Chapter 19 · Iron Arena - Chapter 19: The Mirror Pilot

Cole tried to pull her out of the cockpit three minutes into the match.

I saw his hand reach for the emergency release. Saw his knuckles white against the rim of the hatch. Lila was half-blind by then, blood running from her nose, her left eye twitching like something inside her skull had come loose.

She slapped his hand away without looking.

"Don't."

Her voice came out flat. Dead. Like she'd burned through everything that could feel pain and landed somewhere past it.

Kade Rusk's mech—an older Hound-class frame painted warehouse gray—circled ours in the dirt ring. The crowd was screaming. Not the wild kind of screaming. The ugly kind. The kind that wanted to see blood on the sand.

Cole's jaw locked. "Lila. You're done."

"I'm not."

"Your sync rate's at ninety-four. You're burning out."

"So was he."

She was right. I'd seen Kade's readout on the secondary monitor before the feed cut. Ninety-one percent sync, exactly like the stats said. He'd held it there for two minutes without a flicker. No hesitation. No fear.

That's what made him dangerous.

Cole knew it.