26. Maya #2
Twenty-three men in practice jerseys carve across the white surface.
Blades cut. Sticks crack. A puck slams off the boards with a gunshot snap that makes my shoulders lock before I can stop them.
The regional final banner from last year hangs from the rafters.
Tomorrow's game will decide if they add another.
The coaching staff is running tournament formations, the intensity sharper than a regular practice, every drill pointed at Friday.
I find them.
Both of them.
Always both of them.
My eyes find their numbers before they find anything else.
Dante is on the far side, explosive and precise, his slap shot cracking through the rink like a rifle. Cole is at center, fluid and fast, winning a face-off with a grin visible from the press box.
I'm standing above them with a letter in my bag and a dead girl's name on the envelope while they run tournament drills for the biggest game of their college careers.
Tonight, the fight follows them off the ice.
Practice ends at 3 PM.
I wait in the corridor outside the locker room, my bag strap cutting a line into my shoulder, my body angled toward the nearest exit because some habits do not give a shit about logic.
Cole sees me first.
Of course Cole sees me first.
He's still in his practice jersey, hair dark with sweat, and the moment he registers me here, mid-afternoon, wrong place and wrong timing, the grin disappears from his face.
"What happened?"
Instant. No greeting. No hesitation.
"He came to the Chronicle," I say. My voice holds because I force it to hold. "Asked for me at the front desk. My real name." Cole's eyes change, and my fingers curl around the strap of my bag. "And there's a second letter. In my campus mailbox. He's been in the building, Cole."
Cole's hands come to my face, warm from practice and still rough with adrenaline.
His jaw locks under the hallway lights. Behind him, players spill toward the locker room, voices bouncing off concrete, but his attention narrows until it feels like he could put his body between me and the entire world.
Dante appears a second later.
His stride lengthens the moment he sees us. By the time he reaches me, something in his face has already gone cold.
"What happened?"
The same words, with Dante's stillness behind them.
"Her father," Cole says. "At the Chronicle. In person."
Dante goes still, and the two players nearest us drift toward the opposite wall without looking at him directly.
His eyes flatten first. Then his jaw locks, and his hand flexes once at his side before he forces it still.
His hand goes to his back pocket. The phone is in his palm and unlocked before he looks back at me. Then he turns the screen toward me.
Marco.
The text is timestamped 12:08 PM, twelve minutes before Rachel called me.
David Ashford arrived on Briarcliff campus at 11:42 AM. Entered building at northwest corner of quad. Departed 12:31 PM. Vehicle confirmed. No intervention because monitoring only was ordered.
They were watching.
They watched him walk into my building and did not intervene because Dante told them to watch, not touch.
Marco's people saw everything and did nothing.
Heat presses under my ribs, sharp enough to make my next breath come thin. I set it aside for now because if I start thinking about that, really thinking about it, I will not be able to stand in this hallway with athletes moving around us and Cole's hands still on my face.
"And a second letter," I say.
I pull the envelope from my bag and hold it out. "Typed this time. Longer. He's getting comfortable."
Dante takes the envelope. His gaze drops to the front.
Charlotte.
His hand tightens around the paper until the edge bows.
"Home," I say before either of them can ask me what I need. "I want to go home."
Home.
The house with the open door and our bed and my tea in the cabinet. The word comes out before I choose it, and my fingers tighten on the strap of my bag like I can hold the place from here.
The letter lies unfolded between us on the kitchen table.
Three chairs. Three bodies. One piece of paper between us, flat under the kitchen light.
Dante reads it first. I keep my eyes on his face because looking at the letter again would put David's voice back in my head. His expression doesn't change. The composure gives the fury nowhere to go.
After he finishes, he sets the letter down.
His finger taps the sentence: I take responsibility for my part in what happened.
He's heard this language before. His father's version of it. The same polished sentences. The same clean hands.
"'Your part in the family, Dante.' 'Your role in the transition.'" His voice stays quiet. His finger remains on David Ashford's sentence. When he looks at me, the refrigerator hum cuts through the silence. "This man writes the way my father speaks."
He passes the letter to Cole.
Cole reads, and I know the exact moment it lands. His jaw goes first. Then his stare fixes on the same sentence Dante touched.
