Page 49 of Repairing the Wreckage

“Fine.” I stare at him.

“You’ll get half of your winnings tomorrow, plus your KO bonuses.”

“My what?”

“Every time you knocked someone out in the house, you earned an extra five thousand.”

“Well, fuck. If I’d known that, I woulda been knocking out people left and right.”

He grins. “That’s why we don’t tell you. But you knocked out Bull the day you took your joyride.” He skewers me with a scolding stare. “I should subtract five thousand for taking off on the Ninja the way you did.”

“Oh, come on,” I scoff. “Bet that was one of the highlights of the show.”

He chuckles. “Yeah, it got a lot of attention.”

“Anything else? I’d like to take a shower and go to sleep.”

“Uh, yeah. I’ll have some stuff brought up. Painkillers?—”

“No. Tylenol or Advil are fine.”

“Okaaaay.” He stares at me. “Well, then…ice packs. Food. Whatever you need.”

There isn’t an icepack big enough to cover all my aches, but I thank him anyway.

“Oh, you can have these back now, too.” He picks up a bag by his feet and hands it to me.

I peer inside. My phone, charger, and the burner phone I’d had stashed away until it mysteriously “disappeared” rest at the bottom.

“Same rules. You can’t talk about the show at all. Normally, you’d be at the hotel with the others but because of the?—”

“I got it. No talking about the outcome. Wait, what about the audience?”

He waves off the question.

“After the reunion show.” He hesitates. “They’re going to go over all of this with you tomorrow, but I wanted to warn you, so you’re not surprised.”

I sense he’s trying to genuinely be helpful. So instead of shoving him out of my room, I drop the bag with the electronics on the nightstand and sit on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, okay. Give it to me.” I attempt to wiggle my fingers, wince at the pain, and drop my hand into my lap.

He grabs a small chair by the closet door and drags it over until he’s sitting in front of me. “You’re still under contract with the show. That means no social media posts. No interviews. No photographs, appearances, YouTube. Nothing.”

I circle my hand in front of my face. “In case you haven’t guessed, I’m not real eager to have my picture taken.”

Although…maybe I should take some photos to document what I looked like after the last fight. In case the show tries to come after me for something later. I reach over, take my phone out of the bag, uncoil the charger, and plug it in.

“We can’t stop you from seeing friends and family, of course. But try to limit what details you give them about your time here.”

“Only details I’ll be sharing are how I didn’t fuck Kiki,” I remind him. Highly doubt the show ever cleared up that lie.

His lips twist into a guilty frown. “Well, yes. I can understand that but still…”

My eyes keep wanting to close but the rest of my body wants to stand under a warm spray of water for at least an hour. “Anything else?”

“That’s the basics. I’ll be downstairs and some of the other crew members are still around, so you won’t be totally alone in the house.”

“Good to know.”

“All right.” He stands and nods. “I’ll let you rest. If you need something, let me know.”

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