(EDITED)(Note to readers: Some chapters ahead may not be in line with the new edits.)

The Corvidae was silent when I walked on the track.

Banners were already hung up for the main event of tomorrow, the blaring red shifting from scarlet to wine to blood. Red ribbons decorated the stands, red paint coated the entryway, red diamonds plastered the concrete. Individual banners draped the figures of Corvus like images of gods returning to their kingdoms over the walls. The crisp emblem of a spliced-up jewel was emblazoned on a skyscraper-scale flag, its body hanging in bright glory like a crown atop the stadium walls. RED DIAMOND: THE FINAL ROUND was printed in bold, permanent print. It felt like a nail in my coffin being slammed into the wood. Kenzo, Zahir, Diego, Kane, Rosalie, Meredith. And next to them, Zoe, Wynter, and me.

I sat down on the start line. The wind was chilly, its skeleton stiff and frozen, knocking into my skin every which way. I pulled the quacking goose sweater closer across my body in some futile attempt to keep out the cruelty of it. But like all real things in my life, it was fruitless.

I closed my eyes. My chin rested on my knees. I thought of January, a crowd of prospective racers on the track, every single one of them a better choice than me. Not because of the bike or the skill or the name. Just in the fact that they were real. Just in the fact that they could stay.

The cold froze my eyelashes, prying my eyes open to witness the Corvidae's sleeping figure. I wanted to talk to Kane, but the last person Kane would ever talk to again would probably be me. All of Corvus, really. It was a sobering thing to go back to where I'd begun; I'd started the year alone in the Corvidae, maybe it was only right I ended it that way, too.

"Yun?"

I opened my eyes. I glanced to my right.

Edwards stood a ways away in the pit. She had a racing jacket on, the leather thick but old and creased with wear, her surname printed in bold on the breast, with CORVUS right above. Years of history in that jacket. Years I'd never live to make more of.

I pushed my hand into my heart.

She made her way towards me. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Team is usually busy doing pre-celebration at this time. Cocky bastards." She stopped a yard or so away, frowning. "You ditching?"

I shook my head. "No, no, I'm just..." I shrugged. "Wanted to see it before the match."

Coach cocked her head. "It's plenty ugly," she scoffed. "Red and purple aren't the first color combo I'd go with."

"I like it," I murmured. "It fits you all."

"Oh? Garish?"

"Winners."

Coach raised a brow. I didn't explain. She let me entertain that silence for another five seconds before she brushed herself off and sat down beside me upon the cold concrete.

"You did something," she sighed.

I waved that away. "What else is new?"

"What I was gonna say," she replied. "So what'd you do?"

I considered that. I said, "I tried to be someone I'm not."

Edwards scoffed. "Oh? Who's that?"

Anyone, really. I turned to her. "Coach," I said. "What happens when you want something for your whole life, but in trying to get it, you find something else you want, and now you've gotta choose?" She blinked. "How do you know what's worth it, and what's not?"

Coach seemed a bit dumbfounded by the suddenly-solemn question, her eyes darting about my face in curiosity. After a few moments of sitting in the blue shadows, the weight of the words between us, she let out a heavy breath.

"You know," she said, "you remind me a lot of me."

I blinked. "I do?"

"Well, in some ways," she hurried. "Only Ramos knows this, but I used to be Class III."

My brows shot up. "You?"

She nodded. "When I got recruited into my first real racing team, I was the laughingstock of the whole school. I went to a private academy with the best team in the county, and to think a Class III got into such wasn't just an insult, it was a practical joke. My teammates would treat me like the enemy most days," she admitted. "When I finally became Class I and went to college, I thought 'This is it. This is my do-over.'" She huffed a dry laugh. "But the truth was, as well as I raced, I was a terrible teammate, and when I became captain, terrible at that, too. Because all I could care about was winning."

I frowned. I said, "But, you won."

Edwards shrugged. "Didn't matter."

"That's what captains do."

"That's what I did," she said. "It wasn't until I got my position revoked, and it got passed down to a Class II Hawthorn that did ten times better than I ever could, that I realized what a good captain really looked like." She gestured at the track. "All I ever wanted was to win, and I never thought about anything else because of it. But I had far more enemies than friends, I hated my day-to-day life, hated myself. All the IPRA offers I got were murky to me. I was a winner, sure. But I didn't feel like one. So, what's the point?"

I blinked. Edwards glanced at me. "When I chose Poppy as captain, it wasn't because of her stats. It was because she knew how to rally, how to really see someone for what they were on and off the track. She cared about her racers. She knew her racers. She wanted to win as badly as she wanted them to, too. Winning wasn't always racing. It was having something for yourself that you could be proud of." She pointed at me. "That's a captain."

"What about Kane?"

Edwards hummed. "It was a risk, when I chose Kane as captain," she admitted. "He was in a fragile state at the time. And, he wasn't like Poppy. He wanted a lot more from himself, from others. Racing gave him a life. I think he felt like he owed something to it to be good at it, too." She sighed. "I worried about him, because I wondered which side he'd end up tipping to. If he had to choose between winning a race, or keeping his team, I didn't really know what he'd end up choosing."

I shrank a bit at that. "Are you mad then?" I asked. "That he chose this instead of Corvus?"

Edwards considered that. She drummed her fingers on the concrete. "No," she decided. "Because, I think he thinks he's choosing Corvus." At my puzzled face, she held up a hand. "You know why someone is a good racer? Because they're greedy. Same reason why someone is a good captain. They always want the best they can think to get."

"He's dying."

"He wouldn't be worth anything to Corvus if he couldn't race."

"He's choosing the race over his life."

"And he'd rather be dead than be useless." I nearly flinched. Coach's face was sad, fractured like a spiderweb crack across glass. "I think he thinks he's choosing Corvus."

I pursed my lips into a tight, thin line. I folded my arms tight over my body. "Why'd you say that?" I asked. "About me reminding you of you."

Edwards gave a melancholy sigh, her smile grim and her eyes distant. "Nothing is ever not worth it."

I blinked. "What do you mean?

"I mean, if you want a cookie, but you see a brownie and want the brownie, but you get the cookie anyway, you'll always be wondering what about that damn brownie? And if you get the brownie, then vice versa, that damn cookie. You leave, you wonder. You stay, you wonder. You don't go, you're anxious. You go, you're miserable. You lose, you regret. You win, you worry." Coach shrugged. "But, you leave, you're relieved. You stay, you're content. You don't go, you're relaxed. You go, you're happy. You lose, you learn. You win, you learn."

I'm afraid that I'll lose.

She turned her gaze to me. "Nothing is ever not worth it. Your life isn't a race. There's no points and there's no 'champion' and there's all kinds of almost's. You're always gonna win something and you're always gonna lose something," she emphasized. "It's not always what you're willing to risk losing. It's what you're willing to fight for."

Coach pushed herself to her feet. She gestured at my crossed arms. "Now, either wear a proper jacket or get the hell out of here and back home. I know King gave you yours." She tapped her jacket, and my gut twisted tight. She turned around to head for the exit.

I said, "Home?"

Coach paused. She glanced over her shoulder at me and furrowed her brow.

"The Talon," she clarified, puzzled.

I said, "Oh. Right."

Coach blinked. She said, "Get some rest, Yun. You've got a big day tomorrow."

She had no idea.

_____________________

The last breath in the cell. The last runner beneath the wall. The last dog in the ring.

You wanted a survivor.

Well, Hell alive.

Let's see if you got one.

The final match of Red Diamond would take place at Avaldi University's Corvidae, a massive black and silver stadium that was the third largest track in the Americas, and the darkest one with every inch either black or blacker than black, spanning a whopping 2.4 miles with a risky thirty two degree banking, a 325 feet elevation change, five chicanes, four ramps, one bridge, two tunnels, and one figure eight. Although there were only 40,000 students and staff at Avaldi, but it seated 45,000 for all the people that came to watch the races. It had two locker rooms, for the home and away, a lounge, and a press room.

But you already knew that.

The match would host Avaldi's own elite racing team, Corvus, against the away team from University of Oregon, their very own elite racing team, the Ducks. Beak to beak, and purple to purple, ironically. No one had the time to appreciate the humor, though.

I was eternally grateful for the fact the final match wasn't an away one, considering the fact that spending any time in close proximity with Corvus seemed like a death sentence for me at the moment. The atmosphere had remained a strange, discombobulated thing, soaked in anger and melancholiness, a hateful goodbye, a frustrated finality. It was as confusing as it sounded.

Nonetheless, they were Corvus.

They had a race to win.

We stood in a ring in the canopy, Ramos and Coach busy in the pit below, the rest of us standing with our helmets and gloves in hand. The scoreboard sat at a crisp, new zero-zero. The banners under stadium lights were blaring and bright, a perfect red, a more perfect purple, black and black and black. The crowd rumbled, roared, lions in a cage clawing for the meat of the race in front of them. On the scoreboard, in unmistakable neon light, 85,000,000 US dollars bore down at us like a god watching from the clouds.

Everyone glanced about each other, likely looking for something to say on another's face. Or maybe just for a way to say the same thought. Is this it? Is this it? Is this where it all ends?

Kane said, "Hey."

We all looked up.

Kane stood a world's away from when I'd first seen him. Silver-eyed. Black-veined. Thinner, paler, a defeat like the dusk of a war. A goodbye.

I felt sick like I'd smelled blood.

"You've all done well," he said and gestured to the track. "You made it to Red, a handful of you for the first time. You should be proud. You've come a long way for this season. So, finish it strong. We can all walk away with a win."

Wynter took the challenge. "What about Echo?"

Everyone went quiet. All eyes turned to me.

I found Kane's gaze. He looked at my jacket, the nameless, unmarked one I'd received at the very beginning. He looked at me.

"What about Echo?" Wynter pressed.

I did a double take. Kane looked away. "It's his business."

"We might never see him again after this race and you're gonna stand there and act like this is just another match to get by? How can we all stand here and act like there's nothing wrong going on here?" Wynter gestured around. "Yun, I'm angry as shit with you right now. Everyone can be in favor of that—no offense." I held up a hand. "But, when this match ends..."

"You might never see Echo again and all you have to say is that it's his business?" Rosalie asked.

"I have to worry about the team right now," he snapped.

"Echo is on this team," Diego murmured.

"And do you think doing anything but focusing on winning this race is gonna help him?" Kane snapped. He rubbed his temples. "What is sitting here arguing again going to do?"

"If you talked to Elias," Zahir said. "Your family has some kind of connection to him, don't they?"

"I'm not allowed to interfere, and if I try, it'll only make everything worse," he said, because he and I both knew it. "Echo's made his choice."

"Maybe we stop letting you two make your own choices," Rosalie muttered, and earned an elbow from Meredith. "Yun, you're awful, but Wynter's right. When this match ends, what about Echo?"