"Your part," Cole says, his voice low enough to scrape. "He's telling you the broken ribs were your part. He's telling you the hospital was something you did together."
His hands flatten on the table, pressing so hard his knuckles pale. Then he picks up the letter again and reads farther.
"Frightened people shape the truth." His voice drops another register.
"He's calling Suzanne a liar. Suzanne. The woman who packed a bag in the middle of the night and sat in the passenger seat of my father's car with a split lip.
The woman who moved into our house and made it a home and has called me her son for nine years.
He's calling her a liar in a typed letter with a serif font. "
Cole's hands press harder against the table.
"He broke your ribs and then he wrote I love you," he says. "Same letter. Same page."
The table creaks under his palms.
"We're calling Richard," Dante says.
"I'm calling Richard," I correct. "He's my attorney."
Dante's mouth closes.
Good.
I call. Richard answers on the second ring, and I tell him all of it. The second letter. The campus visit. The front desk interaction. The card. The timing. The fact that David Ashford knows where I work.
Richard's voice changes before I finish. It gets precise. Measured. Every instruction comes with space for me to answer.
"Don't go to your apartment," he says. "Stay at the house.
I'm contacting the DA's office. The campus visit constitutes a parole violation if his conditions include geographic restrictions.
I'll have a protective order filed by Monday.
In the meantime, document everything. Dates, times, locations. The letters are evidence."
"I'm a journalist, Richard. I know how to document."
"I know you do. I also know you're scared, and I want you to hear me say that I'm handling this."
My throat tightens around the word scared.
"I'm not the fourteen-year-old in that courtroom anymore," I say. My fingers tighten around the phone. "I'm angry. The scared is underneath the angry, and the angry is doing more useful work right now."
Silence holds on the line.
Then Richard exhales. "That sounds exactly like something your mother would say."
"Good."
He gives me instructions. Protective order process. Timeline. What constitutes admissible documentation. Who to contact if David appears again. What to save. What not to touch. By the time we hang up, the plan exists outside my skull, written in dates, evidence, phone calls, and signatures.
"Monday," I say to Dante and Cole. "Protective order filed Monday. Richard's on it."
Dante nods, but his face hasn't changed. I know the phone call he wants to make. Marco's people are already monitoring David Ashford, watched him walk into my building and walk out again without lifting a finger. Richard has dates and motions. Marco has timestamps and men in cars.
Both paths keep moving.
Cole already has his phone out, his thumbs moving before I register what he's doing.
"What did you send?"
He turns the screen.
The group chat.
Maya's father found her on campus. We need people around. Come to Elm House tonight.
The text is already delivered.
My private nightmare is in Cole's words now, sent from Cole's phone, turned into a summons before I decide who is allowed to know.
My jaw locks so hard pain sparks behind my molars.
"You could have asked me before you sent that."
Cole's thumb stills over the screen. It hovers there, ready to send another message, to move another piece into place before I ask for anything.
Then his face changes.
"You're right," he says. "I should have."
The apology is immediate and genuine, and it almost makes it worse because his thumb is still near the screen.
They're already coming.
Adrian and Clara arrive first.
Adrian asks me three questions before he takes off his coat.
"What does your father look like? What kind of car does he drive? Who else on campus should know his face?"
He gives me tactical precision and a hard, steady stare, and for once, nobody reaches for the soft voice people use when they think you're about to crack.
"The athletic department has a direct line to the campus police chief," Adrian says. "They coordinate on game days. Tomorrow's regional final means security is already doubled at the rink. One conversation with Addison, and your father's face is flagged at every entrance."
His phone is in his hand, thumb moving toward Addison's contact.
"Adrian."
My voice stops him.
"I'll tell you when to make that call."
Adrian's thumb stops above the screen. The look he gives me lasts two seconds. Then he nods and puts the phone on the table.
"Your call."
My fingers loosen around the edge of my mug.
"Make it," I say.
Clara is already on her phone. "I'm pulling the campus safety protocol. Title IX has a formal threat report that can trigger independent security measures. I spent two years at a DV legal clinic, so I know which forms matter. Adrian can call Addison. I'll handle the Title IX coordinator."
Declan arrives with Talia.