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.

Clifton POV

Clifton found Branson in the second-floor lounge, slouched into the leather sofa, scrolling through Instagram.

He kicked the bottom edge of the sofa. Branson's head snapped up. A fake smile stretched across his face, but Clifton caught the flash of jealousy underneath.

"Where did you find Justice Terry?"

Branson sat up, puffing his chest. "High-Elo ranked. Kid slid into my DMs begging for a tryout."

Slid into my DMs. The words made Clifton's blood temperature drop.

He leaned down, invading Branson's space. "Don't think you can build your own little clique in my team."

Branson's face lost color, but he threw his hands up. "Come on, cap. I'm just looking out for the future."

Clifton scoffed and turned away. He walked toward the pantry, his mind still churning. Eighteen months. Eighteen months since that rainy alley, and the wound was still festering. He'd told himself he was over it. Over him.

He was lying.

He rounded the corner and collided with a body.

Hot liquid splashed. Paper cups. Two of them. Justice stumbled backward, clutching the cups like shields, his dark eyes going wide with panic.

Up close, the boy looked even more fragile than he had in the basement. Sharp cheekbones. Shadows under his eyes. Skin that hadn't seen sunlight in months. He smelled like cheap laundry detergent and faint tobacco.

"Watch it," Clifton snapped.

Justice didn't respond. His chest started rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths. He tried to squeeze past Clifton's shoulder, desperate to escape without making contact. His hands were shaking so badly that his right wrist jerked.

The plastic lid on one of the cups popped loose.

Boiling black coffee sloshed over the rim and splashed onto the bare skin of Justice's right hand.

Justice sucked in a sharp breath. A suppressed, strangled sound of pain escaped his throat—the kind of sound made by someone who had learned, long ago, that crying out only made things worse.

Clifton reached for Justice's arm without thinking. Muscle memory older than his anger. Older than the betrayal.

But the moment his fingers entered Justice's peripheral vision, something behind the boy's eyes shattered.

Justice didn't dodge. He didn't flinch away.

He just… stopped.

His eyes squeezed shut. His shoulders hunched upward, curling inward like a turtle retreating into its shell. His whole body went rigid—not like someone avoiding a blow, but like someone who had learned to wait for it. To endure it. To survive it.

Clifton's hand stopped mid-air.

This wasn't fear of him. This was something older. Something carved into the boy's bones long before Clifton had ever entered his life.

Justice's eyes flew open. He looked at Clifton's suspended hand, then at Clifton's face. Something like shame flooded his expression. He'd revealed too much.

He stumbled backward. His shoulder caught the metal trash can behind him, sending it crashing to the floor.

Branson's head popped over the sofa. "The hell was that?"

Justice didn't look up. He grabbed his scalded hand, tucked his chin into his chest, and bolted down the hallway.

Clifton's hand was still hanging in the empty air.

Slowly, he curled his fingers inward. Formed a fist. Shoved it deep into his hoodie pocket.

He stared at the spilled coffee spreading across the floor. That wasn't guilt he'd seen in Justice's eyes. It was expectation. The expectation of being hit. The expectation of pain.

What the hell happened to you?

Branson sauntered over, looking at the mess. "Jesus. The rookie can't even carry coffee."

Clifton snapped his head around. The look in his eyes made Branson take a step back.

"Shut your mouth. Or I'll shut it for you."

Clifton stepped over the puddle and walked toward the stairs. But his mind wasn't on Branson, or the scrimmage, or even his own burning rage.

It was on the way Justice had braced himself.

Like he'd been doing it his whole life.