The hallway seemed to pull tight around us, and Luke’s nostrils flared.
I smiled.
Not happy or amused.
I smiled with something uglier.
“She laughs with me too,” I said. “Real laugh. Not that survival shit she used to give you so you wouldn’t ruin her life. Not the fear you trained into her. Real. Loud. Annoying as hell sometimes.”
His mouth twisted.
“She wore my jersey,” I continued, voice quiet, cruel, precise. “My name on her back. My number. Walked through an arena full of people wearing it like she belonged there.”
Not because she belonged to me the way he meant it.
Because she had chosen me, and I knew that was the one truth he couldn’t survive.
I laughed snidely. “She let me claim her as mine in front of the entire arena. In case you missed it, Luke. I know it gets you hard watching us from dark corners.”
“She doesn’t belong to you.”
“Oh, she does though,” I said. “She chose me. That’s probably the part you can’t wrap your washed-up head around.”
His eyes sharpened, mean and fast.
I kept my body loose. Shoulders easy. Hands empty and visible.
Make him swing first.
“You were never chosen,” I said. “Not by a woman. A fourteen-year-old child trusted you, and you groomed her. The woman knew better. You were a familiar face she trusted, and you groomed her, you fucking pedophile. You waited until grief made her easier to corner, then you stole her fucking childhood.”
The charm vanished.
Completely.
Luke pushed off the wall, and the knife shifted in his hand. Not raised yet. Not enough to make the hallway explode into motion. Just enough that the blade caught the light again, cold and thin and real.
“You think she’s innocent?” he asked, voice low. “You think she didn’t know what she was doing?”
Rage hit me so hard the edges of the hallway sharpened, but I didn’t give him the explosion he wanted. I let it go cold instead, let it settle into the part of me that understood timing, pressure, weak points, and exactly how long a man could pretend he wasn’t afraid before his body betrayed him. Luke’s grip tightened near the knife. Mine stayed loose at my sides.
Then I smiled, slow and mean enough to make his confidence flicker, and for the first time, the monster blinked.
“Say that again,” I said.
His hand flexed around the knife, and I took another step toward him.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Tell me she wanted it. Tell me she asked for it. Say it loud enough for the cameras you were too stupid to check.”
“There are no cameras here,” he said.
I laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That’s what you think?”
His expression faltered for half a second. I had no idea if there were cameras, but it didn’t matter. All I needed was that moment of doubt, and it hit him like a crack in glass.
“You’re not smart, Luke.” I said his name like it tasted bad. “You’re just a tired, washed-up prick who likes little girls.”
“You don’t know me.”
