The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Play She Made Up

The main bracket had two sides, and a team that lost in the upper half dropped to the lower half instead of going home.

The Open Gate semifinal had only decided who got in.

This was the main bracket's upper semifinal, with a place in the grand final at stake.

The loser would have to fight their way back through the lower bracket for a second chance at the same stage.

Roz sat in the glass booth with her headset on and her hands flat on the desk.

Dane had told her about the broadcast, so she had told the league director.

The director had sent two engineers to check the booth wiring, and they had found nothing.

"They checked it twice," the paramedic said in her ear.

"I know."

"So what are you scared of?"

"Something I can't see yet."

The first round went to Crown in under two minutes.

The second went the same way.

Ashfall's cook was killed on a ledge nobody had ever found, and the flanker's rotation was cut off at the choke before she reached it.

"They knew," Nina said, low. "They knew where we'd be."

Roz did not answer.

Across the stage, behind glass, Dane sat with one hand to his headset.

His face had gone slowly grey.

He was listening to something.

"Roz," Gabriel said, from the coaching seat behind her. "Don't talk on comms."

She went still.

"Don't say anything. Not the call, not a name. Whatever we have left, we pass by hand."

"You think they're hearing us."

"I think a booth that was checked twice has a feed no one found."

She pulled her hand off the push-to-talk and held two fingers up to the camera that watched her board.

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