"Yeah?" Scar's smile was all edges. "What choice was that?"
The wrong one.
I stood, skates half-unlaced, chest still heaving from exertion I couldn't shake. My hands flexed at my sides—muscle memory from a thousand fights I'd learned to control on the ice but never truly mastered off it.
Jafar's expression shifted, amusement fading into something more calculated. "You all right, Jones?"
"Fine."
"You don't look fine."
I grabbed my phone from the top shelf of my locker. No missed calls. No texts. No apology. No explanation.
Just silence.
The kind that felt like a middle finger wrapped in plausible deniability.
Hades stood, moved closer—not threatening, just concerned in that maddeningly perceptive way of his. "She know the rules?"
"She knows."
"And she still didn't show?"
My thumb hovered over Belle's contact. One call. That was all it would take. Hear her voice. Demand answers. Confirm she was home where she belonged and not somewhere else. Somewhere dangerous. Somewhere away from me.
I didn't press dial. Because if I called her now—if I showed that much weakness, that much need—she'd know exactly how much power she actually had. And Belle Reiss was already too smart for her own good.
"She'll learn," I said instead.
Hook snorted. "Man, you're whipped."
The locker room went very, very quiet.
I turned slowly. Met his eyes. Let him see exactly what kind of mistake he'd just made.
"Say that again."
He didn't.
Smart boy.
The locker room emptied in waves. Laughter and footsteps fading down the hallway. Car doors slamming in the parking garage below. Voices swallowed by distance until only the hum of fluorescent lights remained.
I sat alone on the bench. Jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached. Hands shaking in ways I couldn't control.
Not rage.
Worse.
Hurt.
The kind that crawled under my ribs and squeezed until breathing felt like work. Until sitting still felt like punishment. Until the silence became a mirror reflecting every pathetic truth I'd been ignoring for weeks.
Yesterday, she broke for me. Not her body—that was easy, mechanical, predictable.
Her.
The part she protected. The fire she wielded like armor. The defiance I'd been systematically dismantling piece by piece until she had nothing left but need and my name on her lips.
