3. Wren
WREN
Arms laden with hockey gear, and with the heat of thirty hockey players’ eyes on my back, I fled the rink.
However, it was the searing gaze of three players in particular that sent a fire racing down my spine as I frantically dumped the hockey sticks in my arms in the equipment room, my hands trembling.
Ronan Sterling.
Silas Monroe.
Lucian Caulfield.
I made a point of tracking down the Kings’ display wall—years of team photos lined up in neat rows—the second I left Dean Carver’s office. Know your enemy and all that jazz. I instantly recognized their faces. Now their names are also emblazoned in my brain, never to be forgotten.
Along with the look in each of their eyes just now.
Since I stepped foot in the Kings’ arena this morning, I’d been preparing myself to come face-to-face with them, but even with all that preparation, I wasn’t ready. Far from it. I’d been rendered paralyzed as soon as I met their gazes, barely managing to wrench my eyes away before bolting.
Now…now I’m hiding out in a supply closet like a total wimp.
Talk about pathetic.
If this sets the tone for the rest of the year, then I am completely screwed.
I’d tell myself to suck it up and go back out there, hold my head high and show them that I’m not afraid, except I saw the intent in their eyes. Hell, Lucian was half out of his seat, on the verge of chasing after me.
I have no intention of finding out what will happen if they catch me.
So, until I’m certain all three of them have vacated the premises, I guess I’m calling this dark, cramped, unmarked closet home.
With my breath loud in my ears and my hands still shaking, I sink onto an upturned mop bucket. My skirt tightens across my thighs as my knees draw to my chest, but I’m too lost in the memory of how each of them looked at me to care.
Like they knew exactly who I was.
Like they’d laid witness to me at my most vulnerable. Most fragile. Most exposed.
My stomach knots with unease, my vision darkening as I’m swallowed up by the black hole that is that night.
Something’s wrong. My limbs feel heavy, uncoordinated, like they’re no longer connected to my brain. The room tilts sideways, then snaps upright again. I blink hard, trying to clear the fog, but it clings like smoke.
I don’t understand…I only had two drinks before switching to water, but everything feels too loud, too bright, too close.
The music grates against my ears. The air presses down like it’s trying to suffocate me.
I stumble toward the exit, but the space stretches with every step, like I’m moving through sludge.
Time folds in on itself. I’m not sure how long passes before I hear nearby voices.
I have to force myself to focus on the words.
“—Drugged.”
Are they talking about me? I squint, trying to see, but I can’t make my eyes focus.
“She won’t remember shit to tell the police.”
Those words root somewhere deep inside of me.
I try to lift my head, but it’s like my body’s been switched off.
My eyelids flutter open, just enough to catch a flash of white hair.
Blinding, unfamiliar, and gone before I can place it.
Fingers clamp around my arms, too tight as I’m lifted into the air.
My head rolls. Someone leans over me, shadowed and blurry.
Black lines form a distorted image that I have to squint to make out.
Wings. Shredded ones that look like they would crumble to dust at the slightest touch.
It doesn’t make any sense, but before I can comprehend what I’m seeing, my head falls back, the last of my energy draining away.
Black encroaches on my vision, and my brain won’t hold on to anything for longer than a second.
I want to scream. Want to say no. To escape. Flee.
That voice breaks through the abyss. “Get her somewhere private.”
And then everything disappears.
I jolt back to the present with a choked gasp.
The supply closet is too quiet, too still, but I swear I can still hear that voice in my head. Ronan’s voice.
When I first heard him speak at The Stanley, I thought maybe I was imagining it. That my brain, desperate to make sense of my fragmented memories from that night, was randomly filling in the blanks. But no. Seeing them just now…it was the same gut punch I felt at the bar. The same panic.
Now, I’m certain.
It was them.
They were there that night, after I’d been drugged. Doing God knows what with my body.
And yet, there must be something broken inside of me, because when I saw them just now, they weren’t the monsters my mind created.
They were temptation.
Fire and ruin, and the kind of beauty that scrapes the air from your lungs.
I hadn’t gotten a proper look at them at The Stanley, and now I don’t know if it was a blessing or a curse. Because the vile pieces of shit I’d depicted them as in my head couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Lucian, with his messy black hair, unreadable gray eyes that convey everything and nothing all at once, a sharp jaw, and high cheekbones designed to intimidate.