"Maybe if you talked to your parents," Zoe tried. "Maybe, they could help him—"

"I can't help him," Kane snapped. "Trust me. I can't help him."

Meredith turned to me, her helmet clasped in her hands. "Echo," she said carefully. "What do you want us to do?"

I finally broke my shock. To even have Corvus saying anything that wasn't an immediate action to have me removed or to ignore me for life, was enough to sweep me clear off my feet. No one had spoken to me since the discussion, that I figured that was their goodbye. To even hear them try again now, felt more undeserved than anything in my life.

"Echo," Rosalie repeated. "Tell us what you want us to do."

So much. So much that they couldn't, that I couldn't. Kane was right. There wasn't a thing they could do to keep me from Elias. Not before, and not now. There was nothing more I wanted from them. They'd given me more than I could've ever fathomed to have gotten in my lifetime. But, I could try, one last time.

I found my voice. "Win." Everyone turned to me. "Be Corvus as you've always been. Win." I sighed shakily. "Kane's right. He—none of you—can help me. This was my decision. I have to reap what I sowed." Then, to my surprise, I smiled, even if a sad one. "I came here to race with you, to see what it was like to race with the best of the best. Racing, was all I really wanted," I said. "So, let's race."

Kane met my gaze. I wanted to tell him, I wanted to say more, to confess everything I'd bitten back, to be honest, to be so honest that it was what killed me. I wanted, wanted, wanted. But I'd already taken too much from him.

I looked away.

Rosalie took a deep breath, then said, "All right then. Come on, Corvus," she said, fixing her gloves over her hands. "Let's fucking race."

We turned to head down the stairs, when a hand snagged me. I turned around.

Kane held out his hand. In it, sat the Corvus jacket, 09 YUN emblazoned on the back.

He pushed it into my chest. He left his palm there, pressed against my heart, the leather barring his skin from truly touching me. Still, I hoped, he could feel the beat there nonetheless.

"Two purples on the track," he pointed out. "We've gotta tell who's who."

I still didn't take it. Kane sighed. He grabbed both my wrists and yanked me towards him. He placed the jacket on my bare palms.

"You are not no one," he said, his gaze in mine. He let go. "Now put on the damn jacket."

He brushed past me, and headed for the track.

I stared down at the name and number. I sunk my nails into it.

You are not no one.

I pulled it on.

I followed Corvus to the Thunderdome below.

"Hello, LA, and welcome to the ever-anticipated final round of Red Diamond, right here in Avaldi University's Corvidae!" Nathan waited for the screaming crowd to roar out all the excitement they had. "As a reminder to all our racers, this is a good and fair match. All shots, strikes, or maneuvers are permitted except for head shots, equipment tampering of any kind, blocking any racer horizontally, or using gear or bikes as projectiles. You must stay within the white fencing at all times, and any breach of the fencing will end the lap as a lap foul. No drugs, alcohol, or any unauthorized substances are allowed on the track, along with weapons or tools of any kind. If you're found with any of these during the match, you and your team will be immediately disqualified. And since this is the final round of Red," he added, "every racer on the team must race the entire length of the match, unless you are unable to go on."

The number one contingency of the final Red match wasn't the victory, wasn't the tension, and wasn't the lack of a chance for a death round or tie. It was the subs.

As in, there were none.

Whoever started the match, finished it. It meant teams usually put out as many of their best racers as they could, or in Corvus's case, all of the racers they had. Nine to nine. First place to fifth. 105 minutes. Eighty five million dollars.

I wondered where my brother was sitting.

"Racers! Ready at the start!"

Engines sparked and popped to life. The rumble of bikes flared around me like firecrackers. I tightened my grip on the handlebars. A Drachmann disgrace on a Drachmann bike. In another life, I'd laugh.

I looked to my right, where Kane was. Aster was saying something or other to him, her face grim. His was strangely calm, and he only said a few more words to her before he was pulling his helmet on and swinging a leg over his bike. She stared at him for a beat or so, before following suit.

I was about to do the same when someone else stopped me.

"Well, well, well." I glanced behind me. Yubaek smiled, his eyes bright enough to sting. He mounted his bike and sent me a wink. "We meet again. Almost by miracle, I'd say."

"By unfortunate circumstance," I argued.

"Whatever it was," he said with a wave of his hand. "The little puppy made it to Red! You must be pissing yourself with excitement."

"So must you," I snapped. "Seeing as you all got here on a fat chance."

"Ouch," he said, clicking his tongue. "That stings." His smile was wicked. "Guess it's a good chance to be the new winners then."

"Like hell," I snapped. "You lost. You're here on luck."

"I guess you should know," he retorted. "Seeing as the only reason you're here is because you're just the newest toy of the real champions here. Funny, how that works! You must have a talent for sucking up all the bullshit. Must've learned it from your precious captain." He said the word like it didn't even belong there in the first place. Yubaek cocked his head at Kane.

I gritted my teeth. "Learned what?"

Yubaek raised a brow. "Dunno," he scoffed. "How to be someone's good little pet, maybe."

Everything blurred red. Anger was an ugly, uncomfortable, blazing beast in my throat.

You, Luan, all those so-called friends, my own parents.

"You're gonna regret those words," I promised him, fixing my helmet on. "You're gonna wish you never stepped onto this track in the first place."

All I ever end up being is a fucking pawn to get your way.

"Racers, are you ready?" Nathan called. "On your mark!"

Yubaek strapped his helmet on. We all faced forward, revving to ride.

"Get set!"

I started my bike with its last breath of life.

"Go!"

And raced like Hell was on my heels.

When there are that many digits up for grabs, you can imagine just how brutal shit can get.

Since most of the Ducks had more brute strength than good endurance, we were left to rely on our speed for points. Kane and Zahir were once again to stay ahead of the pack and focus on point grabbing while I and Wynter dealt with defense along with the rest of Corvus. Rosalie had her hands full with controlling us while the fronts headed forward. The world was red, red, red.

Kane headed for the pole series, Taylor racing after him with smoke. He sailed through it, Taylor's front wheel nearly scraping under his back one. He raced side by side with him, until they reached the logs.

Without even five minutes having passed, he started the real race with a swing.

Taylor swung his fist for Kane's stomach. Kane swerved left, his brakes screeching, until he was sailing back, back, back and crashing his front wheel into Taylor's bike's side. Taylor stumbled right and missed the log piles, skidding against the wall instead. Kane soared over without an issue, and the crowd screamed approval when he landed home.

"Gear up," he called. "They're gonna move."

Yugyeom sped up to weave between the racers and find Rosalie. He rammed the nose of his bike into her side, and swung a fast, clean strike into her shoulder. She fumbled left.

Zoe pushed past the Ducks and sidled up beside him. She hoisted herself up and swung her cleats, silver teeth out for blood. It found his ribs and sent Yugyeom doubling over and braking out of their reach. Zoe braked, yanked her wheels back, and swung like a baseball bat to strike the heart of the bike into the nearest pillar. She and Rosalie raced ahead, leaving him in the dust.

"The race is already heated, not even ten minutes in, folks!" Nathan laughed. "This'll be a bloody victory for these teams to win! The Ducks lead by ten."

"Wynter, Yun," Rosalie snapped. "Go ahead, get out of the fog, start splitting up! We're falling behind on points."

"Be useful," Kenzo translated.

We took that without argument.

I slammed my foot on the accelerator and my bike zoomed ahead. Wynter and I cleared the track, weaving around pillars, through poles, under low-hangers, over log piles. The numbers clambered higher and higher, neon angels in the sky. The crowd was a tsunami in my bones.

Wynter headed for the ramps, Melville on her tail. He slammed her against the railing as sparks rained behind them. Her knuckles braced herself against the weakening rails.

"Neck!" I called. "His neck!"

Wynter wrung her arm around his neck to haul herself up. Without waiting to even hit the crest of the ramp, she let her bike go and sent a swift punch right in the center of his throat.

The neck guard prevented any real damage, but it sure as shit still hurt. That logic seemed to hold up for Melville, because he released her and went reeling back as he held his throat, Wynter now gone from his focus. Wynter pushed her accelerator to concrete and soared down the ramp, triumphant. The points scaled.

"Let's fucking go!" she cackled.

"Don't get too excited," Rosalie said. "Tracey is on my ass. Yun, screw your head on, Han's coming up on you."

I turned around. Yugyeom was headed for me, but not before being headed for Zoe all the same. He zipped past her with a speed so fast I swore it rivaled light, and she faltered as he squeezed her in between a pole and a pillar, sparks screeching as her bike kissed stone.

He sidled up beside me. I took to the higher ramps. He hounded me up the curve, the scent of rubber burning my nose. My bike was just ready to crest the top, when it yanked left and went skidding sideways. My knuckles slammed into the concrete, metal screaming. I whirled my head around.

Yugyeom had his steel knuckles lodged under my bike's end, yanking it up and towards him. My bike began to tilt forward, dangerously close to imploding itself nose-first.

"Fuck me," I muttered.

I swerved around and hauled my leg off my bike. I slammed my cleats into the concrete. I swung blind and hoped it was enough to land.

My knuckles struck leather. Yugyeom faltered and his glove dislodged itself from under my bike. His bike smashed against the concrete of the bridge and shakily slowed in my wake.

I took my chance and hiked myself back up onto the bike. I righted it on the upcoming turn, just as the ramp began its steep descent. My foot slammed into the accelerator, and I shifted gears just enough to go drifting off the ramp, back onto the track, and sail around the last sharp turn the track would allow me. I shifted back and zipped around Tracey, heading straight for the pole series.

Tracey bolted after me. I clenched my handlebars. Our wheels collided with a painful thud. I slammed my cleats into her tire's rim with a vengeance. It sent her sliding to the left, narrowly avoiding a pillar. She slipped under a low-hanger and revved towards me.

"What's with them going after you?" Meredith called. "They're trying to rip you limb from limb."

"They're proving a point," I muttered.

"What point?"

Tracey swung for me. I ducked and sank my fist into her stomach. She took that warning and sank back, only to be replaced half a second later by Yugyeom, who'd come back in favor of swinging for me like a boxer against the ropes.

"That I shouldn't be here," I gritted.

Corvus didn't reply to that.

I clenched my jaw. I looked at the points. The victory.

"I've got an idea," I said. "But I need to go ahead."

"Oh, God, we're toast," Diego groaned.

"What idea?" Rosalie said. "Better be a good one, because we're tied."

If the tails were corralled, it had to be from a ringleader, which was the same way to disassemble them. Kill the head, kill the body. It was Red, after all. Who was gonna go down without fighting dirty?

I said, "Let me take care of Aster. I just need an opening at the tunnel."

