Chapter 26
Adrian
The puck slams into the boards six inches wide of my stick, a sharp crack of vulcanized rubber on plexiglass that sounds like a warning shot.
I don’t even move to chase it. My legs feel like they’re filled with sand, quads turning to sludge.
My head is full of static, a white-noise hiss like faulty lights.
Her hair, a stupid, intrusive voice in my mind whispers. The way it fell over her shoulder.
Addison’s whistle splits the air, sharp and shrill. “Hale! What the hell was that?”
I turn slowly, my shoulders tight, my jaw grinding. My skate catches in a shallow rut, and for half a second, I almost go down. Steel bites the groove; balance shears sideways. The ice under me fractures with a hollow crack, as if it’s done pretending I’ve got my shit together.
“Off his game,” Calder mutters behind me, the tone meant to be heard but not answered. Rylan smirks, a flicker of satisfaction at the captain’s failure. Dante just looks pissed off, his jaw tight. They see a mistake. They don’t see the reason.
Rylan calls louder this time, a cruel edge in his voice. “Lose your edge, Hale, or did your tutor take it?”
I don’t bite. Not yet.
Addison skates toward me, fast and all fury, his face a mask of cold disappointment. “Again,” he snaps. “Try playing like you remember what the puck’s for.”
We reset at center ice. The puck drops. Dante wins it back to me, a perfect, clean pass.
A simple breakout drill we’ve run a thousand times.
I’m supposed to hit Rylan on the wing as he crosses the blue line.
My mind knows the play. But as I pull the puck back, my eyes catch the light glinting off the glass, and I see her face.
Not really, but she’s there. The way she looked at me when the lights came back on, her eyes wide with a fear she couldn’t hide.
This time, I miss the pass by a full stick length.
It slides uselessly into the corner. Rylan has to peel off, his frustration a visible wave.
The whistle is immediate, ear-splitting, the shriek needling straight through my skull.
“Hale!” Addison bellows, his voice echoing off the empty seats. “You drunk? Concussed? Or just trying to piss me off today? Get your head out of your ass and onto the ice!”
The stick falls from my hand with a sharp clack. I breathe in through my nose, slow and hard, the frigid air stinging my lungs, trying to push the fury back down my throat. It rises anyway, hot and acidic.
“On the line,” Addison roars.
We skate suicides until someone hurls into a trash can by the bench.
Ice fog hangs, rank with bile and failure.
It’s not me, but it might as well be. My legs burn, my lungs feel like they’re full of broken glass, but the thoughts of her don’t stop.
Each sprint is a punishment, an attempt to outrun her, and with every line, I fail.
The air razors my throat. My lungs taste like pennies. It’s the taste of being haunted.
As I skate the last line, my legs screaming, I see Talia Addison by the boards near her father, a manila folder clutched in her hands.
She’s not looking at him. She’s watching the chaos on the ice, her expression tight with a concern that mirrors his disappointment.
Her eyes find Declan’s across the rink, and they share a brief, grim acknowledgment.
Two people watching a train wreck in slow motion.
The train wreck is me. The knowledge adds another layer of ice to the shame already freezing my gut.
By the time Addison blows the final whistle, I’m soaked, spent, and vibrating with a tension so tight I feel like a guitar string about to snap.
I’m the first one off the ice, my blades carving deep grooves across the rink as I head for the tunnel.
I see Talia by the boards, a blur of a dark coat.
As I pass, Declan glides toward the exit, a dark shape against the white ice.
I register their heads bend together for a second, a brief exchange I don't hear and don't care to.
It doesn't matter. Nothing does except the fire in my lungs and the rage coiling in my gut.
The locker room is thick with the familiar stench of sweat and rubber.
I rip my helmet off and hurl it into the cubby.
It hits with a hollow thud that doesn’t feel nearly loud enough to match the violence in my head.
I want to break something. To put my fist through a wall.
My knuckles itch for the bright bloom of pain that might drown out the noise.
I’m halfway through peeling the tape off my gloves, my fingers trembling with contained rage, when I feel him—Declan—step into my orbit. A shadow, a quiet space in the rising chaos.
He doesn’t say anything, just leans against the lockers opposite my stall, a silent, steady presence.
“Don’t start,” I mutter, my voice a low rasp.
“I haven’t said anything.” His voice is calm, unbothered.
“You’re about to.”
He watches me for a moment, his expression unreadable. “You missed two passes a rookie could make in his sleep,” he says finally, his tone flat. “Took a bad line on the breakout drill. Then tried to check the boards like they slept with your girlfriend.”
