CliftonPOV

The espresso machine screamed. Clifton watched the dark liquid drip and tried to remember how to breathe.

Buster Williamson shuffled into the kitchen holding a mug printed with an anime girl. He took one look at Clifton's face and stopped dead.

"Sponsors on your ass again?"

"No." Clifton drank the espresso black. It scalded his throat. He didn't care.

Buster leaned against the fridge. "I just saw Delmus looking pale. Did you go rage at the rookies?"

Clifton set the cup down. The ceramic clinked against marble. "Do you remember the Fire Cup in Chicago? About a year and a half ago."

"Hell yeah. That was our peak. Why?"

"That trainee in the corner. The one with the cap." Clifton's voice was flat. Dead. "That's Justice Terry."

Buster's mug slipped. It cracked against the counter. "Wait. The guy who vanished after finals? The one you—" He stopped himself.

"The one I went crazy looking for," Clifton finished. "Yeah."

"Holy shit." Buster looked around, checking the hallway. "Why is he here? Is he trying to get you back?"

The words hit Clifton like a blade between the ribs.

Get you back.

He saw the alley again. The rain. Justice's hands shoving him away. The dry heaving. The look of pure, visceral revulsion in those dark eyes.

"He told me it wasn't real," Clifton said. His voice was barely above a whisper. "That night. Everything. Said it was a mistake."

Buster sucked in a breath. "But… the way he used to look at you. Like you were his whole world."

"An act." Clifton ran a hand through his hair. "He's a liar."

The words tasted like ash. They were safer than the alternative—that Justice had meant it, and Clifton had somehow destroyed it anyway.

A metallic clank sounded from the hallway.

Clifton moved. Three strides, the sliding door shoved open, his eyes scanning the empty corridor.

Nothing. Just a trash can, swaying back and forth.

Someone had been there. Someone had run.

Clifton stared at the swaying metal. His chest tightened. Justice had heard everything. The liar, the opportunist, the mistake—he'd heard it all.

Good.

Clifton turned back to Buster. "Not a word. To anyone."

Buster nodded frantically and fled.

Alone in the kitchen, Clifton pressed his right hand against the cold marble. The pain pulsed up his arm like a heartbeat. He closed his eyes, and the memory swallowed him whole.

Chicago. October. Rain.

CliftonPOV

The rain was cold. It always was in Chicago in October.

Clifton's memory dragged him back to that narrow brick alley behind the stadium. The Fire Cup MVP trophy was heavy in his right hand. His veins were still singing with adrenaline from the championship victory.

He had Justice by the wrist. Justice—just an amateur then, a nobody Clifton had found in solo queue and decided to keep. They'd ducked into the alley to escape the screaming fans and flashing cameras.

The alley smelled like wet garbage and stale beer. A single rusted streetlamp flickered above them, casting long shadows across the puddles.

Clifton pushed his back against the wet brick wall. His chest heaved. He turned his head and looked at Justice.

Justice was panting too. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead. Rain dripped down his pale cheeks. His deep, dark eyes were locked onto Clifton, filled with something that looked like magnetic attraction—or maybe Clifton had just wanted to see that. Maybe he'd been seeing what he wanted to see all along.

The trophy hit the ground with a splash. Muddy water sprayed onto Clifton's shoes. He didn't care.

He reached out. Cupped Justice's freezing face with both hands. Tilted his head down. Kissed him.

It was forceful. Desperate. Driven by months of suppressed desire and the sheer ecstasy of winning.

The second his lips pressed against Justice's, everything went wrong.

Justice's body seized. Not a flinch—a spasm. Like a high-voltage wire had been jammed into his spine. Before Clifton could deepen the kiss, two hands slammed into his chest and shoved.

Clifton stumbled backward. His spine hit the brick wall. Pain radiated across his shoulder blades.

He looked up.

Justice was staring at him like he was a monster. His hands were clamped over his own mouth, knuckles bone-white. His chest heaved erratically. His eyes were wide—filled with naked terror and a visceral, physical revulsion that couldn't be faked.