"Aster?" Wynter said. "She's hanging back right now, she won't move."

"She will if her tails do," I said. "Kane and Zahir have to split up, start doing combos early. I'll go ahead, it'll give them a reason to start chasing."

"King?" Rosalie said.

Kane didn't answer for a few precious seconds. Then he said, "Go."

I didn't need to be told twice.

I raced ahead with the screaming crowd in my wake and the concrete carrying me forward. I weaved under low-hangers, around pillars, over ramps, the tails beginning to speed up to chase me. Kane and Zahir had staggered out, Zahir on the bridge lane and Kane clearing the chicanes like gliding through water. The numbers rose high, high, higher.

"Looks like Corvus is taking some initiative in breaking the point stagnancy here," Nathan observed. "And Yun seems to be revving up with a plan, although the Ducks are not letting up!"

I headed for tunnel. I glanced behind me. Yugyeom, Tracey, Taylor, and Aster were all nearly neck and neck with each other as they soared for me.

"Lord Almighty," I muttered, ready to shift. "Give me a fucking miracle."

I yanked the gear and hauled my bike in a clean half-moon, the vehicle slipping without any acceleration and careening sideways until I was breaching a forty-five degree angle. My muscles burned with the effort to hold on, as my bike drifted around, around, and right towards them.

"He is racing...at them?" Nathan faltered.

Think diagonal.

I swerved the nose of my bike into Taylor's. He slipped back and into Tracey, who swerved left. I shot the accelerator clean and smashed my entire side into his. My arm looped around his torso, hanging onto him for dear life. I slammed on the brakes. Taylor went flying forward, his hands clutching onto the handlebar. I could only take him so far, but the little distance we went was enough to send him reeling, right back into Tracey. In one fell swoop, him and Tracey collided side to side, and smashed into the concrete below.

I drifted around to find Yugyeom, who was splitting away to head for the tunnel. I let him go, and instead trailed Aster.

Aster followed Yugyeom. The train of us disappeared into the tunnel.

"Let this work," I sighed.

Aster rolled up onto the wall. I went opposite of her. I waited. Waited. Waited.

She zipped down, and headed forward.

I swerved around and rode nose-down to the bottom. I pressed the accelerator as hard as I could, my wheels screaming, until the front one went slipping off the stone and lodged like a puzzle piece into the open crevice.

Aster hesitated, and made a move to go around me. The moment her front wheel passed mine, I heaved myself up and off my bike completely. With one clean sweep, I swung my leg up, and straight into her gut.

Aster went flying back, her bike and her broken like a severed string. When she fell to the floor, her bike fallen and useless without her, I shifted to reverse and unwound myself from the crevice. I yanked my bike to the front, and sped away.

"A vicious play indeed by Corvus!" Nathan laughed. "This match is certainly getting dirty quickly. Number eight, Han, is still on the move, however."

"Point grab!" I yelled. "They've got no defense!"

Kane and Zahir were more in a point frenzy than anything. Zahir took every log pile and every low-hanger there was in sight, Kane clearing the ramps and the pole series without taking a breath, the Ducks' fronts too far behind them to even imagine catching up. The clock ticked down, as the points ticked up.

Corvus cheered to the sounds of our growing point gap. I even took a sore breath of relief at the sight. Black, purple, red. Numbers on numbers on numbers. The endless crowd, the blurring track, the sounds of tires on concrete and metal on stone and my own panting breath. Like floating. Like flying. Like racing.

Like living.

"Corvus stands nearly twenty points ahead now!" Nathan announced. "But with two such hungry teams on the track, who will come out on top?"

We raced ahead to find out.

I sat down on the bench, halftime ticking down. 147 to 155, Corvus's favor.

We looked like we'd walked through a war zone, blood coloring our towels, staining the collar and sleeves of our leather jackets. Zoe had torn one of her nails clean off from a too-harsh blow to the wall to save her face from Tracey's wild hits. Zahir was busy getting stitches to pretend he hadn't cut his lip down the side from knocking his helmet into the track. Kenzo had his whole ankle in ice. Rosalie's shaky hand was preoccupied with stemming the dark blood gushing out her nose. Wynter was attempting to clean the gash that tore her skin from her ankle to her calf. Meredith was triple-taping both her knees. Diego was busy with Ramos stitching up a gnarly scrape to his brow. Kane's knuckles were split so far they threatened to give sight to his muscles. And I had a dozen different patches along my ribs in some attempt at pretending one of them wasn't likely ready to break.

But, we were winning.

I had forty five minutes left. Forty five minutes of racing, real racing, Corvus racing. Forty five minutes of Echo Yun, rookie racer, front port amateur, 09 Corvus of Avaldi University. Forty five minutes of being someone.

Forty five minutes to staying someone.

"We've never cut it this close to halftime," Rosalie said after spitting out a mouthful of blood. The agreeing distress on Corvus's faces said that was correct. "We're less than ten points from them. We're usually twenty away."

"They're more brutal than I remember," Zahir muttered. "They're smarter."

Wynter shook her head. "But, we're still winning. That means something, doesn't it?"

"We haven't won yet," Kenzo replied, and nobody said more. Somehow, that made it worse.

I glanced at Kane. Kane lifted his hand a bit, stared at the bleeding knuckles. He blinked, his eyes full of black cracks. When he wiped the blood from his mouth, it was unnaturally dark.

Coach leaned against the railing and said, "All right, listen up, I'll only stomach this once."

We all looked at her.

"Whether you win this match or you don't, I want you all to remember this moment." She gestured around at us. "Over all the shit that this year's thrown at you all, you're still here together. You made it, not just on your own, but as a team. You've really rallied around each other, even when you were angry, or you didn't fully understand. That's not something you get every day," she said. "However this season ends, and however next season goes, I want you all to know you're champions to me. The best kind, at that. Okay?"

We all smiled. Diego ran over to give her a hug, which only earned him a grimace at the fact he still had a lot of blood and dirt on him.

"Yes, Coach," we chorused.

She cleared her throat. "Good. Cruz, get the hell off me before that stains."

"We love you, too," he replied.

Coach rolled her eyes at that. She swatted him off and gestured at Ramos. "Let her know if you need more patching. Forty five minutes to go, and you all can eat until your stomachs burst at your dinner res, yeah?" Coach clapped her hands, and headed down to the pit.

I pursed my split lips. I placed the last bit of tape over the bandages coating my palms and sat back. The clock counted away my fate, and I could only watch. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Ramos sat beside Kane, a needle ready with a Band-Aid, HELLO KITTY printed on its face. Kane lifted his head to look at her. She said, "If you need it."

Kane lifted his sleeve wordlessly. She sighed and nodded. When she was done, she excused herself to head down to the pit after Edwards.

Rosalie watched her go. When she was out of sight, she turned her head to me. I thought I'd be sick looking at her so I looked away, but she said, "You were really never going to tell us."

All eyes landed on her.

I said, "What?"

"You were really never going to tell us," she repeated. "The whole truth. About who you are."

I considered that for a long moment. "Probably not all of it," I said.

"Why?"

I felt the brand on my hip, the scars on my back, like they were fresh. "I liked being just Echo," I said. "Amateur-rookie-Class-III-Stirling-no-one's-son-no-one's-brother Echo." I let out a dry scoff. "I wanted that to be all you knew."

They looked between each other. Rosalie cleared her throat.

"You," she said, "are a serious pain in the ass."

I pursed my lips. "Yeah. I get that."

"No, no." Rosalies stood up. "I don't think you do. You have been the most utter hellstorm this season," she snapped. "You have caused us countless issues, you've lied to our faces, you've been a beast for the press, you've been a hazard on the track." She held up her hands. "Frankly, next to that one over there—" She gestured at Kane. "—you have been one of the biggest shitstorm rookies to ever walk into Corvus."

I blinked. "Fair."

"I'll second that," Diego added.

"Third it," Wynter said.

"Fourth," Zahir sighed.

"Let's just say we're all more or less in agreement," Zoe said with a sigh.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "Also fair," I admitted.

Zahir hummed. "So," he said, "you're gonna owe us a real explanation when we win this thing."

I stared. Zahir's smile was thin, faint, but real.

"When we win, that's your chance, isn't it?" he said. "If we win, you can be Echo. Amateur-rookie-Class-III-Stirling-no-one's-son-no-one's-brother Echo. Right?"

I opened my mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "Something like that."

"So come back." He swung his legs over to stand up. "You were gonna take the money and make a life someplace else anyway, right? Why up and leave to restart at square one? Come back here."

It was like a wrecking ball in my gut. Come back. Not even a question or an offer. An answer. I swore I passed out, maybe from the words or the blood loss. Either way, I swore I hadn't heard him right.

"What's with the look?" Rosalie said. "You think we'd just let you go and remake your life in the fucking Bahamas?"

"I...no?"

"Good. Because we wouldn't," she snapped. "Who the hell is gonna sleep in your room, which I'm pretty sure has literal blood soaked into it, along with all the souls of your enemies that probably sleep in there with you. It sure as shit isn't gonna be me."

"I gave you a nickname," Diego said, seemingly offended. "You think I just give anyone a nickname? Cobayo. You're really breaking my heart over here."

"Why don't I get a nickname?" Zahir asked, frowning.

"Okay, focus here, man."

"You can't be remembered with that hair, either," Wynter added. "You gotta stick around long enough to at least wash some of it out. Someone's gonna think Willy Wonka organized your disappearance. Ow." She frowned at Zoe.

"We gotta have an extra hand at defending the rookies against the pros," Zoe said, smiling. "And there's not much Stirling rep in the game as it is, right?"

"And like Hell we're doing another goddamn freshmen-free-for-all tryout," Rosalie said, rubbing her temples. "Because we end up with the fucking mafia." She gestured up and down at me. "So do us all a favor, Yun, and win this stupid match so we can all go home without tearing our hair out, okay? You've caused us enough stress, don't you think?" She sighed. "Besides, we already had the jacket made."

I didn't know if I should cry or scream or cut halftime short and get on the track early. I waited for them to turn around and tell me they were kidding, that they didn't want to ever see my face again, that I was the worst thing to have happened to Corvus. That they hated me. Didn't they hate me?

The buzzer sounded to warn us of our last five minutes. Corvus got to their feet and gathered their gear. Meredith stopped in front of me. She clasped my hands together.

"We're your friends, Echo," she said. "No matter who you were before, we're your friends now." Her smile was all sunlight. "You'll always have us, okay?"

I looked at all their faces, their eyes watching me expectantly. Forty five minutes. Forty five minutes between me and the other side. I was back in January. I was here. I was years in the future, looking at a booklet full of photographs. I was a ghost. I was alive.

I gave them one last truth.

