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I woke up on cold concrete with Cole's hand on my shoulder. Not gentle. Shaking me.
"Say it again." His voice was flat. Dangerous.
I blinked. My head felt like someone had taken a drill to the base of my skull. "What?"
"You said a name. Before you went under." He was crouched beside me, still in his jacket, but his face was too close. I could see the scar through his left eyebrow. The one that didn't show up in any of his old match footage. "You said Marcus."
Marcus. Right. The sync had pulled it out of somewhere deep. A name wrapped around Cole's neural signature like scar tissue. I'd felt it when I touched the control rig. A second pilot. A ghost.
"Your partner," I said.
Cole stood up. Stepped back. Put three feet between us like I'd just pulled a knife.
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I felt him in the system." I pushed myself up. My arms were shaking. "He's still in there. In your old mech. That's why you won't sync anymore."
For a second I thought he was going to hit me. Or walk out. Instead he turned and kicked the supply crate next to the wall. It didn't move. Just made a hollow metal sound that echoed through the warehouse.
"You don't get to do that," he said. "You don't get to dig around in my head and pull out names."
"I wasn't trying to. It just—"
"I don't care." He turned back. His jaw was tight. "That's exactly why you're not fighting tomorrow."
Tomorrow. Right. Victor had set up the next match. A semi-legal bout in the old factory district. Five thousand up front, another ten if I won. Enough to cut a serious chunk out of Cole's debt.
"I'm ready," I said.
"You passed out. From a practice sync. That's the opposite of ready."
"I went too deep. I'll dial it back."
"You can't dial it back." He came closer again. Close enough that I had to tilt my head to keep eye contact. "That's not how the gift works. You think you're in control. You think you can stop at eighty percent sync and stay safe. But the mech pulls you. You feel it, right? That hum under your ribs. That pressure. It wants you all the way in. And one day you go in and you don't come back out."
I knew he wasn't just talking about me.
"What happened to Marcus?" I asked.
Cole's expression went blank. The kind of blank that meant he was deciding whether to lie.
"Neural burn," he said finally. "Mid-match. His sync spiked to ninety-eight percent. By the time they pulled him out he couldn't remember his own name. He died in a clinic two weeks later. Brain bleed."
The air between us felt too thin.
"I'm sorry," I said.
He shook his head. "I'm not letting it happen again. I don't care what Victor wants. I'll find another way to pay him."
"There is no other way." I stood up. My legs were steadier now. "You already tried. That's why I'm here."
"Then I'll take the river option."
The river. That's what they called it when someone couldn't pay Victor. You went into the Chenlan before sunrise with cinder blocks on your ankles. Some of the bodies washed up. Most didn't.
"You're serious," I said.
He didn't answer. Which was an answer.
"That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard." I stepped forward. Close enough to feel the heat coming off him. He smelled like metal and old coffee. "You're going to die because you're too scared to let me fight?"
"I'm not scared. I've seen what happens."
"Yeah. To someone who didn't know what they were doing. I know. I can feel the edges. I know when to stop."
"Marcus said the same thing."
That stopped me. For a second.
"I'm not Marcus," I said.
Cole looked at me. Really looked. His eyes were the kind of gray that looked silver under the warehouse lights. I wondered if he'd always looked this tired or if that was new.
"No," he said quietly. "You're worse. You've got more raw talent than he ever did. Which means when you burn, you'll burn hotter."
"I'm not going to burn."
"You don't know that."
"And you don't get to choose." I was close enough now that I could see his pulse in his throat. Fast. He was angry or scared or both. "This is my life. My call. If I want to risk it, that's on me."
"Not when I'm the one training you."
"Then stop training me." I didn't mean it. We both knew I didn't mean it. But I said it anyway. "Walk away. Let me find someone else."
His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. The bitter kind.
"You think anyone else in this city will take you? You're twenty-one. You've got no papers, no legal rig license, and a sync gift that'll get you disappeared by corpo scouts or black-market surgeons. I'm the only one stupid enough to say yes."
He wasn't wrong. I hated that he wasn't wrong.