He is all brawler muscle—the kind of man who takes up space and doesn’t apologize for it.
Nothing about him is soft or forgiving. Everything screams predatory.
Brutal. Without having ever seen him play, I know he enjoys destroying others.
That he gets off on their pain. Just looking at him made my pulse spike in panic…
and something else I’m too ashamed to name.
Next, there is Silas—Lucian’s opposite in every way.
White blond hair, cool blue eyes, and a lean, angular body.
He is the picture of haunted elegance. Stillness carved in ice.
Silas radiates pain, suffering, and anguish.
I felt it when our eyes met, sharp and cutting like my own.
While he might appear softer, more delicate than Lucian, I can tell from the way his gaze tracked my every move that he is just as dangerous.
I felt myself unraveling under it. My heartbeat ticking up, my thighs pressing together, as if that broken, beautiful boy could see right through me.
Worse, that he could see all of my broken pieces. The ones even I refuse to acknowledge.
And finally, there’s Ronan, whose every feature is meant to lure you in, only for the snake to bite when you get too close.
He is all deep brown hair, perfectly styled, and dreamy hazel eyes with flecks of gold that catch the light, making it difficult to spot the calculation hidden within.
Everything about him is polished and charismatic.
Right down to his neatly trimmed beard. It makes you want to trust him.
To trust in him. He’s the quiet storm you don’t see coming, and that makes him the most terrifying out of the three.
What all of them have in common?
They are the most strikingly beautiful men I’ve ever met.
And that makes me the most fucked up woman alive, because for one sick, shameful second, I wanted them to keep looking at me. I wanted them to come after me.
Groaning, I hug my knees tighter to my chest. I can feel my cheeks flaming with mortification, and I find myself grateful that I hid in a supply closet and not a bathroom with its bright lights and mirrors on the wall.
My head tilts to rest against the wall behind me, my eyes falling closed. What am I going to do? I can’t avoid them forever. What will happen when they eventually catch up to me? Demand to know why I’m here? What I know? Try to shut me up before I say too much?
They’re going to think I came here for revenge, when in reality, all I’ve wanted for the past three years is to forget that night.
I’d been doing a bang-up job of it, too, until that fateful run-in at The Stanley.
It was like some higher power saw me actually succeeding at moving on and decided, “Oh no, we can’t have that.
Let’s sprinkle a little trauma throw-back on her and see how she copes. ”
Now I’m fucking drowning in the past. In memories I want to forget. In half-truths and whispers heard in the dark.
It’s not the blurry outlines of memories that kill me.
It’s the gaps between them.
The not knowing is a noose around my neck that is growing steadily tighter.
The clip of footsteps has me snapping upright, stifling a pained gasp when a box of cones digs into my ribs. Holding my breath, I stare unblinkingly at the strip of light beneath the door.
Please don’t stop. Please don’t stop.
The door handle rattles. Every muscle in my body goes tense.
Then the door swings open.
And I freeze, caught in the blinding glare of the hallway fluorescents.
I’m still blinking against the brightness when Dean Carver’s sharp, clipped voice cuts through the haze.
“There you are.”
I flinch so hard, I nearly upend the shelf beside me. He’s silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the fluorescent lights, with his arms crossed over his pressed shirt, and a scowl twisting his face. He stares at me like I’ve personally wasted the most important hour of his life.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” he snaps.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, stumbling to my feet. My limbs are stiff, my skirt rumpled. It rides up as I move, and I yank it down, flustered. “I didn’t hear it. I just needed a minute—”
“Is this what you plan on doing for the rest of the season?” His eyes narrow. “Hiding out in closets and shirking your responsibilities?”
“N-no.”
He takes a slow step into the cramped, narrow room, instantly making it feel infinitely smaller. “In case I didn’t make myself clear this morning, Winslow. I don’t care who your father is. You’re not going to skate through this internship just because your last name buys you special treatment.”
I swallow hard, my eyes fixed on the floor.
“This morning was your chance to prove you aren’t the spoiled progeny I pegged you to be.” He gestures vaguely around him. “Instead of showing me that you might have something useful to offer, you’re hiding in a janitor’s closet like a homesick freshman.”
Damn, this guy knows how to cut me to the quick.