"I'd do it again." I grabbed my helmet. "I'd do it all again if it meant I got to race with you."

Corvus looked among themselves, before turning to me with something almost like smiles. No resentment. No hatred. A vicious acceptance, a determined agreement. A bet.

"Then do it," Rosalie told me.

With that, she grabbed her helmet, and they headed down into the Corvidae.

I stood alone, no one but Kane left in the canopy. The crowd had returned from their snack booths and bathroom breaks and merch table grabs. The banners with our faces were brighter than ever under the stadium beams, the night black and nebulous under the onslaught of red and light. I drank it in like it was a draining oasis in the dark desert.

Kane got his helmet. He made a move towards the track.

You're always going to be afraid of something.

I stared after him. A champion. A god of the world. Bronze, cotton linen bills, Hollywood movies, plaques in New York museums. Bones in a closet worth hiding. Cuffs worth biting off. Keys to cuffs you shouldn't touch. Crowns on his wrists, red under his heels. Who knew blood because of cruel men and the taste of victory and tearing off his own heel. Who knew heat because of Busan summers and burning rubber and the bite of silver.

And so you're always going to hope for something.

I watched us like watching from an outsider in the stands. A king. A ghost. The last breath in the cell. The last runner beneath the wall. The last dog in the ring.

So you have to make a choice on whether you will fear it more than you hope for it.

I said, "I'm not sorry."

Kane paused at the top of the stairs. I faced his back.

"I'm not sorry," I repeated. "For coming here. For joining Corvus. For being a Class III Stirling. For being your sub." I shrugged. "I don't regret shit."

Kane turned. His face was solemn, still. Waiting.

I took my chance.

"You may never believe me, and you might hate me for the rest of your life," I said, "but I never lied to you to hurt you, or to get something out of you or your family. I never did it for any reason other than to race. I never planned to get close to any of you because I knew it'd hurt too much to leave it all behind if I lost."

"But you did," he said. "So why?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just wanted."

"What? The victory? To feel like a real racer?" he said. "Congrats, you got it."

"In the beginning, yes."

"Don't lie."

"I'm not."

"Then why?" he said. Kane turned and walked back to stand in front of me, nearly chest to chest. No anger filled his voice or face, but a sad hope, a final stand.

"Because I wanted to do something for Thanksgiving," I tried. "Because I wanted to celebrate a stupid birthday, because I wanted to have a stupid dinner at that stupid restaurant, because I wanted to win Red and smile about it and tell you all I couldn't wait for next season because there'd be a next season. Because I wanted to go on your errands with you, and I wanted to get dinner after practices and not have to worry about the numbers on the tab, because I wanted to go to Korea and hand them a real fucking passport, because I wanted to go shopping with you and tell you stop buying shit only for you to buy it anyway. Because I wanted to be able to go out on one of Rosalie's disastrous team outings and use a real credit card on shit I shouldn't buy and say 'let's go home' and walk right back to the Talon without thinking twice."

Home. Home. Home.

I sighed. "You all made me feel like I was really someone," I said. "And I got greedy. I wanted to pretend, for just a little while, that I could really have that life. I could have something for myself." I mustered up the best smile I could. "I get it, if you never believe me. But, for all I lied about myself, I never lied about you. If I never lied about anything, it was you." I grabbed my helmet. "So, thank you. For giving me a chance."

I headed for the track, brushing past him on my way.

Kane said, "Don't thank me."

I closed my eyes. My smile felt grim and fragile on my lips. "Trust me," I sighed. "I really should."

"Racers! One minute to start!"

I'd never had anything for myself. I'd never had friends, a family, a home. I'd never even owned my own name. I'd never even owned my own face. Everything I was, was only ever an echo of someone else's.

But I was somebody here. Echo Yun was somebody here. Even if not for a long time, even if not for the history books, within their lifetime, I was a real person to Corvus. That was something that no one else, not Mercy, not my brother, not Janchi, not RIYU, not the Stirlings or the Drachmanns, would ever get to own.

If anyone got Echo Yun, I wanted it to be them.

I strapped on my helmet. Yubaek pushed past me to get onto his bike. He said, "Ready to lose, Yun?"

I had no fear when I told him, "I should be asking you."

I flicked my face shield over my eyes.

"Racers! Ready at the start!" Nathan yelled.

"On your mark!

"Get set!

"Go!"

And we raced.

For as important as the match was, it felt like a blur.

The points threatened to breach the 250s, each team roaring after the points as though they needed them to survive. We pulled out every last trick and tactic, the match dissipating into a tooth-and-nail ring fight, like dogs attempting to tear each others' mandibles out with nothing but their fangs.

"Last fifteen," Rosalie called. "It's a fucking tie. Someone start doing something!"

"That means someone rip Yubaek's head off his spine," Diego snapped.

"In so many words."

Kane dodged another swing from Taylor that went straight into the concrete above his head, the stone cracking under the force. He cursed. "We're gonna need a new track after this."

"We're tied. Did no one hear me say that bit?" Rosalie snapped. "We need a plan."

"Bensen isn't letting up on me, neither is Melville," Zahir said. "We're behind their fronts right now. We need a way to lose them."

"You all need to stop staring at what's ahead and start thinking about what's behind you," Coach snapped. "You're ten times faster than these bastards, you're just getting too caught up in combos. This is your track. Screw the fronts, worry about your tails!"

I glanced behind us. The tails had learned their lesson about lining up, now scattered to track each of their individual fronts, including Wynter and I. With everyone being tracked, the only people that were left open to move were the center tails.

I looked around. My eye snagged on the chicanes.

"Kenzo," I said. "Can you clear a path for Wynter and Zahir?"

"Why?" he said.

I glanced ahead. "Neymoore's too aggressive to make it through the chicanes, and Prescott is even worse at turns in general, it's why they've got Yubaek doing them all the time. If you drag Aster there, the tails won't have a strategy, and we can deal with Yubaek as a group. Wynter and Zahir can work on the points while the rest of us deal with him and the tails."

"Neymoore?"

"He'll have to race Kane alone," I said.

"Good enough for me," Coach said. "But you've got less than two miles to go on those, so better move fast!"

No one asked twice.

Kenzo broke from the formation and lurched for a pillar. His bike spun around in a screeching circle before the nose of it smashed right into Yugyeom, who went flying into the wall at the sheer force of the strike. He spun the tail of his bike around and crashed it against Aster's bike. She went swerving left, nearly colliding with Prescott himself. Her distraction was misplaced when Kenzo slammed his fist into the gut of her vehicle and wrenched it forward, perpendicular to his. Without even bothering to consider direction, he sped ahead and shoved her bike like a bulldozer, straight for the chicanes.

"That's," I said, breathless, "one way to do it."

"Mer," he said. "Move."

Meredith banged her front wheel into Yubaek's bike, skirting him forward in a dizzying stumble. Diego took the cue and slammed his entire body and bike against Neymoore, who went crashing into Prescott, who went careening into the hard concrete wall. The three slid like a metal and spark sandwich along the track's curve, their bikes beginning to singe up in the violent attack.

Taylor was too busy swiveling his head from Kane to us without much semblance of a plan to bother making another move. It let Rosalie swerved her bike around to head after Kenzo and Aster, where the chicanes lay ahead. Tracey turned around to ride after her, hot on her heels.

"Ten minutes!" she yelled. "We can't keep them off you all for long, you've gotta find a way to get the points before the match ends."

Kane said, "Where's Yubaek?"

Meredith and Yubaek were on a ramp now, her cleat lodged in his wheel and his fingers wrapped tight around her handlebar. He pushed her so far towards the edge, the whole crowd gasped as they readied for her to go flying off completely.

She slammed her cleats into the side of the ramp and pushed herself back upright. Yubaek sped ahead, right into the heart of the pole series below. We watched, like idiots.

"He's too fast," she said. "We're seven behind."

"Eight minutes!" Rosalie snapped, and hiked her bike up to the rails of the chicanes to surpass the slowing blockage of Kenzo to Aster.

Zahir ducked under Melville's flying cleat. "We'll take the chicanes," he said. "But it means you've gotta figure out a plan."

I tried, desperately, to remember when we'd versed them before. When I'd gone against Yubaek in the death round, how the hell I even managed to win. I racked my brain, my heartbeat rising as the time sank. I watched him race ahead. His turn left. Sharp, and low, and slightly too far in. His break through the poles. Quick. Timed. But sparks flew where his front wheel skidded too close.

The bridge. Yubaek's too-far swing.

"Reflexes," I said. "His reflexes. He gets sloppy with his reaction time."

"What?" he said.

"He's tired," I said. I pushed my accelerator to the concrete. Yugyeom spotted me as I began to surge ahead. "His reaction time gets worse."

"So what?" Rosalie asked.

"Get him on the bridge, or in a series," I said. "Simple sike."

They went quiet.

Kane said, "Do it."

"He'll never fall for it," Zahir said.

"I said," Kane snapped, "do it."

Meredith said, "All right."

She pushed her foot to the accelerator. I zipped past the Ducks to settle behind her.

Six minutes.

She crushed her front wheel into his. They careened for the log piles. I followed her and him inside, the two bounding over each one, one after the other. Meredith caught her wheel in the back of his bike and he went skidding right. His knuckles scraped viciously into the stone, and he hauled himself upright a moment later, narrowly missing a close call with a pillar.

I lit up. "Meredith," I said. "Keep him near you."

"What? Why?"

"Idea."

"Oh, boy," Diego muttered.

I swerved my bike up and towards the wall. My tire sang along the fencing, the angle steep as a mountainside. I waited for him to head up the bridge, where the pillars lay below.

But he didn't.

Instead, he began to head for Kane.

Neymoore was in a clear loss to Kane, riding several feet behind him as Kane cleared double the obstacles Neymoore did. His endurance had long faded with the brutality of the match, and it showed. Kane was far ahead, the points not tipping up, but not tipping down either. Yugyeom and Taylor were nowhere to be seen.

Yubaek zoomed ahead. He had knuckles out, his bike raised, the wheel a deadly, open-mouthed beast ready to take a bite. Kane scaled a ramp. Yubaek followed.

"What the hell is he doing?" Coach said.

Must've learned it from your precious captain.

How to be someone's good little pet.

I couldn't answer.

I could only race.

I soared forward.

My wheels were screaming at the friction of the fencing and the unpaved stone, the imbalanced angle, the weight of the speed. But Kane was on the bridge and so was Yubaek and I kept going, going, going. Racing, racing, racing.

Time ticked my minutes away.

Yubaek smashed his front wheel into Kane's back one. He slammed his brakes, and yanked his front wheel up high like an animal rearing for its final blow.

Meredith raced for them, but she was too far back.

Four minutes.

I yanked my bike up, and veered down, down, down.

