Eli’s chest heaves, glare darting over Zoe’s shoulder. “You hear that, Lu?A mistake.That’s what you are to him.”
“No.” My voice cracks. “That’s not—”
“Lulu…” Logan’s eyes flutter, glassy and confused, his hand twitching toward me.
He barely gets my name out before the medic leans over him, voice sharp. “You need to stop talking, Miller. You’re concussed.”
Logan’s head lolls back, trying to focus, and the next words tumble out thick and broken. “Shouldn’t’ve let it get this far,” he mumbles, the sentence slurred and indistinct.
It sounds like guilt.Like regret.
The medic’s too busy adjusting his neck brace to react, but Eli hears it. Zoe, too. And every syllable is a knife straight through me.
Eli jerks forward a half-step before Zoe’s arm shoots out again, stopping him cold. A bitter laugh breaks out of him. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mutters, the words shaking with barely contained fury.
“You need to walk it off, Parnell,” Zoe says sharply, still blocking him from Logan. “He’s out of it, he’s bleeding, and I’m pretty sure you’ve still got a third period to play. Can’t exactly beat the crap out of your teammate if you’re supposed to be defending the blue line, right?”
The medic snorts despite himself, and even Eli falters, teeth grinding as he drags his glare back to me, then to Logan.
“Yeah, well, he’s said enough anyway.” His eyes land on me, dark and shaming. “Unbelievable,” he spits, before turning on his heel and clattering back down the tunnel.
“Okay!” Zoe barks, turning so sharply toward us she nearly takes out a tray of gauze. “Three cheers for successfully stopping Elijah Parnell from committing murder in a medical facility.”
It’s supposed to be funny, but it’s not. I can’t feel the humor right now, because my eyes are stuck on Logan’s hazy ones.
“It… was a mistake?”
He groans, eyes unfocused as he tries to turn toward me. “Never should’ve happened,” he mumbles, voice rough and slurred. “Should’ve…”
His words slur, trailing into nonsense as his head tips back. He tries again, but it’s broken, lost in the noise of the medic barking orders and Zoe trying to get me to move.
But I’ve already heard enough. He thinks we never should’ve happened.
I take another step back, my chest aching and the walls closing in. All I can hear are those words over and over.
A mistake.
I don’t wait to be escorted, I turn to the door and stride out. Zoe swears and scrambles after me, catching up in the tunnel.
“Lulu, wait!”
“Don’t.” My voice rips raw out of me, tears stinging so hot I can’t see straight.
She grabs my elbow anyway, tugging me around to face her. “He’s concussed out of his damn mind—”
“He still said it, Zoe.” My throat burns, the words shredding me. “He called us a mistake.”
Zoe shakes her head hard, eyes sharp even through the chaos. “I don’t think—”
“What the hell are you two doing in here?!”
The voice cracks down the tunnel like a whip.
I jolt, dragging my sleeve across my face as the Storm’s head of PR, John Raines, barrels toward us, suit jacket straining, expression thunderous. His gaze slices over Zoe, then lands on me, trembling and blotchy-faced.
“You can’t be here,” he snaps, lowering his voice. “This is restricted access. Out. Now.”
Zoe mutters a string of curses under her breath, her hand firm on my elbow again. “Come on, Parnell,” she says, hauling me forward before I can argue, before I can breathe, before I can hear anything except the words still lodged in my chest.
