Chapter 21 · Iron Arena - Chapter 21: Red Clock

The retrieval clock in the corner of Lila's match screen wasn't counting up. It was counting down. Eighteen hours, forty-two minutes. I stared at it while the crowd noise built around us, and my gut went cold.

Lila didn't see it. She was busy checking her rig harness, fingers fast on the buckles. Her focus was tight, clean. She thought this was just another match.

I knew better.

The League facility was bigger than the underground rings, cleaner, but the setup was the same. Pilot pods on the main floor, screens overhead, crowd packed into the stands. Except here the walls had scanner arrays every ten feet. Little black domes, tracking neural signatures. I'd walked past a dozen on the way in and thought nothing of it. Now I couldn't stop counting them.

They weren't for ticket fraud. They were hunting.

"Cole." Lila's voice pulled me back. She was looking at me, one eyebrow up. "You good?"

"Yeah." I wasn't.

"You look like you're gonna puke."

"I'm fine."

She snorted, turned back to her harness. "Sure."

I scanned the arena floor. Four security posts, two exits, and every single scanner array had a sight line to the pilot pods.