My wheel smashed into Yubaek's side. He slipped, his bike swinging right. I ground my wheel down harder.

Together, we went over the edge.

I unhooked my legs from around the bike and flung myself off. I dove away, just as the bikes and Yubaek readied to hit the cold concrete.

When I fell into the waters to the sound of the crash beside me, I did it with a smile.

"An intense play from two fronts indeed! Number four Han doesn't seem to be in good shape after that fall, and neither does Yun, we'll have to see if they can cross the finish line in this final few minutes or not, or if they'll have to take one for their teams!"

I held my likely-broken ribs and crawled back onto the track. I yanked off my helmet, its face shield split in half, and spat out a mouthful of water. It splattered red. I wiped my nose of its dark blood, blinked through the stream trickling into my eye. I could almost laugh in the face of the stadium lights, the bikes passing by us to cross the finish line. My eyes turned up towards the scoreboard.

284 to 277. Corvus's favor.

I prayed it'd stay that way as the final minute caved in.

I closed my eyes and readied to rest my head on my knee.

If you know how to race.

The screech of a bike's wheels and the scent of burning rubber hit me like a hurricane.

"What is this?" Nathan said. "Seems like he's going back!"

I opened my eyes. I looked up. Forty seconds.

A bike careened to a halt in front of me. The face shield flipped up.

Kane gave me his hand. "Get on," he ordered.

Thirty seconds.

I reached up, and grasped his hand.

"Hold tight."

He hauled me onto the back of his bike. He pushed the accelerator to its breaking point, swerved us nearly horizontal in a perfect half-moon, and took off towards the finish line.

Twenty seconds.

We crested the ramp, zipped through the poles, our speed break-neck and the wind deafening. I could barely see anything more than a few blurry shots of the track and the crowds. My arms clung onto Kane for dear life.

Ten seconds.

You know how to win.

"And that's it, folks! Match point, Corvus takes Red! Corvus takes Red!"

The crowd was an electric wire gone loose. I didn't even manage to open my eyes until what felt like eons later. The water soaking me to the bone was heavy on my leather and my aching muscles. But I still forced my head to turn to the scoreboard.

288 to 283.

Corvus's favor.

We won.

I let out a heavy breath and collapsed against Kane's back. The crowd and Nathan were in utter uproar. Hands were hauling me off the bike, some tugging me into bodies, others trying to push the wet hair from my face. I blinked blearily, trying to make out the words and the faces.

"—won Red!"

"I can't fucking believe—"

"—you and that bike!"

"Yubaek won't even know—"

"—he went back and—"

"—you went after him and—"

"We just won Red!"

"We just won Red!"

I looked up. Kane slipped his helmet off. His face was red with gashes, his lip open, his brow marred, his teeth crimson. He spat out a mouthful of black blood and set his helmet on his bike's seat.

I said, "You came back."

He blinked. He said, "I did."

I said, "Why?"

His gaze lingered on mine, the red and purple and white around us in full blast, in utter chaos. The night soaked itself in it, saturated in victory.

"First rule," he told me.

And I smiled.

It was over.

"Eighty five million, baby, we're gonna be eating good tonight!" Diego cackled, slinging arms around both of us. "Holy shit, am I feeling like the hospital, though, I think I broke every bone in my body. Christ alive, cobayo, you look like a meat grinder survivor."

"Feels like it," I said. "Thanks for letting me do my terrible plan."

"Shut the fuck up and celebrate, you genius," he laughed.

"Shut the fuck up, genius," Rosalie yelled at me, and ruffled my hair with her ungloved hand. "You just won Red."

"Guys, guys!" Zoe and Wynter bounded over towards us. In their hands, a triple column, double-decker, blazing red trophy was carried between them. At the top, a ruby jewel sat like a crown. The plaque below it read DIAMOND PRIX CHAMPIONSHIPS, like a promise.

They passed it between everyone as we cheered to the top of our lungs, overpowering even the crowd. Rosalie jumped onto Diego's back with the trophy in their hands, raising it above our heads as they hooted and howled. Meredith clapped her hands and took it from them, Kenzo nodding at it with approval, as she turned to Kane.

She pushed it into his hands. "Captain holds the trophy," she reminded. "Okay, picture, picture! Get Coach and Ramos over here!"

"Right behind you!"

We spun around. Ramos came running for us, whooping with a beaming smile on her face. Edwards face was all pride. She clapped Meredith on the shoulder.

"You all are fucking crazy," she said.

"And winners?" Zoe said.

She laughed brightly. "And winners."

We cheered. None of my wounds hurt, none of my body ache, nothing but the buzz of the world around me able to register. Every inch of me burned bright. Nineteen years fell away like the remains of an empire finally collapsing. We'd won. It was over. It was over, it was over, it was over.

A photographer came hopping down from the rails, camera in hand. He pointed at it. "Photo? Photo?" he said.

We all grouped in together, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. Kane pulled my shoulder back.

"What?" I asked.

He pushed the trophy into my hands. "Was your move, after all," he said. When he smiled, half-dimpled and bright like the moon, I swore I could live in that exact moment for a lifetime.

"Rookies get the trophy!" Wynter shrieked and wrangled me into the center, her and Zoe on either side of me.

Meredith called, "Everyone say 'Corvus'!"

My heart had never been lighter.

"Corvus!"

And for all of a moment, we were champions.

____________

The Corvidae's locker room was supposed to be empty. But if everything was as it was supposed to be, well, this story would be a lot shorter, yes?

We headed under the tunnels where the media would be waiting in the press room, our heads still high off the win and the trophy's smooth gold still a phantom under my fingertips. Corvus was in full swing, pouncing on me like I was the trophy instead. But the victory, like all my victories, was short-lived.

"Talk to him?" Rosalie repeated. "Why? You said you if you won—"

"I doubt he'll let me go easily," I said. "Besides, it's not completely done. There's some things to talk about." Two halves. But, which one would be left?

When we passed the locker room, JJ was waiting for me at the door.

Corvus was to report to the press room, so they paid him no mind, but his abrupt stare had me halting at the tail-end of the crowd. Only Zoe bothered to pry her eyes away, and towards me.

"Echo?" she said.

JJ remained watching me. He had a mask over his face for sake of discretion, but I knew him nonetheless. He jutted his head towards the door. I glanced at Zoe.

I smiled. "Just, give me a few minutes, okay?"

Zoe opened her mouth, closed it, then nodded. She turned around to catch up with Corvus, and I turned to the locker rooms alone.

I braced myself and walked inside.

Elias Yun was a man to be remembered. And it wasn't just because we shared a face. Although that made it easier.

A Bloodhound champion, an Olympic medalist, and the sole heir to the fortune of the biggest tech company to hold an iron fist around the earth, the man was more than just a force to be reckoned with. He was a bit of a fucking menace.

The two of us shared a face, sure, but time, circumstance, and subspecies made it so we weren't as identical as we used to be. He was broader than me, shoulders pinned back, hair short and pitch, his cheeks fuller and his stance taller. His skin was a few shades darker than mine from time spent outside of lightless Blue Rooms and shadowed street nights, and his state of being was far more clean than my post-race one, and far more happy to see me than I was to see him. I knew so, too.

He stood right in front of me, after all.

"Am I dead or dreaming?" Footsteps padded against the tile, each one like another bullet fired into my gut. When they stopped in front of me, I swore I could see the blood still on the steel cleats' teeth.

"Hey," he said, almost amused. "You must be Echo."

I forced myself to my feet. I looked up at my brother.

"Hey," I said, "is for horses."

Elias smiled a wicked grin, fit for my father's face. His words were thickened with Seoul and greed.

"I like the hair," he told me. "Like satang."

I glanced down at his Bloodhounds jacket, red and black like a burn victim. 02 YUN was embedded into the breast.

"I like your jacket," I gritted. "Like pi."

His grin twitched into a sneer. "That is the point."

"To be tacky?"

"To be clear."

"Well." I gestured up and down at him. "It's crystal."

Elias cocked his head at me. Five years stretched an uncrossable bridge between us, and with it, a thousand bodies beneath it. It felt like yelling through an endless tunnel, hoping it'd make it to the other side in time.

"I heard about Appa," I said. "It's too bad. I'm sure he would've liked to see his family all in one place again."

Elias scoffed a mocking, dry dismissal. "Do not joke," he said. "It is unbecoming." I clenched my fists tight. "I think it is a blessing he died before he had to see you. He does not have to see what you have become."

"Pity he had to see what you did, though," I snapped back. "A petty child playing with multi-generational economic paragons just for the sake of padding his own ego with an age-old 'I told you so'."

"You can blame your mother for that."

"I would. But she's dead. So is that father, if you didn't get the memo."

Elias turned a dark look on me. "You know nothing."

"And whose fault is that?" I snarled, my Korean harsh, without honor, without care.

He raised a brow. "America has made you crass."

"That, or it might've been all the corpse-gutting."

"If you want pity from me, you will not get any." He gestured at me. "You made your choice."

I gritted my teeth. "We won Red. It's over. My debt is paid. If you're here to change the outcome, it's already done. I kept my end of the deal." I held out my hand and hoped it didn't shake as badly as I imagined. "We're done here.

Echo stared at me for a long, long moment. An invisible string tied tight around my heart began to tug harder and harder and harder until it was so taut I swore it'd snap in two. Tugging, pulling, urging me to its other half. A sliver of me wanted him to take it, to accept us. A foolish sliver wanted him to smile.

He didn't. Elias's cool shattered like a pebble crashing into water. He whirled on me and grabbed my wrist like he could break it, holding it over my head. I fell into the lockers with a crash.

"You're an idiot," he snarled. His eyes were a terrible violet, pungent and iodous. "Did you really think, that after everything that has happened, we could both go free, as if the other does not exist? Did you truly think that all you needed was Red and you would be golden?"

I wrangled my wrist in his grasp. "What are you talking about?" I snapped. "Red pays my debt. It's over, Elias, it's—"

"You're as foolish as Umma," he said. "We share a face, a last name. Did you really think Mercy, Janchi, would need nothing but a plastic trophy from you, and we could act like nothing ever happened?"

I didn't know what he was talking about. I didn't know what he meant. "No one knows," I said. "We could try."

"There were never supposed to be two," he hissed. "There was never supposed to be you." He tightened his grip until his nails sank into my skin. "Umma should have never chosen you. Why should she? You could barely survive a mere fever. How would you make it? How would you be anything or anyone? Why did she choose you?"

I wrenched myself free and shoved him into the bench. "You're out of your mind," I gasped.

Elias stared. "There cannot be both of us," he said. "Appa said it from the start. Umma just held out hope, like a fool, thinking maybe there would be a way to keep you alive. She did everything in her power to keep you alive and she could never even look at me."

