Chapter 28 · Iron Arena - Chapter 28: Winner's Cage

The red screens didn't go away.

They stayed up for four seconds after Lila stepped out of her mech, long enough for half the arena to pull out their phones, long enough for Victor's guys to start moving through the crowd. Then the feed cut to black and the house lights slammed on. Too bright. Too fast. The kind of transition that says someone hit the manual override.

I grabbed Lila's arm the second she came down the scaffold. She was still buzzing, adrenaline and sync aftershock making her pupils huge. "We're leaving."

"Did you see that?" Her voice was too loud. "Cole, did you—"

"Yeah. I saw." I pulled her toward the side exit, the one that dumped into the utility hall. Ivy was already there, tablet clutched against her chest, her face pale. "Move."

"They'll lock the building down," Ivy said. She wasn't wrong. I could already hear the main doors cycling, the electronic clunk of maglocks engaging. "Victor's going to—"

"Victor's the least of our problems." I shoved the utility door open. The hallway was empty, but it wouldn't stay that way. "That alert went out on the league's secure channel. That means corporate saw it.