Chapter 18 Atlas
The weight room is empty when I get there.
Good.
I need it like this.
Quiet.
Dark.
Nobody looking at me like they’re waiting for me to snap.
I grab the bar on the squat rack, drop into the first rep, and let the weight crush down over my shoulders. My legs burn instantly, but pain is the point.
Pain is the only thing that shuts everything else up.
I go lower.
Hold.
Push up.
Again.
Again.
Tension pulses in every joint, every tendon, every memory I’ve been trying to outrun since yesterday.
Wren.
The way she ran onto the ice like her life depended on getting to me.
The way she touched me without hesitation.
The way I felt her panic before I even opened my eyes.
But that’s not the part stuck in my head now.
Not the part that won’t leave me alone.
It’s the way she pulled away from me in the training room.
Not because I was being an asshole.
Not because I said anything wrong.
Because she was scared.
Of me.
A new rep shudders through me and I let the weight slam back into its catches, chest heaving. Sweat runs down my spine, dripping onto the padded floor.
I wipe my face on the hem of my shirt, then grab the bar again, loading more weight this time. My hands shake slightly. I blame adrenaline, not the thing twisting in my chest.
Fear.
Not hers.
Mine.
I get under the bar. Dig my heels in.
Push.
One.
Her eyes. Big. Wide. Too bright.
Two.
Her hands shaking while she wrapped my shoulder.
Three.
Her voice cracking when she said she needed space.
Four.
I freeze mid-rep, something inside me snapping.
Space.
I don’t want space from her.
I want her where I can see her.
Where I can reach her.
Where nobody else can get close enough to take whatever light she has left and break it.
My grip tightens on the bar until pain shoots up my forearms.
I lower the weight slowly, set it down harder than I should, and suck in a breath.
I’m not gentle.
I’m not soft.
I’m not Finn, who knows how to touch someone without making them jump.
I’m not Kael, who can control his temper and his body like a machine.
I’m wrong for someone fragile.
And Wren Harper is fragile.
Not weak—there’s a difference.
She’s strong as hell in ways I don’t understand.
But she’s... breakable.
And I break things.
That thought hits me like a punch to the ribs.
I grab a dumbbell—not light, something that requires both hands—and drop onto the bench. I start a chest press, pushing until my muscles scream.
“Focus,” I mutter to myself. “Get your head straight.”
But it won’t straighten.
It keeps looping back to her.
The way she flinched.
The way she couldn’t look any of us in the eye.
The way she ran out of the room like it was on fire.
And the worst part?
I didn’t do anything to fix it.
Didn’t go after her.
Didn’t ask her what was wrong.
Didn’t stop her from walking away.
Because I could tell—I could feel—that I was part of the problem.
“You scare her.”
The voice comes from my own fucking head. A memory. A million memories.
My father.
Teachers.
Coaches.
People who got too close.
“You look at people like you’re deciding how to hurt them.”
“Your anger fills rooms.”
“No wonder she ran.”
I slam the dumbbell down, metal cracking against the rubber floor. My breath saws out in sharp bursts.
I scrub both hands over my face and lean forward, elbows on my knees.
I don’t know how to be gentle.
I don’t know how to make myself smaller.
I don’t know how to be someone she doesn’t have to brace herself around.
But I know one thing—
Someone else is scaring her.
I saw it in her eyes this morning.
Whatever got to her happened outside the rink.
Something she brought with her.
Something she’s hiding so deep she can’t even talk about it.
And the thought of that—
of someone hurting her,
threatening her,
making her look like that—
is enough to make something vicious coil inside me.
My jaw locks.
My hands curl into fists.
Fine.
If she won’t tell us what’s wrong,
I’ll find out myself.
I’ll find whoever’s putting that fear in her eyes.
And when I do...
No amount of space in the world will keep me from ending it.