"So your deep-seated mommy issues are supposed to be what determines whether I live or die?" I scoffed, incredulous. "You are a different level of pathetic."

His eyes blazed. "We could have helped each other."

"Exactly," I snapped. "Why didn't you? Why don't you?"

He glowered. "Why bet on a losing dog?" he hissed.

My blood boiled to a fever pitch. A single drop of blood bloomed from the nail wound in my arm.

"You are a puppy, playing fetch in a hound's ring," he scoffed. "A street mutt let in through the back gate, pretending like he belongs on a winner's track. You wear the jacket, and you have the banner, but you do not belong here. You belong in a kennel, on a leash, licking someone's boots for fun. But not here." He leaned down to sneer at me, snag a finger in my collar. "There are no dogs allowed on the champions' track."

I jutted my knee into his stomach and he finally let me go. I stumbled to the tile with a crash. "What are you talking about?" I gasped. "Mercy said—the agreement was paying my debt. If I paid it, I'd go free, that was the bet all along."

"A debt," he repeated, like it was ridiculous. Blood pounded in my skull. "You think RIYU or Janchi cares about a few million lost on a pathetic ghost? You think that fae loses sleep and coins on you? You're more stupid than I thought." He laughed, and the sound made my lungs hurt, made every inch of my vision scald. It was over. It was over. Wasn't it over? "It was always going to be me or you."

No. No. No. This was supposed to be the end. This was supposed to be where it all stopped, where it all came to a point. I hadn't lost. I'd won on every front. The debt. The debt.

I slowly got to my feet. "What did you just say?" I whispered.

"Did she really tell you that this would be where it ended?" he snarled. When I looked at him, his eyes burned with something painful, something vicious. "Did you really think you could get rid of me that easily?"

"That's not what..." I shook my head. "You were supposed to be here for negotiations."

"Negotiations!" he cried, incredulous. Elias gestured at me. "Negotiate between me, and you?" He sneered. "You could pay double your 'debt', dozens of it—"

"No," I hissed, grabbing him by his collar. "You're lying. You're lying."

"—and nothing would have changed," he finished, his lips curling into a wicked grin. He grasped me by my chin. "What's wrong, Echo? Is your plan not working out as perfectly as you hoped? No team to run back to, no dear captain at your back, no nice roof over your head? Did I ruin that happy ending you've been plotting for the past five years?"

This was not how it ended.

This could not be how it ended.

He shoved me off. "Your only debt is the one you owe your precious crows for housing all that blood you've spilled for so long," he snarled. "Your match isn't over yet, Echo."

"I'm not supposed to face you," I whispered. "I won Red. That was the deal."

"Maybe your deal," he said. "But that was never mine."

He turned around to head out of the locker room. "Take your time, little brother," he called. "It's your last match, after all."

I watched him go, and felt the earth around me crumble in.

Mercy was waiting for me in the tunnels.

Corvus was likely either in the press room or away from the stadium altogether. It didn't matter where they were, as long as they didn't see me. As much as I wanted to see them, I knew it'd be the killing blow.

And it wasn't over for me yet.

"All's well that ends well!" a voice said behind me, and my skin went cold. "I hope so, that is."

I turned around.

Mercy waved black fingers at me. Her inky, icy eyes staring into me with a wicked, fanged grin. She wore a purple get-up, dark like poison. Heat gathered in my throat.

"Why, Ghostie, look at you," she drawled. "Red Diamond winner, most improved front port of the lower west coast! And you're only a sophomore. Oh, you must be reveling. Are you reveling?" she said with a lilt. She let her finger glide over my shoulder as she walked. "I hope you and your brother had a nice discussion."

I swallowed my venom. I said, "You told me all I needed was Red."

"Did I say that?" she said. "I don't recall saying that."

I whirled around and caught her by her wrist. "You fucking bitch," I snarled. "You told me I wouldn't have to face him. You told me you'd take care of this, that all I needed was to pay that god-forsaken debt. Just what the hell were you planning all along? Why am I even here in the first place?"

Mercy began to laugh. She tore her wrist out of my grip and let blood run from the shallow nail cuts in her skin. She hummed to herself.

"Motive makes the mind work," she told me. "You're a clever one, Ghostie. I needed something tough."

I blinked. I narrowed my eyes at her, my heart in my throat, my organs breaking under the pressure of my breath. Why isn't it over?

It was always going to be me or you.

"Red," I said carefully, "never even mattered, did it?"

The click of her slick black heels stopped. She considered me for a long moment. I heard the footsteps in the stands, the sound system starting up, the banners roll back to leave the track bare of nothing but two bikes and whoever was unfortunate enough to stay to watch.

My mother's body was a corpse suspended in the amber of my eyes. I took a step, but I could barely feel my limbs. All I felt was cold metal in my hand. I tasted it in the back of my throat.

"The racing, the jobs, the bodies, that 10.5 million," I said. "Nothing I did would've ever kept me from this match, would it? Whether I paid double the debt or half." My hands shook at my sides. I heard the clang of a scalpel hitting the tray cart. "I would have had to race him no matter what."

Mercy let her nails clack against her belt's golden buckle. She turned around. But for the first time since I'd met her, her face was void of any amusement. A grim blankness hugged her features, not with sympathy or apology, but with acceptance.

"Your father told me it was crueler to keep you alive," she told me. "Me, Boram, we were only 'delaying the inevitable'. Byungho stopped betting on you the moment you were born." Mercy gestured at me. "That senseless debt—"

"—never even existed."

Mercy looked troubled, but then, shrugged. She said, "You were good with a knife."

I wanted to slam my entire fist into the nearest wall. The loudspeakers crackled. A narrator to my demise. My demise, that had been planned from the very start. That had been determined for me from the moment I was born, even before that. I had never even had a chance. I had never had any more time than this. All the bodies I'd left in my wake, all the blood staining my bones, all the lies, all the secrets, all the people I left behind, Kane, Corvus, Nia, my own mother.

For nothing.

I was never supposed to win.

I grabbed her by her collar and yanked her to me. "You're lying," I hissed. "Tell me you're lying."

Mercy held up her hands at me, undeterred. "It's the game, Ghost."

"It's my life," I cried. "I did every last fucking thing you asked of me. You worked me like a goddamn dog for five fucking years, you took every dollar I got you, you took everything."

Mercy shoved me back. Her finger poked into my chest. "I am the only reason you stand here at all, honey," she hissed. "I kept the breath in your lungs, the beat in your heart. I'm carved into your skin. I put you in this university myself! I got you Corvus. I got you Red. If it wasn't for 'working you like a dog', your father would have put us both in the ground the moment you arrived."

"He already did," I snapped. "All that work, all those numbers, they meant nothing, admit it. I was going to die on this track one way or another."

"And here I thought you'd finally gotten some motivation about you," she scoffed. "All right, Ghost, sure. Go on, play dead! Bang!" She made a finger gun at my temple. When I gave no reaction, she said, "You were never meant to win. You're a Drachmann ghost and a Class III Stirling nobody. You're the twin no one wanted." Mercy gestured around us. "Hey, kid. Hey. Do you want to die?"

When I gave no answer, she hummed. She leaned down. She snagged a finger into my collar. "You've come this far by now, Ghostie! It is your life," she called, and smiled. "So, how's it going to end?"

Don't listen to Appa.

You have always found a way to win, even in a world that does not want you to.

You are not no one.

It was always going to be me or you.

It was always going to be me or you.

Mercy brushed past me and headed for the stands. "Gear up, Ghost. The match starts in five," she said. "And I think someone wants to say their goodbyes."

JJ led me to the locker room, where my helmet was still sitting on the bench, the face shield still broken, but I had no spare. It was eerily quiet, scarily empty.

Beside my helmet, someone sat waiting.

Kane looked up at my approach. He was patched up, nothing but bandages and a few bloody stitches to show for Red. He'd changed into gray dress pants and a blazer, black dress shoes that were likely the plainest things in his closet. It occurred to me then he was dressed for an end of some sort. He looked a bit beautiful. I took a breath.

He got to his feet. His face had an infinite sadness to it. We stared at each other for a long minute. Maybe trying to figure out how to say goodbye.

I said, "I only have three minutes left."

Kane closed his eyes, pursed his lips. He tried, "I can wait with you."

I shook my head. "You're not supposed to."

"I'll wait with you."

"It's all right. Just go."

Kane said, "Let me wait with you."

I clenched my fists. I said, "It'd be worse if you did."

"What would be better?"

"If you left. If you went home."

"I can wait."

"Wait?"

"I can wait," he said, but his voice was fragile, his face broken. "We can go back together."

Every inch of my chest filled with black water, clogging all the arteries with so much longing I swore it'd kill me right then and there. There was so much to say. There was so much to tell him. There was no time.

I took off my glove. I slipped the ring from my finger, and placed it in his palm.

"Go," I told him. "It'll be all right."

Kane stared at the ring. He said, "Let me wait with you."

"Kane—"

"I won't leave here without you," he said in quiet Korean. First rule.

I tried to memorize him, not really him in that moment, maybe him when we won Red, maybe him in Busan moonlight. Him in the summer, smiling in the waves. Him at my back, covered in sleep and sun. Him on the track, racing bloody and bruised, flying like a black crow through the trees. Not Kitae Wang, Not Kane King. Just, Kane.

JJ said, "Two minutes."

I wanted, and wanted, and wanted.

But I'd wanted enough.

I said, "I don't regret you."

I turned around.

I walked away.

You have survived, despite what everyone and everything has determined. You have always found a way to survive.

A broken helmet. A bruised body. An Omega. A ghost.

You have always found a way to win, even in a world that does not want you to.

"Time to go, Umma," I murmured as I entered the tunnel. "Let's hope your bet pays off."

The Corvidae wasn't empty. Which was my first problem.

I suppose when reunited twins whose state of being twins was a secret to all but a few handful of living souls despite both being technical heirs to one of the biggest transcontinental chaebols come to face off one another in one of the most petty yet nerve-wracking face-offs of the past decade, people take an interest.

I stopped in the tunnel's mouth. I stared up at the scoreboard. ALL IN was the only victory to be won.

I didn't recognize the people in the stands, but they recognized me. The spectators were dressed to the nines, their suits pristine, their dresses long, their coats emblazoned and the buttons crisp. They wore patches on their breasts that likely entailed where and what they were from. From the glances I caught, they were likely Janchi or RIYU affiliates, sworn into secrecy of the entertainment they'd all come to witness. Everyone had known but me; I was never meant to leave this track alive.

I glanced at the bike laid out before me. A pit crew member cleared his throat at the look on my face.

"Your bike was too damaged to be fixed in time for this race," he explained to me. "Someone said you used this bike before."