"So what do you want?" I asked. "You want me to just give up? Go back to the shelters? Wait tables?"
"I want you alive."
He said it like it cost him something.
I didn't have an answer for that. So I just stood there, too close, breathing the same air. I could feel the jacket sleeve brushing my arm. Rough canvas. He still hadn't stepped back.
"I'm fighting tomorrow," I said.
"Lila—"
"I'm fighting. You can help me or not. But I'm going in."
For a long time he just stared at me. I thought he was going to argue. Or leave. Instead he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out.
A band. Black carbon fiber, about two inches wide, with a silver inlay that caught the light. I recognized it from the old broadcasts. Every arena champion got one. Proof you'd made it to the top.
Cole hadn't worn his in three years.
He held it out.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Shut up and take it."
I did. It was lighter than I expected. Warm from being in his pocket. The inlay had his name etched into it. Cole Varen. Iron Arena Champion. Three years ago.
"This isn't permission," he said. His voice was rough. "You're still an idiot. And if you sync past eighty-five I'm pulling you out myself even if it means we lose. Understood?"
I nodded. I didn't trust my voice.
"Good." He stepped back. Finally. Put the space between us again. "Match is at ten tomorrow night. Victor's sending a car at nine. Don't be late. And for the love of—just come back alive."
He walked out before I could answer.
I stood there holding his champion band. It felt like a promise. Or a threat. Maybe both.
---
The factory district looked worse at night. Broken windows. Graffiti on every surface. The kind of place where people didn't ask questions because they didn't want answers.
The ring was set up in an old machine shop. Concrete floor, rusted beams overhead, portable lights rigged up on scaffolding. Crowd was maybe two hundred. All cash bets. No digital trace.
I could feel them watching me as I walked in. A woman. Twenty-one. No visible scars, no reputation. I heard someone laugh.
Cole was already by the prep area. He didn't look at me. Just pointed at the mech.
It was a Mk-IV Brawler. Older model. Heavy arms, reinforced chest plate, neural socket in the back of the cockpit. Illegal mods, probably. Most underground rigs had them.
I climbed in. The seat still smelled like the last pilot. Sweat and adrenaline. I strapped in and reached for the neural jack.
"Eighty-five," Cole said from below. He was standing at the base of the mech, arms crossed. "You hear me?"
I gave him a thumbs-up. Then I plugged in.
The sync hit like cold water. I gasped. Let it settle. Felt the mech's systems wake up around me. Hydraulics. Sensors. The low hum of the reactor. I pushed deeper. Sixty percent. Seventy. The crowd noise faded. All I could hear was the mech's heartbeat.
Eighty.
I stopped there. Held it. Cole's band was tight around my wrist. A reminder.
Across the ring, the other mech stepped forward. A Mk-V Striker. Faster. Lighter armor. The pilot's sync aura felt smooth. Controlled. This wasn't their first fight.
The announcer's voice crackled through the speakers. Some speech I didn't listen to. Then the bell.
The Striker moved first. Fast. I barely got my guard up before the hit landed. The impact rattled through my chest. I staggered back. Adjusted. Came in low with a hook to the ribs. Felt it connect.
The crowd roared.
We circled. The Striker's pilot was good. Patient. Waiting for me to make a mistake.
I didn't give them one.
Two minutes in, I saw the opening. A gap in their defense when they pivoted left. I went for it. Full power. My fist slammed into their shoulder joint. Metal screamed. They stumbled.
That's when I heard it.
A voice. Inside the sync.
Not the other pilot. Deeper. Older. Coming from somewhere inside their mech's system.
"Lila."
My blood went cold.
I knew that voice.
I'd heard it once before, in Cole's neural signature.
"Marcus?" I whispered.
The Striker's mech stopped moving. Just stood there. The pilot inside had to be freaking out. But the mech wasn't listening to them anymore.
It was listening to the ghost.
"Tell Cole," the voice said, slow and distorted like a bad recording, "he can't run forever."
Then the Striker came at me. Fast. Too fast. No human pilot moved like that.
I barely got my arms up before everything went white.