The door to the boathouse bursts open.

I'm up like someone poured scalding water on my face. I see the boy. Bleach-blond hair, League of Fame uniform, wide-eyed with his pistol raised toward my face.

In the second where my life seems done for, I apologize to my family. I'm sorry that I couldn't survive, that I couldn't save Zion. I'm sorry that I broke your hearts by entering League. And that you may not even see my body to have a proper burial.

Jungkook shoots.

The bullet knocks the boy's gun from his hands. I'm up, reaching for my pistol. I brace myself to end yet another life. How could I be so naive to think that my violence would end with one girl?

But Jungkook saves me from having another death on my hands. When the boy enters the boathouse, dagger raised, Jungkook is quicker. Maybe it's the nights he trained to remain stealthy. Maybe it's the fights he avoided, the police he had to run from. All I see is his dagger glinting in the faded glow of the sunrise.

Jungkook buries the dagger in the boy's chest, twisting once before pulling it back. The boy collapses right in the entrance of the boathouse. Red spills across the threshold, half on wood and half on grass. It makes for a sick sort of abstract painting.

"We need to leave," Jungkook says. His dark eyes are wild, all kindness in them gone.

I follow him out, not looking back. All my movements feel slowed in the shadows of the chaos that just unfolded. It isn't until an hour later, when we've distanced ourselves from the scene, where I finally find my words.

"Did you hear him coming?" I ask.

"He was quiet," Jungkook says. "I only heard him right before he kicked the door open."

"You were fast," I say. I don't have to say the rest. Fast to shoot, fast to stab like he was meant to do it.

"You were too, yesterday," he says. "We're one for one. Saving each other, I mean."

I stay quiet. Because the question lingers in the air like smoke. How many more times will we have to save each other? And will there be a time when we fail to? I don't want to think about Jungkook bleeding on the ground—like the boy he stabbed.

"Where are we going?" I ask. "If someone found the boathouse, nowhere is safe."

"Let's keep wandering," Jungkook says. "We're less likely to be caught if we're on the move."

I don't want to bring up that we'll have to stop at one point, that after dark there's another possibility that an assassin will creep up on us.

"You'd think we'd be safe in a random boathouse," Jungkook says. "But we can't trust anything. Safety is an illusion."

In postwar Seoul, safety has always been an illusion. League of Fame just amplifies that by a hundred.

"It's brutal," I say as we circle around a convenience store, scaring away the early risers with our uniforms. "I knew that we could die. I knew that we'd have to defend ourselves, and that our weapons aren't just for decorations. But I don't think anything could've prepared me for actually playing the game."

Jungkook grunts, and annoyance flashes across his face. "What were you expecting?"

I have to speed up to keep his pace. "I don't know why you're upset all of a sudden."

Jungkook pauses in the street. Across from us, a child points at us like we're infamous. Whispers follow us as we stop. If someone crept up on us now, I'm sure we'd both die.

"Because you entered League of Fame without thinking," he says. "You weren't prepared to fight. You just wanted a quick cure for your brother."

I grit my teeth. "I knew what I was doing when I entered," I say. "I knew it'd be painful, that I'd have to fight."

Jungkook closes his eyes. I imagine him trying to silence the voices in his head, the ghosts that have haunted him since his parents passed away. I wonder if I will ever be one of those ghosts. "Forget it," he says. "You can't go back now. And we're partners in this. So if you think you can't go on, just remember that I'm relying on you."

"Who said I was giving up?" I say. And it's not like I have the choice to. Entering League of Fame is like crossing a bridge then cutting the ropes. There's no way out. "I'm not giving up."

"Cosma." Jungkook's look is pained. "This is why I didn't want to team up. You're too soft for a competition like this."

I want to slap him across his face. Cosma Yang? Soft? I am the queen of the outskirts, scavenger and survivor. I was born to survive. I grab his elbow, spinning around with force. "I am not soft," I say. "You saw me shoot. I can do it again. And I said that this games is hard for me, not that I'm giving up. I will never give up."

Jungkook holds my gaze. He's searching me, and I feel completely naked as he scans my face. "Cosma, if you want to win, stop thinking about the nature of the games. Just do what you need to do. Like you did yesterday. Survive."

Jungkook takes off toward the innards of the city. In the strangers watching us, I sense their caution. But I also sense their hate and fear. Even if I survive all the way, I will never escape it.

A/N: Thank you for reading!