The intensity of my reaction startled me as anger rose to choke me. I swallowed hard, fighting the burning sting that gathered behind my eyelids as the giant below me bellowed out a challenge that made the entire crowd roar. An answering yell exploded inside my chest, but I clenched my jaw and held it inside, locked away with the rest of the emotions I couldn’t deal with right now.
I didn’t want to be here, belly down, on this stupid beam twenty feet in the air on an alien planet. I didn’t want to have one more nightmare about my beautiful, broken little boy and his innocent, trusting eyes. He was mine, and he believed me when I told him everything was going to be all right.
Everything had to be all right. I’d do whatever I had to do. For my son, I would lie, cheat, steal, fly halfway ac