I rip the last of the tape from my glove, crushing it into a sticky ball. “I’m fine.”
Declan raises a single, dark brow. “You keep using that word like it means something.”
I let out a harsh breath that tastes like copper and swallowed pride. I sit down hard on the bench, my legs giving out from under me. My gloves drop between my feet.
“You want the truth?” I ask, staring at the scuffed floor tiles.
“Always.”
I rake a hand down my face, stubble scratching my palm. The heat of humiliation burns under my skin. “She’s in my head.”
There’s a beat of silence. Not surprised, just processing. Then he nods once, simple and sure. “Clara.”
I don’t have to confirm it.
“She’s not just… there,” I say, tapping my temple. “She’s rearranging shit. Quietly. Constantly. Like some kind of goddamn virus overwriting my entire operating system. She rewires the board while I’m mid-play—quiet, relentless, permanent.”
Declan snorts. “A virus.”
“You know what I mean. I can’t focus. Can’t shut it off. Everything comes back to her.”
A ghost of a smirk touches his lips. “You look infected.”
I huff, the sound humorless. “You know what my dad would do if he found out I was falling for a scholarship girl who thinks I need fixing?”
Declan’s mouth tightens, the humor gone. “Probably what he always does when something doesn’t fit the Hale mold—cut it out and call it a necessary business decision.”
The words land with the clean, cold finality of a blade.
I stare at a curl of old, gray tape on the mat. “It’d be more than that this time.”
Declan says nothing, but his attention sharpens. He knows I’m not exaggerating.
“If he finds out,” I say slowly, the thought calcifying into a hard, cold certainty, “he’ll pull me. From the team, the school, this coast if he has to. I’ve seen him do worse for less.”
“I know,” Declan says, quiet and unflinching. “But I also know he’s not here. And you’re not twelve anymore.”
“That’s the problem,” I mutter, the confession tasting like shame. “I’m not twelve. I’m twenty, and I’m still flinching like I’m waiting to get slapped for coloring outside the lines.”
There’s a silence then that only someone who’s lived it can hold.
“You’re not the only one,” Declan says eventually, his voice dropping a register. “Pressure doesn’t come with a manual. Just bruises and expectations.”
I glance up at him, jaw clenched. “Your dad too?”
He shrugs, a slight, almost imperceptible movement. “Different breed, same leash.”
We sit with that for a moment, the shared weight of it settling between us. It’s the most he’s ever said about his life. More than I’ve ever said about mine.
Then, quieter, the real heart of the problem spills out. “She sees it.”
Declan tilts his head, waiting.
“The thing,” I say, my throat tight. “The thing I’ve buried so deep it doesn’t have a name. She’s circling it. Closer every time.”
“The reading?” Declan asks. No judgment in his voice. Just fact.
The simple, non-judgmental question hits me harder than any insult ever could. My throat tightens. I manage a single, sharp nod.
“Is she going to use it against you?”
“No.” The word is out before I can think, an instinctual, absolute certainty.
Declan’s gaze holds steady. “Then maybe it’s not a weakness.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he says, his voice unwavering. “Because she’s not looking at you like you’re broken.
My sister… she has a friend on the newspaper staff.
Said Maya Maddox is doing a profile on the ‘unsung academic heroes’ at Briarcliff.
Your tutor is one of them. People see her as smart, tough.
Unbreakable. She’s not looking at you as a project.
” He pauses. “She’s looking at you like you’re worth understanding. ”
I let the words sit. Let them sting. Let them settle somewhere deep inside me I don’t have language for. Worth understanding. I’ve been an asset, an investment, a disappointment, a captain. Never something worth understanding.
“She’s different,” I say, the admission low and rough. “She doesn’t back down. Doesn’t let me get away with shit. It’s not about me being a Hale, not about hockey. It’s just… me.”
Declan gives a rare half-smile, the expression foreign on his usually stoic face. “Sounds terrifying.”
“It is.”
We sit in it for another minute. Me, sweaty and wired. Him, solid and quiet.
Finally, he pushes off the lockers. As he passes, he slaps a hand on my shoulder, a firm, grounding pressure. “We’re all broken, Hale,” he says, his voice quiet but clear. “You just hide it better than most. Maybe it’s time you stop trying so hard.”
I sit there long after he’s gone, the locker room slowly emptying around me, the used tape still stuck to my palm. My chest feels too full. Not all cracks show. But Clara Harrington saw mine.
Let her look. I’ll teach her what it costs to see me.