Chapter 7
For a full week, the common room is a Raiden-free zone.
And, predictably, all the problems stop.
The newly welded compressor works perfectly. No more tools go missing. No one trips over mysteriously placed extension cords. We install the liner for the ice rink without a single tear, and the frame holds steady.
A week of solid, uninterrupted progress.
The conclusion is obvious. Raiden was the saboteur. He showed up to torment me, damaged our equipment to make me look incompetent, and then, after our… encounter in the locker room, he got bored of the game and disappeared.
My theory solidifies into a hard, cold fact in my mind. He got what he wanted—a reaction, my humiliation—and now he’s done.
This knowledge should bring relief. Instead, it leaves a sour feeling in my gut.
Because of this theory, and because the thought of seeing him makes my skin crawl with a mixture of terror and traitorous heat, I don’t go to the Ashford Beasts’ big Friday night game.
To be honest, I used to go to all of them.
After hearing the story—how a guy tried to take him out and Blackwell came back the next game and made him pay—I became fascinated.
There’s an art to the violence on the ice, a brutal grace I can’t look away from.
Specifically, I usually can’t look away from him.
But I can’t go now. I can’t sit in those stands and watch him after what happened between us. Not when I can still feel the ghost of his mouth on my skin, the shocking pressure of him against me.
Making things worse, I lied to my friends. During a planning session on Wednesday, the topic of Blackwell came up.
“Thank god he stopped showing up,” Karolina had said, taping tinsel to a doorway. “He was making everyone tense. Did you say something to him, Artie?”
I had felt four pairs of eyes on me, and a stupid, defensive pride rose in my chest. “Yeah,” I said, my voice coming out steadier than I felt.
“I confronted him. I told him to back off and that his help wasn’t needed.
I guess he actually listened for once.” My friends exchanged impressed looks, but I saw Stella and Cameron share a brief, strange glance that made my stomach tighten.
“I have no intention of ever contacting him again,” I added, for emphasis. The lie tasted like poison in my mouth.
Now, on Saturday evening, the lie feels a million miles away.
The common room is transformed. Strings of fairy lights cast a warm, golden glow over everything. T
he scent of pine from the garlands we hung mixes with the smell of fresh paint and old wood. We’re putting up the last of the decorations. It almost looks magical.
“The main problem is going to be the heaters,” a voice says beside me.
I look over to see Matt, a lanky engineering student who volunteered a few days ago, frowning at my layout sketch.
“If we put the space heaters too close to the rink entrance, they’ll fight the compressor and create soft spots in the ice. ”
“Right,” I say, tapping the sketch with my pencil. “So maybe we aim them away, toward the seating areas? Create warm zones?”
“Or,” Matt says, leaning a little closer, “you just run a slightly higher glycol concentration through the coolant lines. Compensates for the ambient temperature fluctuations.” He winks. “Little trade secret.”
I stare at him. That’s a fairly specific piece of information. “Thanks, I’ll… look into that.”
“Yeah, no kidding, thank God that hockey anime villain cleared out,” Chase, another volunteer, chimes in from where he’s untangling a string of lights. “As soon as Blackwell and his goons stopped showing up, all our problems vanished. Funny how that works.”
I flinch.
Even though I’ve been thinking the exact same thing for a week, hearing someone else say it makes me deeply uncomfortable. It feels too simple, too easy.
“Yeah,” I mutter, turning back to my sketch. “Funny.”
~ ~ ~
By nine o’clock, everyone else has cleared out.
I do a final walkthrough, my boots echoing in the quiet hall.
The lights are twinkling, the half-finished rink outside gleams under the floodlights, and for the first time, I feel a genuine spark of hope.
This might actually work. This might actually be a good Christmas.
I lock the heavy wooden door and hurry across the small, frosty courtyard to the main Ashford building next door, where the night guard, a kind older man named Frank, has his office.
The key is supposed to be returned to him every night.
“All done for the evening, Artie?” he asks, taking the key and hanging it on a hook.
“Just about. Almost ready for the big day.”
“You kids are doing a great thing,” he says with a warm smile. “This campus could use some Christmas spirit. You have a good night, now.”
“You too, Frank.”
The security office door clicks shut behind me, and I’m alone in the shadowed archway between the buildings. The air is bitingly cold, and a shiver runs down my spine. Before I head back to my dorm, I decide to take one last look.
I walk over to the large, arched window of the common room, cupping my hands around my eyes to peer inside. I want to check if we remembered to turn off the big overhead work lights, leaving just the festive decorations lit.
They look perfect. A warm, inviting glow emanates from within. Satisfied, I let my hands drop and turn around.
And nearly scream.
A massive figure detaches itself from the deep shadows of the wall just a few feet away.
He pushes himself off the brickwork and takes a step toward me. My heart leaps into my throat.
“It’s just me.”
The voice is a low rumble in the darkness. My terror sharpens, crystallizes. Raiden.
Just me.
‘Yeah, you, the biggest nightmare of my life,’ I think.
“What do you want?” I say, my voice sharp and brittle. I
immediately start walking, moving away from the building, out into the open pathway that leads toward the dorms. I make it clear with every line of my body that this is not a conversation; this is me leaving.
He falls into step beside me, his long strides easily matching my hurried pace. He’s like a shadow I can’t shake.
“I noticed you weren’t at the game tonight,” he comments, his voice casual. Too casual.
A hot flush of embarrassment and anger crawls up my neck. Of course he noticed. “I never go to the games,” I lie, the words feeling clumsy and stupid as soon as they leave my mouth.
He’s silent for a few steps, and then he says, his voice taking on an aggressive edge, “That’s bullshit. I’ve definitely seen you there. At least once.”