Justice stumbled backward. His foot splashed into a deep puddle. A harsh, dry-heaving sound tore from his throat.

Clifton froze. His hand—still reaching out—hung suspended in the cold air. Rain soaked his sleeve. His heart felt like it had been crushed in an icy fist.

To a man as proud as Clifton, the message was crystal clear. This was raw. Unfakeable. Rejection in its purest, most primal form.

He ground his teeth together. "If I disgust you so much, why did you spend six months playing duos with me every day? Why did you look at me like that?"

Justice leaned against a rusted dumpster, gasping for air, shaking his head frantically. He tried to speak. His jaw locked. No sound came out.

To Clifton, that silence was an answer.

Default. Guilt. A liar whose scam had just been exposed.

He bent down. Picked up the muddy trophy. Looked at Justice one last time.

"Get out."

He didn't look back. He walked out of that alley, leaving the violently shaking figure behind in the rain.

That night, in his hotel room, burning with humiliation, Clifton blocked Justice's number. His Discord. His Twitter. He erased him completely.

Justice POV

Two hours later, in a cheap motel room that smelled of cigarette smoke and stale disinfectant, Justice sat on the edge of a stained mattress. His hands were still shaking. His chest still felt like it was caving in.

He typed the message four times. Deleted it three.

Finally, he sent it.

I'm sorry. It's not you. Please let me explain.

The screen showed the word he dreaded and hoped for in equal measure:

Delivered.

Justice stared at that single word until his eyes burned. He refreshed obsessively, each empty notification a small death. Clifton had seen it. He had read it. And he had chosen silence.

By the time his phone battery died, Justice had convinced himself of the narrative that would haunt him for the next eighteen months:

He's better off without someone so broken.

Clifton POV

Clifton's eyes snapped open. He was still in the Aegis kitchen. His fingers had dragged across the marble countertop, leaving wet streaks.

The phantom of Chicago clung to his skin like damp clothing.

He pulled out his phone. Stared at his blocked list. There it was—the Discord account he had erased. The one that now went by a different name.

Ember.

The ID Justice had chosen for himself. As if he still believed there was something inside him worth burning for.

Clifton's jaw tightened. He would not be fooled twice.

He left the kitchen and walked straight to the data analysis room. Pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner. The heavy lock clicked open.

The room was freezing. Rows of servers hummed with a low, vibrating drone. He sat at the main terminal and typed in his senior admin password.

Dozens of headshots scrolled across the monitor. Clifton's eyes locked onto the boy in the black baseball cap.

He clicked open Justice Terry's file. Skipped past the insane KDA stats and win rates. Scrolled straight to the bottom.

Recommender: Branson Powell.

Clifton's vision went red.

Branson. The first team's backup fragger. A snake in human skin. Justice had tried to use Clifton to climb into the pro scene, and when that failed, he'd just found another target. Another stepping stone.

Clifton let out a harsh laugh. This liar was so desperate to stay in the game that he'd tolerate a piece of trash like Branson.

The door opened. Delmus walked in. He saw Clifton's screen and smiled.

"Branson really pulled through this time. The numbers that Justice kid is putting up are breaking base records."

Clifton spun his chair around. "What were the terms?"

Delmus shifted uncomfortably. "Branson brought him in. He demanded a thirty percent cut of Justice's first-year salary as a finder's fee."

Thirty percent. A bloodsucking contract. And Justice had signed it.

"Anything else I should know?"

Delmus sighed. "PR is bad right now. Reddit is tearing you apart. They're saying you're slacking, that your hours are dropping." He paused. "There's a rumor that Branson brought this kid in to replace you next season."

A sharp, drilling spike of agony fired deep inside Clifton's right wrist.

He grabbed the joint with his left hand, squeezing hard to stop the tremor. His face remained blank. No one could know. Not Delmus. Not the sponsors. Not the vultures circling his chair.

"Set up a scrim for two o'clock," Clifton said. "First team versus the rookies."

He looked back at Justice's photo. The gaunt face. The dark, haunted eyes.

Let's see what you're made of, liar.