. “You fought because you wanted to.” The memory of his video message still stings.

  He makes a faint move to grab her wrist again but stops at the last moment, locking his gaze with hers. Only then, she begins to understand the expression on his face: shame. “I know. You’re right about that," he admits in a whisper so quiet he has to lean over the table for her to hear. “I realized in the arena what an idiot I’d been.” His hand clenches into a fist on the tabletop. “It wasn’t the pain,” he continues, pausing, then drawing a deep, shaky breath. “Or the fear.” He hesitates again, as if trying to gather the right words. “It was… him.”

  “Him?” Rebecca asks, narrowing her eyes slightly, urging him to continue.

  Reese’s jaw tightens. “Contestant 3. I lost count of how many times I talked to him, Rebecca,” he explains, his voice strained. “We even shared a piece of bread once—at lunch, after training. He was… starving. And I…” He closes his eyes for a moment. Instinctively, his hand falls on the wooden bird resting on the table between them. He wraps his fingers around it and squeezes until his hand turns red. “I didn’t realize until then that I was facing a real person, someone as real as you or me.”

  He opens his eyes just a little—enough for Rebecca to notice tiny drops of water clinging to his eyelashes. “And when it was over,” he continues in a low, throaty voice, “when I went to your room… to talk… you didn’t open the door.” He scoffs at the end, as if mocking the way she rejected him.

  Rebecca didn’t expect that. “I was asleep,” she murmurs, though her words lack conviction even to her own ears. Reese’s jaw tightens and his eyes harden. He doesn’t believe her—and he makes no effort to hide it.

  "Asleep?" he repeats, a smile forming on his lips—a smile not of happiness but of restrained anger. "How is it that every night you stay awake until three in the morning, haunted by nightmares and unable to find a moment’s peace... yet on the night I’m fighting for my life—getting rammed in the stomach with a rotten piece of junk—you sleep like a baby?" A charged silence follows. He leans in, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl. "And how is it," he continues, his gaze burning into hers, "that every night you seek refuge in my room, in my bed, in my arms... but when I need you, when I come to you for comfort, you disappear?"

  His words hit Rebecca like a slap. She flinches, lost for a response to the raw pain in his tone. "I was scared," she whispers after a long pause. It’s the truth, a basic, humiliating truth she'd kept hidden from both him and herself. "This whole thing, Reese, terrifies me." Her gaze falls to the floor, too ashamed to meet his intense stare. "You terrify me," she adds, her voice trembling. "Us... and just how far we're taking this... this little scheme of ours." The confession rushes out; her cheeks burn red, yet somehow, admitting it feels liberating.

  Rebecca can’t remember when she picked up the wooden bird, but now it rests nestled in her palm. She doesn’t want to let it go—there’s so many things she doesn’t want to let go. Reese rubs his hands along the sides of his head, a gesture she’s seen plenty of times. The faint lines around his eyes appear deeper this morning, the shadows under them darker.

  "I’ve told you a thousand times that you have to trust me," Reese breathes, his eyes closed as he searches for the last bits of patience.

  "Right," Rebecca retorts, unable to suppress her bitterness any longer. The wounds festering beneath her skin now split open and bleed freely. "Like when you asked your fans to have you fight, for example? Or last night?" She lifts her chin, her eyes flashing.

  Reese sighs, smiling but shaking his head. He leans back in his chair, his body sliding slightly under the table. "What does this mean, then? That you’re never going to trust me?"

  Rebecca hesitates, disturbed by the sour smell of the recycled protein paste in her bowl. Finally, she lifts her head, her expression resolute. “I don't think so anymore,” she replies softly but with a finality that makes Reese flinch. “I mean, how could I?”

  He looks at her, his dark eyes clouded with hurt and confusion. He doesn’t argue or try to convince her otherwise. Perhaps, on some level, he understands the validity of her distrust—maybe he’s come to accept that their alliance brings more trouble and pain than comfort.

  Rebecca clutches the wooden bird tighter, her fingers trembling uncontrollably. She watches as Reese drifts his gaze to some uncertain point on the table, lost in thought. Her heart hammers; if she once built walls around it, now she’s fortified them with layers of distrust and resentment, unsure how to dismantle them—even if she wanted to. And does she want to? The fear she confessed moments ago hasn’t dissipated. It never will. The only difference now is that Reese knows about it.

  After a long, heavy silence, he pushes himself away from the table. The harsh scrape of his chair against the floor rakes down her spine like nails on a chalkboard. He stands for a moment with slumped shoulders, his gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the sterile walls of the dining area, looking lost in a sea of his own uncertainties. Then, without another word, he turns and walks away, disappearing through the door—leaving Rebecca alone with her doubts, her demons, and a pain in her chest that forces her to accept a burdening truth: despite everything, despite her distrust and fear, a part of her aches for the fragile connection they'd forged.