“Let them come.”
After they leave, the others stare at me like I’m half god, half suicide note.
Maybe I am.
The war’s here now.
The crowd doesn’t know it yet. The sponsors don’t see it. But the fighters?
They feel it in their blood. In the way their fists clench tighter.
In the way the silence before each match tastes like gunpowder instead of sweat.
And me?
I’m done playing star.
I’m done bleeding for applause.
If Varn wants a spectacle, he’s about to get one.
Because the next time I step into that ring, it won’t be for the Combine.
It’ll be for us.
For Rhea.
For Ripley.
For every fighter they ever tried to erase.
And I swear by every god left in this cold galaxy —
this time, when the crowd screams,
they’ll be screaming for the revolution.
CHAPTER 24
RHEA
Ripley’s sitting on the floor, cross-legged, tongue between her teeth in fierce concentration, her little fingers smudged with marker ink. The lights overhead flicker with that faint yellow tint, the one I’ve come to associate with too many lies and too little sleep. But here, now, in this quiet patch of reclaimed normal, she’s just a kid with a blank sheet and an imagination that hasn’t yet been drowned by fear.
I crouch beside her, watching. She doesn’t even glance up.
“What’re you drawing, bug?”
She hums to herself, like she’s too focused to answer. Her curls are a mess, tangled from sleep and stress and whatever chaos her body has internalized from the last week of running. I reach to smooth one strand behind her ear, and she leans into my hand instinctively.
Then she lifts the pad.
It’s us.
Me. Valtron. Her.
All holding these enormous plasma swords that glow with neon color, slicing through what looks like a hundred tiny robots with mean faces and stupid little hats. There’s a sun overheadwith a smile. She’s drawn herself taller than both of us, with sparkles around her feet.
“See?” she says proudly. “We’re heroes.”
