Chapter 20 #2
I’d already laid out the travel kits in the medical room—portable stim unit charged, compression sleeves packed, recovery supplements logged and labeled.
Four-game road stretch. Long flights. Back-to-back nights.
Taz’s maintenance schedule was practically memorized at this point.
And all the while I worked, I tried to decide what to do about Gavin.
I knocked once and stepped into Dunn’s office.
“Close the door, Cinder.”
My pulse kicked up a notch. I shut it carefully behind me.
Dunn didn’t look angry. He looked… administrative. Glasses low on his nose, tablet on his desk, hands folded like this was a budget meeting instead of my life.
“I’m adjusting the travel roster for the road trip,” he said.
“Okay.” I nodded automatically. “I’ve already coordinated with equipment. I’ll bring the portable unit, and I’ve preloaded all updated recovery metrics so we can—”
“You won’t be traveling.”
For a second, I thought I’d misheard him.
“I—what?”
“You’ll remain in Denver for this stretch.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
“Rotation,” he said smoothly. “We need coverage here.”
“That’s not how we usually run it.” My voice stayed steady. I was proud of that. “I handle player maintenance. Especially on extended travel.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then what’s changed?”
A pause. Small. Measured. “Optics.”
The word landed like a bruise.
“I’m not a distraction,” I said.
“No,” he replied. “But you’re adjacent to one.”
My stomach dropped.
“This isn’t disciplinary,” he continued quickly. “You’ll oversee rehab here. Mercer’s still in concussion protocol. Varga’s shoulder reassessment is due Thursday. The development squad needs baseline testing. There’s plenty to do.”
“You’re pulling me because of rumors,” I said quietly. Because of the article. Even though I’d saved a life in that hotel.
He didn’t confirm it. He didn’t deny it. “The head coach wants the road room tight,” he said instead. “Minimal variables.”
Minimal variables.
“This is about Gavin,” I said.
Dunn’s expression shifted just slightly—enough to tell me I’d hit it. Of course security would have reported in.
“We have to be proactive,” he said. “We need to let things cool down.”
“I can consult remotely,” I said woodenly, knowing I had no choice. “Video calls. Updated protocols.”
“Of course,” Dunn replied. “You’ll coordinate with Patel on the road. Send him your notes.”
My notes.
The thought hit like ice water down my spine.
I kept my face neutral. “Understood.”
Dunn stood, which meant the meeting was over. “This isn’t a reflection of your competence.”
It felt exactly like one. I reached for the door.
“Keep your head down,” he added quietly. “Let this stretch pass. The less noise we generate, the better.”
I paused. “For whom?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
And somehow, that told me everything. I walked back to the medical room on autopilot.
Closed the door. Stood there with my hands braced against the counter, staring at the travel kits I'd spent two hours assembling this morning—every supplement labeled, every compression sleeve rolled with the precision of someone who gave a damn—and felt the ground shift beneath me.
Not all at once. In stages, the way it always happened.
The way Gavin had taught me it happened, back when he'd started with small exclusions—you don't need to come tonight, it's just a work thing—and built them into walls so gradually I didn't notice I was trapped until the door was already locked.
This wasn't Gavin. I knew that. This was institutional. Professional. A decision made by men in offices who weighed liabilities against assets and found me wanting.
I pressed my palms flat against the counter until the stainless steel bit into my skin. Breathed. Counted. Did the thing I always did when the world decided I was too much trouble to keep close.
I packed up the travel kits anyway. Labeled them for Patel.
Left detailed notes on every player's maintenance schedule, every nuance I'd spent months learning—the way Ash's left shoulder clicked on cold mornings, the exact pressure point behind Max's knee that released the chronic tension, the temperature protocols for Taz that I'd written in a shorthand only I could read.
Taz.
I thought about the way he’d behaved after the celebration, and standing alone in the medical room with my hands still pressed against the counter and Dunn's words still ringing in my ears, the two things converged with a clarity so sharp it drew blood.
Optics. Minimal variables. Let things cool down.