My old TRAX sat in its neon yellow and black, tacky glory in front of me. An old memory, like it was mocking me. I pursed my lips. I said, "Yeah. Thanks."

"We've done the best we could."

I said, "How much you get paid extra to be here?"

He lowered his head. I nodded, and wheeled the bike away.

I looked up at the scattered spectators. Mercy lifted her hand to wave.

Someone called, "Echo." It sounded like eko.

I turned around.

Sunhee stood at the railing. She wore a white suit, its hems billowing in the December wind, the lavender turtleneck underneath hugging her up to her larynx. Her hair was pulled back into a long ponytail, and the look in her glittery eyes was terribly forlorn.

I blinked. She beckoned for me.

"Oh, Echo." She grasped my hand from over the rails. Water welled in her eyes. "Oh, Echo, we could have helped you."

I shook my head. "No," I whispered. "You couldn't have."

"Noona." Sungki cleared his throat. He blinked at me. He said, "Yun."

Another man was beside him, whom I could only guess to be Sungho, who looked like Sungki if he was taller and less alive. The man caught my eye. Then looked away.

I let go of Sunhee's hand. From behind her, Kane walked into the row. He stood at the railing with his eyes on mine. I wanted to throw myself into him, to drag him onto a bike and ride until we fell somewhere off the edge of the earth. I wanted anywhere but here. This couldn't be it. This couldn't be how I said goodbye.

I said, "You shouldn't be here."

Kane shook his head. "I should."

"Kane—"

Nathan's voice said, "One minute to start!"

Kane leaned down. Around his first finger, a star glowed in a golden promise.

Kane's hand brushed mine. "First rule," he whispered.

"Racers! At the start line!"

I left him at the stands.

Elias was already on his bike, a red beast, wheels like twin black holes. His helmet was in his hands. I gritted my teeth. I readied my helmet.

I mounted my own bike. Elias stood in front of me. "How cute," he whispered. "It's your final farewell. What a touching send-off."

"It's too bad I can't say the same for you," I said.

"I don't need one," he bit back.

"Even if you did," I said, "the only person that would have wanted to see you is dead anyway."

He broiled at that. "You know what I think?" he hissed. "I think you are nothing without your crows at your back, nothing without another person to catch your amateur mistakes, your pathetic excuse of a race. I think you won Red on the back of a team you never deserved to be a part of in the first place. I think, with no captain, no tails, and no coach, you are as worthless as the day you were born." He jabbed a finger into my chest. "You are the one who is alone, Echo."

I clenched my jaw. "You know what I think?" I whispered. "I think you're nothing but a legacy leech, and Appa's little pet that's got nothing but time to prove the shit he doesn't own now that he has no one's shadow to hide in. I think you're not mad Umma didn't choose you, you're mad she didn't regret not choosing you, that even when you beat me in every trial, in every test, she never once wanted to change her choice because the one thing you could never beat me in was the only one that fucking mattered. I think there could have been both of us, I think there can be both of us, with or without Appa or Umma or any other bastard in your elitist world. But you think if there's two, I'll be the one to come out on top, and you, you will be the one who turns into a ghost." I grabbed my helmet. "I think you're just scared."

He said, "I'm not scared of you."

I matched his sneer, and let my eyes blaze gold.

"Prove it," I hissed.

We strapped on our helmets.

"All right, folks, we are back on the track for quite the show here," Nathan said. That utter fucker. "As a reminder to our two racers, this is a good and fair match. All shots, strikes, or maneuvers are permitted except for head shots, equipment tampering of any kind, blocking any racer horizontally, or using gear or bikes as projectiles. You must stay within the white fencing at all times, and any breach of the fencing will end the lap as a lap foul. No drugs, alcohol, or any unauthorized substances are allowed on the track, along with weapons or tools of any kind. If you're found with any of these during the match, you will be immediately disqualified," he said. "And, since this is not an official match, there will be no halves nor halftimes. Per request, this will be a one-shot, 'ALL IN' match. There will be no tie. Racers will have one fifty minute interval to gain as many points as they can, and whoever ends with the most, will win the match."

No cheers. No applause. No booing. Nothing.

"With that, racers! On your mark!"

If you know how to race—

"Get set!"

—you know how to win.

"Go!"

And, we went.

I had versed the best of the best in the NCAA.

But I had never versed an Olympian.

Elias wasn't bulky, wasn't overtly broad, wasn't particularly anything. In a terrible way, that helped him.

He was fast.

Faster than Kane, faster than Yubaek, faster than anything I'd even seen on TV. He had never even been in the Corvidae prior to this, and he was scaling it as though he was born on it.

There was no Edwards, no Corvus, and no captain in my ear, my face shield still cracked, the wind a violent thing in my eyes and ears. It made every lap Elias passed me by on ten times louder, and a hundred times more angering.

"Elias holds double the points Echo does here," Nathan announced. "We're five minutes in, folks, it is not looking good for him!"

"Who hired you?" I grumbled.

I went for the ramp, scaling it sky-high and slamming my foot into the accelerator as I went sailing down. Elias wasted no time in crashing right into me, both of us skidding right until I was burning steel against the wall.

I hit my brakes. I yanked my bike sideways and headed towards the tunnel. Elias chased after me, his front wheel hiking into mine so repeatedly I feared he'd pop my back tire altogether.

I sailed up and around the tunnel's walls. When I came back down, his leg was already up and swiping into my gut. He missed my sternum, but he didn't miss my ribs, and the impact alone sent me and my bike stumbling far behind in his wake.

"Seems Echo has met quite the foe! Elias is not backing down anytime soon."

I gritted my teeth. I hauled myself ahead, willing my bike to go fast, faster. My body ached with old wounds, new ones, bruises that hadn't even had the hour to heal from Red.

Ten minutes in. 20 to 10.

"Fucking hell," I sighed.

I collided my front wheel with Elias's back one and swept my leg into his back, cleats to leather to spine. He stumbled away, veering left. I smashed my bike into his and cracked him against the wall.

Elias hoisted himself up and sent a blur of a hook my way. My jaw snapped right. I narrowly avoided greeting black against a pillar, yanking my bike back and towards the ramp. I tried to watch him from above, tried to recognize any opening, any blind spot, anything at all.

He snapped his bike up the wall, his wheels skidding against the fencing. His black face shield reflected me right back.

You have survived.

Elias headed for me. I headed for him. Wolves in a pit. Dogs in a ring.

I crashed into him with enough force to rattle my skeleton. His arm hooked around my neck and careened me sideways. He dragged me like a rag doll up and for the pillars. The fucking bastard.

I grabbed his handlebars and hauled the nose of his bike into mine. My cleats sank into his knee and he let out a cry even I could hear through the helmet, letting me go so immediately I had to snag my back wheel into a pole just to keep from going horizontal. I looped my bike around in a sloppy half moon before riding for the high wall like my life depended on it.

It did.

Elias held his knee as he headed for the bridge. His knuckles sank into the stone to send him off like a bursting firework for the top of it.

I bolted along the top of the track, the fencing screeching and tearing under my wheels. Elias leapt from the bridge and zig-zagged through the pole series with ease. I swept my bike down and skidded beneath low-hangers, bouncing over log piles, swerving around pillars.

Think diagonal.

We rode for the final ramp. I sped ahead. I sank my knuckles into the concrete. My bike spun, spun, spun, my gear shifting like a madman, before I was facing Elias, head to head, nose to nose, and riding backwards for the ramp.

Elias hesitated. Then, he accelerated.

I let him. I counted the seconds. I counted the nanometers between us. With every last gram of energy I had left in my body, I forced it all to center, just for the sake of a second of balance. Just one. I just need one.

Then I swung.

My bike zipped left, swung up, and sliced down. My tire smashed into the space between his handlebars, and his entire bike cracked up and into the wall. I hit the ramp's zenith, just as he hit the wall like a fly swatted into oblivion, the collision so violent it sent a ripple through the air.

I let myself go soaring downwards via gravity's greed. I shifted gears to drift back around and face front, no sound of my brother behind me. Triumph tasted bloody on my tongue. I bolted ahead, my body electric, careening throughout the pole series, climbing above the log piles, sliding under consecutive low-hangers. Twenty five minutes.

I eyed the chicanes.

I pushed the pedal to the concrete as I raced for it.

The faintest echo of an engine began to gain on me, but I wasted no time in trying to look back. I couldn't afford it.

Go. Go. Go.

My front wheel crossed the line of the first chicane.

Then, we went flying.

My wheels were free of ground, my body without anything but the bike itself to grasp to. I flipped clear off the track, airborne and helpless. I could see the track flash under me.

Beneath, I saw Elias yanking his bike back up and out of the way, zipping right for the chicanes ahead.

Fuck me.

The crash was deafening. I felt a shard of my face shield slice into my cheek, my ribs crack under the ungodly pressure, my bike sing a broken song. The scrape of metal said the wheels were still going, but I couldn't see where. Everything was red, purple, and nothingness. Iron filled my nose and mouth.

"...down! Echo is down! A brutal undercut from Elias—and on that end, a tricky—here! Will he stay down?"

I gasped for breath, but only slivers of it would come. Twenty five minutes. Barely halfway. Breathebreathebreathe. I had to breathe. I had to race.

I sank my knuckles into something, anything, that would give me a grip to hang onto. They kissed ridged concrete and I blinked in the rubble. A pillar stared back. The impact had shredded a chunk of it from the base and scattered the debris every which way. It teetered dangerously above me.

"Will he stay down?" Nathan repeated.

I grabbed my handlebars. My whole mouth was wet with red, the taste metallic beyond all belief. My vision has half dark with rubble and blood and oxygen deprivation. But Elias was beyond the chicanes, and the time was at twenty nine, and there was no halftime, there was no tie, there was no death round. There was twenty one minutes. There was my bike and me.

It was always going to be me or you.

I pushed me and my bike back up. I popped the engine back into sputtering life.

"He's up!"

"Shut your face," I groaned.

I raced away the minutes.

I swerved through the chicanes like the Devil was on my heels. I hit every obstacle and scaled every ramp. Elias began to grow in my vision.

The moment I was within range, my cleat sank into Elias's knee. He buckled, skimming a pillar and striking the wall. I pulled myself ahead of him and aimed for the final pole series. The wind was utterly deafening in my ears, nothing but half a face shield to show for protection. But I was ahead. I was ahead.

"Looks like Echo is not as easy of an opponent as Elias thought!" Nathan said. "The points are tied, we've got sixteen minutes to go!"

I revved my bike to hurry. Elias was at my side in a blink. He reached for my neck.

I swung my fist into his throat. He grasped the back of my neck and yanked me so hard I nearly fell off my bike. We circled around a pillar. We slid beneath a low-hanger.

