The stands are silent as Gen lifts the guillotine blade made of her own blood up into the air. Austin feels like the wind’s been knocked out of him, his stomach strangely hollow, his throat tight with panic. He barely has time to wonder what Gen is saying to Landis before she swings her arm down, the blade coming with it. Austin looks away, bile suddenly rising up through his chest, and clasps a hand over his mouth to keep from vomiting as the crowd begins to cheer. It’s almost a given that the next time he looks back, he’ll see Gen kneeling over Landis’s decapitated corpse, Landis’s blood staining the sand in a puddle underneath of him.