Her face is already burned into the backs of my eyelids. Hazel. Direct hit. Jacket pulled tight, hands jammed into pockets. The way she looked at me in the tunnel—not like a fan, not like she wanted something. She knew something. She saw the man, not the goalie—she saw the fracture.
My phone lights up the cab, screen filling with demands disguised as messages.
Father: Good win. Keep the numbers down next time.
Translation: Don’t let it get close.
Beatrice: Heard you won! Thinking of you! ??
Translation: My father’s choice. The merger in human form.
Adrian: Elm House. Get over here.
Translation: Pretend you belong.
I kill the screen, plunging the cab back into darkness. I don’t do parties or people. And apparently, I don’t touch the coach’s daughter.
Silence fills in around me, thick as wool. I flex my fingers on the wheel once, twice, until the tremor burns out. The fracture doesn’t close.
I start the engine, the low rumble a familiar comfort that doesn’t reach the cold knot in my stomach. I pull out of the lot,the arena shrinking in the rearview. This night should’ve been simple. Play. Win. Keep my head down.
But now it isn’t simple. Now I know she’s hiding something so dark even her father can’t reach it. Now I know he trusts me anywhere near that fight.
He didn’t tell me to stay away. That should make it easier. It doesn’t. It makes every thought I have about her feel twice as dangerous.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles white. Anger burns clean and hot—less at him, more at myself. It’s easier than the other thing—the quiet, unnerving sense that she saw something behind my mask. Not the goalie. Not the wall everyone thinks I am.
The fracture.
Elm House pings on my phone with another group text flashing across the screen. I grip the wheel. I could go. The thought hits like a physical pull, a sharp need to see if she’s there, if Clara dragged her out, if she’s as still and broken up close as she was from the ice. To confirm she’s real—and that the damage wasn’t imagined.
My truck idles at the intersection. Left is home. Right is Elm House. Right is…her.
The blinker ticks.Tick. Tick. Tick.Loud as a metronome. Loud as a bomb counting down.
My foot eases off the brake. The truck creeps forward, an inch, two, drawn toward the right turn like metal to a magnet. My pulse thuds in my ears, syncing with the blinker. Just one look. Just to see if she’s cracking.
I slam my hand on the shifter and crank the wheel left.
The movement is violent, a physical wrenching that feels like I’m ripping my own skin. I force the truck toward my apartment. A strategic retreat. Not a defeat.
Coach Addison trusts me. He doesn’t know what I am under the mask, or what she’s already turning me into. He doesn’t know how badly I wanted to go right.
The light turns green. I accelerate, muscles tight, jaw tighter.
The line has been drawn.
Fine—I’ll learn every inch. Then I’ll decide where to break.
Chapter 4
Talia
It’sbeendayssincethe Titans’ victory, but the town still buzzes like a live wire.The Penalty Boxthrums with an electric pulse, louder than ever.
“I only need one drink,” I tell myself, but the words feel flimsy—a paper shield against the reality waiting inside. Surviving two home games and one night at Elm House felt like victories, but this—this is supposed to be different.
It’s all a lie. A fragile armor I whisper as I follow Clara and Zoë into the eye of the storm.