And Taz, pulling away. Taz, who'd fought for me, who'd shifted on a mountain road to protect me, who'd told me I was his dragon's choice—Taz, who'd held me in his apartment and whispered I'm counting now—was retreating. Withdrawing. I just couldn’t know if Dunn had gotten to him first or he’d worked out on his own I was a liability.
That loving me cost more than it was worth.
The thought landed in my chest like a knife slipped between ribs—not the sharp, dramatic kind that makes you gasp, but the slow, surgical kind that you didn’t feel until you looked down and saw the handle sticking out.
I pressed my forehead against the cool metal of the counter and closed my eyes.
The evidence was all there, arranged in the neat columns my brain couldn't stop building.
Gavin's data breach. Dunn quietly removing me.
The article that had circulated last week—nothing explicit, nothing provable, just enough insinuation to make the front office nervous.
And now Taz, who read people the way I read vitals, who would have seen all of this coming before I did, who would have understood the threat to the team in a way that was visceral and immediate and tied to centuries of hiding—
Of course he was pulling away.
He was protecting them. The team. Cole, Max, Ember, Ash, Keegan.
Every player on that roster who'd bled for this franchise's second chance.
Every dragon who'd spent decades—centuries—hiding in plain sight, trusting that the people closest to them wouldn't be the ones to bring the whole structure down.
And I was the crack in the foundation.
Not intentionally. Not maliciously. But the result was the same. My presence—my data, my notes, my history with a man who'd weaponized my own diligence against me—was a vector for exposure. A fissure in the armor that Taz and Ignatius and every dragon on this team had spent lifetimes building.
I understood it. That was the worst part.
I understood it with the same clinical clarity I brought to every impossible situation—the same detached, analytical precision that my nursing instructors had called an "unusual capacity for detachment" and that I'd always known was just a fancy way of saying you're good at watching things die without screaming.
Taz was choosing the team over me. And he was right to.
My phone buzzed against the counter. I straightened, wiped my eyes with the back of my wrist—when had they gotten wet?—and checked the screen.
Taz: Safe travels prep going ok?
Two hours ago, that text would have made me smile. Now it read like a wellness check from a colleague. Polite. Measured. The kind of thing you sent someone you were already in the process of leaving but hadn't figured out how to say it yet.
I typed back: Got pulled from the road trip. Dunn wants me on site.
The three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Taz: Probably for the best. Patel can handle it.
Probably for the best.
I stared at those four words until the screen blurred. Then I set the phone face-down on the counter and went back to labeling kits I wouldn't be carrying.
The afternoon passed in the particular slow agony of busywork designed to make you feel useful while confirming you weren't needed.
I ran Mercer through his concussion protocol—light sensitivity test, balance assessment, cognitive screening—and documented everything with the meticulous care of someone who no longer trusted their own data storage but couldn't stop being thorough.
It was pathological. I knew that. The same compulsion that had gotten me into this mess was the only thing keeping me upright inside it.
Declan came in for his shoulder reassessment at three. I palpated, tested range of motion, noted the improvement since his last session. He chatted about the road trip—excited, nervous, the particular energy of a young player who'd never been in a playoff race and couldn't believe his luck.
"Sucks you're not coming," he said as I wrapped his shoulder.
"Someone's got to hold down the fort."
"Yeah, but—" He shrugged with his good shoulder. "It's not the same without you. Taz is weird when you're not around."
My hands stilled on the compression wrap. "Weird how?"
Declan seemed to realize he'd said something loaded and backpedaled with the grace of a twenty-three-year-old who'd never successfully navigated a conversation about emotions.
"I dunno. Quieter? Like, more quiet than normal quiet.
Which is saying something because the guy already communicates primarily through eyebrow movements. "
I finished the wrap. Patted his shoulder. "He's focused. Playoffs."
"Sure," Declan said, sounding unconvinced. "That's probably it."
After he left, I stood in the empty medical room and listened to the building breathe—the distant hum of the HVAC system, the faint clatter of equipment being loaded into travel cases down the hall, the muffled voices of players and staff preparing for departure.
Preparing to leave without me.
My phone buzzed again. Not Taz this time.
Nancy: Heard about the road trip. I'm sorry, Cinder. This wasn't my call.