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Rafe hits him back.

Koda grunts and skates off. “They come in threes, Waleska. Me, him, you. Tick tock.”

“Barnes,” Berwyn says. “Get to work.”

“Yes, Coach.”

Forty minutes in, Berwyn stops me on a rush. “Kennebeck. You’re drifting high again on the entry.”

Same shit, different mouth. “Yes, Coach.”

“Hold it. Let him turn.”

“Yes, Coach.”

I do it again, and I hold it, and the D turns, and the lane opens. “Good,” Berwyn says, and skates off to yell at somebody else.

My heart is going. My blood pressure’s up, and I look around the rink like I need to check where I am. Ice. Skates. Pucks. No dad anywhere.

At the far end, Greeley is on the circle with an assistant and a bucket, taking draws by himself. He’s been there twenty minutes, and he’ll be there twenty more. He does it after every practice now. He watched Berwyn correct me; I know because when I look down the ice, he’s already looking back. He doesn’t say anything. He drops back into his stance and takes another one.

I look for her when I come off. I look at the stands, and she isn’t there. I come out of the tunnel with my bag and scan the hallway outside the locker room, where people wait, and she isn’t there either. Why would she be? I didn’t ask her. I check my phone, and there’s nothing, and I’ve never once in my life cared whether somebody texted me.

I’m out in the parking lot with my bag on my shoulder when I type it.

Me: Where are you?

The dots come up immediately, and something in my chest lets go.

Kylie: Why?

Me: Answer the question.

Kylie: Kidnapped again :(

Kylie: It’s a whole thing.

Kylie: Library. 2nd floor by the printers.

Kylie: I have 40 pages left and a will to live that’s fading fast.

I don’t answer. I get food from the place downstairs and go up to the second floor of the library instead of back to my room. I find her at a table by the printers with her laptop and her hair in a ponytail. That ponytail is a dangerous thing. I put the food down next to her, and she looks me over, then looks at the food.

“You,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

“Sitting,” I say, and take the chair across from her.

She watches me in disbelief. “Are you staying?”

“Yeah.” I pull out my laptop.

“You have homework?”

“I have a lot of homework, Kylie.”

“I just didn’t—” She stops. “When you asked, I thought you were going to make me leave.”

“You’ve got forty pages.”