“Maybe you were mistaken,” I snap, pulling my jacket tighter around me. Why is he doing this? Why is he following me?
“I don’t make mistakes like that,” he says flatly.
We walk in tense silence, the only sound our footsteps crunching on the frosty path. I can feel him beside me, a huge, imposing presence radiating heat in the cold night. I didn’t invite him to walk with me, but here he is.
“I have more important things to do than watch a bunch of guys hit a puck around,” I say, trying to regain some semblance of control. “Like painting. Some of us have actual work to do.”
“I know,” he says quietly. “Like Winter’s Respite. That one’s already done, right?”
I stop dead in the middle of the path. My blood runs cold.
I turn to face him for the first time, the faint light from a campus lamp post carving his face into sharp planes and deep shadows.
Winter’s Respite is the name of the painting that just sold. The name Marianne and I decided on and the name no one else on this campus should know.
A protective fury I didn’t know I possessed floods through me. My art is the one thing that’s truly mine. It’s my mother’s love legacy, and it’s my future.
“You know what?” I say. “I can put up with a lot. I can put up with the comments and the sabotage and you following me around in the dark. But if you do anything to my paintings, and if you so much as go near my studio, I will fucking respond aggressively. Do you understand me?”
He stares down at me, his expression unreadable in the dim light. But I can see the muscle in his jaw tense.
“‘Put up with’?” he says, his voice a low growl, each word bitten off. “Is that what you call what happened in the locker room last Friday?”
I flinch, my carefully constructed wall of anger cracking.
“How do you even know the name of my painting?” I demand, my voice rising.
“This has gone too far. Look, I get it. I realize I crossed a line in the auditorium when I challenged you in front of everyone. But you made your point. I got your message, loud and clear, so you can stop trying to get your revenge on me…”
My tirade trails off.
It’s the way he’s looking at me. His anger seems to have vanished, replaced by a look of utter bewilderment. He looks… stunned. Like I just started speaking a foreign language.
“Wh-what?” I stammer, thrown off balance.
“Nothing,” he says, but his teeth are clenched so hard I can hear them grind. “I’m just amazed, once again, at how blind you are.” He shakes his head slightly, as if to clear it. “Come on. Let’s hurry, or you’ll turn into an icicle.”
Here we go again. He calls me blind again.
He starts walking, and I have no choice but to follow. I do walk faster, though, because a new kind of panic is setting in. He’s walking impossibly close now, his broad shoulder bumping against mine with every other step, sending electric shocks through the layers of my clothing.
And his last words… Let’s hurry… or you’ll turn into an icicle. It sounds like he’s rushing us both to my dorm building because he intends to follow me inside and do something to me there.
And I don’t know if I can stop him. I don’t know if I want to.
My dorm building looms aheadWhen we reach the stone steps leading up to the entrance, I turn on him abruptly, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“Well, this is me,” I say, trying to sound dismissive. “Good night.” I spin around, ready to bolt up the stairs and lock the door behind me.
I don’t get a single step.
A large hand shoots out and grabs the collar of my jacket, yanking me to a halt. I stumble back against his solid chest.
“Where the hell is your stupid scarf?” Raiden growls, his face grim. “No wonder you’ve been shivering the whole fucking walk.”
I’m so startled by the question that all I can do is stare. “I… lost it,” I snap, trying to pull away, but his grip is firm. “It’s none of your business.” It’s true, though. I am very, very cold. My teeth are starting to chatter.
“Then button up your coat, Patton.” He scowls, his blue eyes narrowed. “No, better yet. Do this.”
Before I can process what’s happening, he’s shrugging off the thick, dark grey scarf from around his own neck. It’s cashmere, I realize with a jolt. Incredibly soft. He lifts his hands and begins to wrap the scarf carefully around my neck. The air is immediately filled with his scent.
His touch is gentle. His huge, calloused hockey player hands, which I’ve seen deliver brutal checks into the boards, are impossibly tender as they tuck the soft wool under my chin.
“Your nose is all red,” he mutters, his voice a low rumble. He fusses with the scarf, making sure it’s snug, his fingers brushing against the sensitive skin of my neck.
I freeze. I’m afraid to move. Afraid to breathe.
This doesn’t fit the narrative. This is…
care. And the cognitive dissonance is making my head spin.
I’m afraid that if he keeps touching me like this, so gently, I’m going to fall apart.
I’m not sure I can resist him, and the temptation is athrilling ache in my chest.
It’s then that I see them.
Down the path, just turning the corner under a lamppost, are three familiar figures. Karolina, Stella, and Cameron, laughing, heading this way. Heading right for us.
Panic seizes me.
My lie. I told him to back off. He listened. I have no intention of ever contacting him again.
And here I am, standing in the dark with him while he wraps his scarf around my neck like he owns me.
They’ll see. They’ll know I lied. They’ll ask questions I don’t have answers for.
Acting on frantic impulse, I grab the sleeve of his heavy winter coat.
“Inside. Now,” I hiss.
I yank him toward the heavy glass door of the dorm. He stumbles, completely surprised, but follows my lead.
I shove the door open and pull him into the deserted, dimly lit lobby. My dorm room is on the second floor.
“Let’s hurry up the stairs,” I order, my voice a panicked whisper. I let go of his sleeve and turn toward the staircase.
I don’t even make it to the first step.
An arm shoots out, and my back hits the cold plaster of the wall. Raiden plants his hands on either side of my head, caging me in. The gentle caregiver from thirty seconds ago is gone.
His face is inches from mine, his eyes blazing with a mixture of confusion and fury.
“What the hell is going on, Patton?” he demands, his voice dangerously low. “First you run, now you’re dragging me inside? What are you so afraid of?”