Chapter 383
Chapter 383:
“Make a signature dish that represents your relationship,” the host chirped.
“Burnt toast,” Skye muttered.
They started. Liam tried to be helpful. He grabbed a knife to chop vegetables, but he was clumsy—his coordination still dulled by the painkillers for his leg. He slipped. The knife clattered against the counter.
“Let me do it,” Skye said, nudging him aside. She took the knife. Her movements were efficient and precise—skills she’d honed in her previous life when she’d tried to be the perfect housewife.
A pot of boiling water on the stove bubbled over, hissing as it hit the burner.
Skye reached for it instinctively.
“Careful!” Liam yelled.
But she was too fast. Or too distracted. The steam vented directly onto her hand.
“Ah!” Skye hissed, recoiling. The skin on the back of her hand turned an angry red almost instantly.
Liam dropped the towel he was holding. Panic flared in his eyes—wild, disproportionate terror.
“Medic!” Liam screamed, grabbing her wrist. “We need a medic! She’s burned p>
Filming stopped. A medic rushed in.
“It’s just a scald, Liam,” Skye said, trying to pull away. “Calm down p>
“No, look at it!” Liam was shaking. He dragged her to a chair in the shade, hovering over the medic, his face ashen. “Do you have burn gel? The good kind? Not the generic stuff p>
Skye watched him. He was terrified. Not just worried—terrified. It was the reaction of a man who had seen too much pain recently.
They were excused from the rest of the challenge and retreated to the suite.
To kill time while the others filmed, Liam pulled out the production tablet. It was preloaded with movies.
“We can watch something,” he suggested, trying to distract himself from his own anxiety. “Sci-fi? Action p>
He clicked on a title: The Last Horizon.
Skye froze.
She knew this movie. In her previous life, it had been a cult classic. It was released in 2026.
𝗙𝗂𝗻𝘥 ոov𝖾𝗅 рD𝗙𝘴 o𝘯 𝘣𝖾𝘭nо𝘃е𝗹𝘀.𝗰o𝗆
“That hasn’t been released yet,” Skye said.
“It’s a rough cut,” Liam explained, tapping play. “Production stalled last month, but Kensington Global owns a stake in the studio. I got early access to the dailies p>
They watched in silence. The movie was tense, atmospheric.
Twenty minutes in, the hero, Captain Vance (no relation to Julian, ironically), was trapped in an airlock. The door was jamming.
“Don’t open the secondary valve,” Skye muttered under her breath, her eyes fixed on the screen. “The seal is broken. It’ll depressurize p>
Liam paused the movie.
The room went silent.
“How did you know that?” Liam asked slowly.
Skye blinked. Her blood ran cold. She had slipped. The memory of watching this movie alone in her apartment—eating ice cream and crying over her failed marriage in the future—had overlapped with the present.
“I guessed,” Skye lied, her heart hammering against her ribs. “It’s a trope. The secondary valve is always broken p>
Liam narrowed his eyes and turned fully toward her.
“You didn’t guess,” he said softly. “You quoted the dialogue. Before he said it. You said, ‘The seal is broken.’ He says that line five seconds later p>