16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

P yne

The upcoming baking challenge is the last thing on my mind as I stride into the gleaming chrome kitchen beside M’berra. My thoughts are consumed with the immunity challenge Becca and I just endured. Neither of our teams won, neither has immunity, which is why my thoughts are circling my mind like birds of prey.

Dear Goddess, she almost died twice in that competition—and that was just what I witnessed! Who knows how many other catastrophes almost killed her? When she was teetering over the abyss of poison, I almost lost my head to a swinging scythe as I watched, helpless because I was across the arena from her.

We’re down to twelve teams—several didn’t make it out of that last challenge. I’d like to believe they were saved, it was a hologram after all, and exited the competition with consolation prizes. The technology has created realistic holograms—the shallow cut on my arm from the swinging scythe is a testament to that reality. Usually, there are safety parameters in place, but something tells me their deaths were real. Maybe it’s just my pessimism seeping through after so many decades as a slave.

Becca enters the room, Klst far too close to her side, a mocking sneer on his face when he catches me staring. When Becca spots me, the creases on her forehead smooth and she gives me a forced smile. I’ll find a way to speak with her during this cooking challenge. Perhaps I can calm her, reassure her, although I have nothing but worthless promises to give.

When she makes her way to her cooking station on the other side of the room, I look at the ingredients on the counter of my station: butter, sugar, and spice. How in ten thousand hells am I going to pull off baking anything halfway decent without Becca by my side?

I can practically feel M’berra’s smug satisfaction radiating off her in waves. She slinks up beside me, her tail grazing my hip. “Looks like it’s just you and me now, gladiator. Hope you’re ready to heat things up.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “Let’s just focus on the challenge, okay? We need to make…” I squint at the recipe card, the foreign ingredients blurring together like some cosmic joke. Sugar cookies. Cute, whimsical sugar cookies with festive holiday shapes and sparkly icing. It’s the last thing I feel like dealing with right now, but here I am, stuck in this gleaming chrome kitchen with M’berra, trying to figure out how we’re going to pull this off.

M’berra makes a show of preheating the oven, bending over just a little too far to show me the furry mounds beneath her low-cut chef’s jacket. I keep my gaze fixed firmly on the recipe.

“Okay, first step—cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy.” I toss in a stick of neon green butter and start mixing furiously.

“Whoa there, handsome.” M’berra taps a claw on the counter. “You might want to go a bit easier on the mixing. At this rate, you’ll have cookie dough on the ceiling.”

I grunt and reduce the machine’s speed, trying to find a balance between ‘gentle’ and ‘gets the job done’. I paid attention to Becca when she was teaching me, but this is harder than it looks.

As I struggle with the dough, my thoughts drift to Becca. Is she safe? Is Klst keeping his claws to himself? The memory of his leering gaze makes my fists clench around the spatula so tight it snaps in half.

I should be there watching her back, not stuck here with M’berra. But I can’t do a damn thing about it without getting us disqualified. So I grit my teeth and focus on the task at hand.

Finally, after what feels like hours, we have a batch of dough that looks vaguely cookie-like. M’berra rummages through the drawers, pulling out a dizzying array of cookie cutters.

“Ooh, look at this one!” She brandishes a cutter shaped like a swirling galaxy. “It’s called the ‘Cosmic Cyclone’. This one’s the ‘Meteor Shower’. How adorable! And this? ‘Holiday Tree’. I wonder what that means.”

I pick up a cutter shaped like a lumpy star. “‘Supernova Splash’. Who dreamed this up? It’s lame.”

We press the cutters into the dough, but it quickly becomes apparent that something’s not right. The dough is too sticky, clinging to the cutters in gummy clumps.

“Uh, Pyne?” M’berra says, holding up a cutter with a glob of dough stuck to it. “I don’t think this is how it’s supposed to work.”

I frown, poking at the dough as if that will magically make it the right consistency. “Maybe we overprocessed it? Or added too much… something?”

M’berra sighs and looks at the large clock counting down on the wall. “Well, we can’t start over now. Let’s just try to make it work.”

What follows is a frustrating dance of yanking, prying, adding extra flour, all to the accompaniment of muttered curses as we try to wrestle the uncooperative dough into submission. By the time we’re done, the cookies are misshapen lumps only vaguely resembling their intended designs.

“Well,” M’berra says, surveying our sad collection of ‘Cosmic Catastrophes’ and ‘Supernova Splatters’. “At least they’re… unique?”

I snort. “That’s one word for it.”

We slide the trays into the oven and start on the sparkly icing. As I watch the colors swirl together, I can’t help but think of Becca’s eyes, warm and brown with those glints of gold.

Hold on, sugarplum, I think fiercely. I’m going to rescue you. No matter what.

The oven timer dings and we pull out the trays. The cookies actually don’t look half bad once they’re prettied up with icing and sprinkles. Still a little lopsided, but the sparkles hide a multitude of sins.

We present our creations to the judges with hopeful smiles. Arisha takes a dainty bite, her face scrunching up in thought.

“Mmm,” she hums. “The ‘Rustic Charm’ of the shapes really adds to the homemade character. And the icing has a certain… kid appeal. Well done, you two!”

M’berra preens under the praise. I just nod stiffly, my mind already racing ahead to the next challenge, which is spending another night with my feline roommate without killing her.

As we exit the cooking arena, I catch a glimpse of Becca across the crowded hallway. Our gazes meet and it’s as though everything else fades away. She looks tired, strained, but there’s a fierce determination in the set of her jaw that makes my heart swell with pride.

That’s my girl . Strong as steel and twice as resilient. She’s going to make it through this.

We both are.

I just need to keep playing Arisha’s game. Keep jumping through her twisted hoops until we complete the final round. Then, whether Becca wins or loses, I’ll find a way to buy her freedom.

“Becca!” I call across the crowded hallway.

When she hears me over the din, I bend forward and thump my fist on my chest—a gladiator’s salute to someone they respect. She hasn’t been off her home planet for long, and she isn’t a gladiator, but somehow she knows what an honor this is, because her eyes get misty and her lips quiver.

She mimics my actions, giving me her own salute. My heart bursts with affection for her, then my chest clenches when Klst puts his arm around her waist and tosses me a predatory look of possession as he drags her down the hallway.

How am I going to make it to the end of the competition without killing that male?