Page 110 of Broken Blades

The arena lights hummed overhead. Zamboni driver waited patiently in the tunnel, ready to resurface what we'd torn up.

Finally, I pushed off. Skates bit into ice one last time as I glided toward the gate. The bench was littered with abandoned water bottles, discarded tape, someone's forgotten mouthguard. Equipment staff would clean it later—they always did.

The tunnel swallowed me, concrete and fluorescent light replacing open ice. Voices echoed from the locker room ahead—laughter, trash talk, someone's phone blasting music too loud.

I pulled my helmet off. Ran a hand through sweat-damp hair. Pulled off my gear and headed for the showers.

I stood under the spray longer than usual, letting the heat pound against my shoulders.

The locker room emptied around me—teammates heading home, heading out, heading anywhere but here. I stayed. Needed the quiet. Needed to think.

Except every thought circled back to her.

Chastity on my couch earlier, curled under blankets, mascara smudged, watching that goddamn documentary like it was physically hurting her. The way her breath had hitched when the girl on screen begged her parents to believe her. The way she'd pressed her fist against her mouth to stop from sobbing.

She was probably on her period. Hormones making everything sharper, rawer. That made sense.

Except it didn't.

Because I'd seen the recognition in her eyes. The way she flinched when the girl's father dismissed her pain. The way her entire body went rigid when the predator cornered his victim in a parking lot.

She knew that fear. Not secondhand. Not empathetically.

Personally.

Someone had hurt her.

And the urge to find out who—to track them down, to make them pay in ways that would send me to prison—hit me so hard I had to brace my hand against the tile.

This wasn't supposed to happen. She was leverage. A chess piece. A means to destroy Thomas Harrington's perfect world the same way he'd destroyed mine.

I wasn't supposed to care if she cried. I wasn't supposed to notice the way she tucked herself smaller when she was scared, or the way she defended me to Barbara without knowing the truth, or the way she trusted me to take care of her when she was drunk and vulnerable. I wasn't supposed to feel protective.

I sure as hell wasn't supposed to feel murderous on her behalf.

The water turned cold. I didn't move. Because the real truth—the one I couldn't ignore anymore—was simpler and more terrifying than anything else. This stopped being fake the moment I wrapped that blanket around her shoulders.

After I showered, I got dressed and headed to my car. I gripped the steering wheel harder than necessary the entire drive home. Knuckles white. Jaw tight. Every mile felt like evidence mounting against me.

I pulled into the driveway, killed the engine, sat there for five seconds longer than I needed to. Watched the house through the windshield like it might bite me. Finally, I got out. Walked up to the front door. Key in the lock. Turn. Push.

And immediately froze.

Smoke.

Not faint. Not subtle.

A full-on haze drifting through my goddamn living room.

"Chastity?!"

A small, panicked yelp came from the kitchen.

I stormed toward it—and found her standing over a pan producing the most horrifying, charred, apocalyptic smell I'd encountered outside of a dumpster fire.

She waved a dish towel frantically at the smoke, hair falling out of its ponytail, cheeks flushed, eyes wide.

"It's FINE! I have it under control!"