I tried to yank his bike to the left by his handlebar, but he was already grasping my wrist and smashing metal knuckles into my shoulder. I cried out, hauling away to ride the wall. 101 to 99.

Elias yanked his bike back and into mine like a bat to a baseball. I tried to sink back, but he did it again. I raced forward, and again. And again, and again, and again.

My head was dizzy, my body losing blood and consciousness, my fingers numb from how tight I held onto the bike. I gagged on my own blood and breath. It felt like floating. Omegas aren't meant to race.

110 to 105.

I grabbed onto Elias's collar in some futile attempt to wrangle him off of me. My metal knuckles collided with his jaw in a furious strike that snapped his head in a half moon. I swung my back wheel into the innards of his bike, sparks seething. He flung left, his knee and his bike's tail smashing against the damp wood of the awaiting log pile.

When he didn't move, I did.

"Seven minutes!"

I saw Corvus, my mother, every last bet I'd gained and lost. Every inch of my skin burned with the want and ache of it.

I could barely feel my foot when it pressed the accelerator. I swerved about the poles, the pillars, up the bridge. If Elias was behind me, I couldn't hear him. I didn't want to. I just wanted to hope, for a little longer, for a few minutes.

115 to 115.

I drifted around the corner.

115 to 118.

Just a little longer.

115 to 121.

Time ticked.

I sailed away from the bridge. I raced like a madman, a rabid wolf, straight for the finish line.

It can't be over.

It can't be over.

It can't be over.

Not yet.

A bike met mine side to side. A metal beast sank into mine, an elbow clocking me in my jaw and a hand clutching my neck only to smash my head into the concrete wall. I felt the last of my face shield crumble away as stone ate it to dust.

Please. Please. Please.

Just a little—

I saw the pillar before I saw the points.

The only thing I could do before greeting it was close my eyes, and hope.

My bike smashed face-first into it, my body flying off the seat and landing on the ground. I thought I could hear my helmet or my bike clatter somewhere beside me, but it was difficult to hear over the ringing in my ears. The cold track was almost nice against my skin. A part of me figured I'd stay there forever.

Not yet. Not yet.

A buzzer sounded.

"124 to 121," Nathan announced. "Elias Yun is the winner of this match."

There it was.

I pushed my shaking body up bit by bit. I spat out a mouthful of red and watched it sink into the stone.

Elias Yun is the winner of this match.

This was it. It was over.

I took up my helmet from the ground. The face shield had nothing but a few shards to show for it now, and a crack had appeared along the side of the jaw. But the Corvus colors were there all the same.

I tilted my head back to let the blood drip off my face.

This was it. This was really it. This was how it ended.

In a whisper.

"Hail Mary!"

Everything froze. I opened my eyes.

I turned my head to where I thought I'd heard the voice.

"Did we hear a Hail Mary?" Nathan said, incredulous. "Did...someone say Hail Mary?"

"Hail Mary!" the voice yelled again.

We all looked to them.

Kane stood on the railing, his left hand high, his eyes on me. His cousins were gaping, Sungki hurriedly trying to yank his hand down, but Kane was still.

"Hail Mary," he called again.

"A Hail Mary Bet has been placed!" Nathan yelled, almost laughing. "By none other than Kane King, at that, incredible. Can you confirm?"

I dropped my helmet. My legs were weak but I willed them to try and run.

A Hail Mary. An all or nothing.

I grabbed his hand. "What are you doing?" I cried. "Kane, what are you doing?"

He looked so calm, like he had standing at Busan's shores.

"You'll lose everything," I hissed. "Do you even understand what you're betting—you'll—you'll lose Corvus, you'll lose all of this. What about the 607? You'll never be able to get it if you do this!"

"Echo."

A pit crew member approached. "Kane King," she said. "Can you confirm your Hail Mary Bet?"

"You'll die without it," I begged. "You'll lose any chance you ever had of being able to get it. Please. Please don't do this."

"Echo."

"You're going to lose everything."

"Echo."

I shook my head. I held tight to him. "Don't, please. Please," I whispered. "Please don't do this."

Kane turned to the member. "I can confirm," he said.

"Kitae," Sungki gasped.

The crowd awoke in ripples, gasps and whispers shrouding them. My heart sank into my feet. It was more than a nail in my coffin. It was the dirt that covered it.

Kane knelt down. He grasped both my hands with his and didn't care for the blood that stained his skin.

"I don't regret you," he told me. "I have never regretted you."

You are not no one.

"We have a Hail Mary confirmed!" Nathan yelled. "However, we can only commence if Elias agrees to a final re-match."

We all turned to him.

Elias watched us. Bloodied. Bruised. A winner, as he always wanted. I waited for the blow. I waited for him to laugh, to walk away, and leave me in the dust. His eyes were on Kane.

He dropped his helmet, and raised his left hand.

"A confirm from Elias!" Nathan announced, sounding as though he himself didn't believe it. "We have a Hail Mary! We have a Hail Mary! The victory for this match now has King's name on it as well, meaning a win in either direction will have quite the repercussions. Echo has one more shot to turn this one around, folks. He'll have only ten more minutes to do it."

I turned to Kane.

"Racers!" Nathan said. "To the start. One last time."

Kane's smile was a star. I thought, faintly, it wouldn't be a bad sight to go out on.

You are not no one.

One last race.

I kicked my helmet to the side.

Not yet. Not yet. You have survived. You have survived.

And it wasn't over yet.

Elias said, "Your captain is going to regret that bet."

I mounted my failing bike. "No," I told him. "But you're gonna regret agreeing to it."

124 to 121.

"On your mark!"

Ten minutes.

"Get set!"

One chance.

"Go!"

I went.

The last breath in the cell. The last runner beneath the wall. The last dog in the ring.

I was sick of Elias, of my father, of the classes and the packs and the points and the money. I was sick of being the losing bet, the last pick, the underdog. I was sick of being nobody. I was sick of being a ghost. Nobody had ever bet me to win, nobody had ever set me up to live. But I was standing. I'd raced, won Red, traveled across countries, had a home, had somebody. I was somebody.

Fuck the humble bows. Fuck the high roads. Fuck surviving. Just, fuck it all.

I wanted to win.

We pounded the pavement, wheels to track, metal to metal. Elias's turns were worsening with mine, our swings fervent, our maneuvers sloppy. But the wind was cool on my face, crisp and numbing against my cuts, drying up the blood from my wounds. For a moment, I was back in Korea, the sea water on my skin, the moonlight sweet.

Seven minutes. 144 to 142.

I snagged my knuckles into the back of Elias's neck and yanked the buckles of his helmet free. In one swoop, I tore it off his head and sent it flying off somewhere in the track. He turned a wild look on me.

"You'll kill us both!" he yelled.

"Haven't you ever raced the streets?" I snarled. "Don't tell me you're scared!"

I sped ahead. I swerved around, hiked my bike up the ramps and tore a path through the top of the pillar series. My wheels skidded atop each one as I watched Elias from above. I yanked myself down.

My wheels smashed into his. He went careening into the wall in a shuddering collision. I pushed my front wheel as deep as it could go into the steel guts of his bike, relishing the crunch I elicited as sparks began to flame.

Elias swung his foot and his cleat collided with my chest. I doubled back. He hauled his bike away from the wall. He gunned for the pole series. I careened my back wheel into his. Elias struck a pole hard, his bike flailing to the left. The look he turned on me was murderous.

But I just laughed. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. The wind was adrenaline, all the blood now tasteless, the smell of rubber now sweet. I laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

We cleared the pole series together, crested the bridge for the umpteenth time, the logs, the low-hangers, the ramps, all of it. Again and again and again.

Elias was fed up. We neared the chicanes, his racing becoming feverish now. 188 to 187.

"You are an insult to the Yuns," he snarled. He crushed us together, metal to metal and body to body. My spine vibrated from the impact. "You are nothing but a runt that got away."

"And what are you?" I hissed back. I eyed the chicanes. "A child still trying to prove he's daddy's favorite when the only reason he ever chose you was because you won a genetic lottery."

"Shut up. Shut up."

I snapped the nose of my bike into his and he went wobbling. He skidded into the wall, slowing down in my wake. I cleared the chicanes like a pinball machine.

I don't regret you.

I have never regretted you.

Corvus were champions.

I couldn't go back to them as anything but.

Elias met me on the other side. Side by side, brother to brother, two halves of one terrible, tangled soul.

Okay, I can play the key game.

"You play the role all you want," he snarled. "But you left me behind just as much as I left you."

"No, you chose Appa over me," I hissed. "And fuck you, because I can't even blame you." I swerved around the first pillar. "But don't pretend you've survived this long because of anything you earned. You're only here because you played the game."

"You left me," he shouted. "You, Umma, you both made your choice."

"But where are we now?" I bit back. "Umma, Appa, they're dead. RIYU's done for. And what?" My heart tore. The string tugged tight, tighter. "We didn't have to do this. We never had to race. You cannot stand here and tell me it's about them anymore. The only person you're still trying to prove yourself to is you."

"There was never supposed to be two," he hissed.

"Tough shit. Cry all you want. That's all you've ever done," I snapped. "You're just as much a liar as I am."

"And where are you?" he roared. "A ghost."

The key game, the key game.

192 to 191.

One minute.

"Maybe." I turned my eyes to him. "But the only reason I ever became one was because I beat you first."

Okay, I can play the key game.

I spotted the broken pillar.

"What did you say?" he snarled.

"Forty seconds!" Nathan called.

"I'm saying—" I raised my foot high. "There are no dogs allowed on the champions' track."

Can you?

I brought the teeth of my cleats down, and into his knee for the final time.

The crunch of bone was sick to feel and sicker to hear as Elias screamed to the sky. The broken pillar appeared.

I yanked my bike in one last half-moon, and with it, let my back wheel smash right into the cleft of the crumbling stone.

With a final whisper, it came crashing down, down, down, and right onto Elias.

I slammed my cleats into the track stone and hoisted my bike up high. Its battery beeped a warning, pleading for the end. I held my breath. I shot the accelerator to bits.

"Not yet," I pleaded.

Go.

Go.

Go.

Poles.

Logs.

Pillars.

Ramps.

Bridge.

"Ten seconds!"

My bike let out a final breath.

I swerved horizontal and exploded in a storm of sparks, cleats and knuckles stirring fire.

The buzzer sounded.

My bike and I cruised to a sputtering stop on the ground.

I collapsed onto my back. Every last milligram of my energy turned my neck to the scoreboard.

192 to 199. My favor.

I had won.

(ty ty ty for reading, this is a super long, very crazy chapter, so if you stuck with it, thank you very much, i appreciate you :) the big climax, yay :DD how was it? i am practically screaming with how relieved i am to finish it. the little star is ever so grateful for u to be here, as am i! two more chapters to go)