Chapter 17
Declan
I do this every night now.
The game. The practice. The film. The silence.
And then, the truck.
It’s Saturday night. The team is off—bye week. No game, no travel, just a blank space on the schedule where adrenaline usually goes. Most of the guys are downtown, drowning the downtime in cheap pitchers at The Box or chasing girls at the frat houses.
I’m parked on a side road near the main quad, tucked into the deep shadow where a streetlamp’s been dead since fall.
It’s been two nights since the country club.
Two nights since she watched another woman’s mouth on mine while cameras flashed and my father nodded like he’d just closed a deal.
Two nights since I watched her walk across that parking lot alone and did nothing but sit there and choke on my own excuses.
We haven’t spoken.
She hasn’t texted anything but what I told her to.
In.
One word, every night, after I know she’s back in her dorm. No emojis. No extra letters. Proof of life, nothing more.
My phone is facedown on the passenger seat now, screen dark.
I don’t pick it up. If I scroll back, I’ll only see how lopsided the thread is—me, longer messages; her, shortest possible replies.
Me trying to knit some kind of connection out of silence.
Her giving me just enough so I can’t tell myself to let go.
I kill the engine. Noise drops out of the cab, leaving just the faint thrum of the arena in the distance—a low industrial heartbeat I’ve started to match my breathing to. My hands rest on the wheel, fingers at ten and two. The tape on my knuckles glows pale in the spill of a far-off security light.
I tell myself this is about patterns.
Order is safety. Patterns mean everyone gets home.
She leaves the main library around 11:40 most nights. Crosses the quad. Hits the same cracked section of pavement by the maintenance building. Passes the hedge line. Cuts through the stretch with the dead lamp. Four minutes from door to dorm if she’s not stopped.
If I know the variables, I can control the outcome. That’s the lie I hold between my teeth like a mouthguard.
The reality is uglier.
This is penance.
For sitting in that country club parking lot and watching her flinch from my headlights instead of getting out and going after her. For letting her see me standing there while someone else claimed me.
She walks. I watch. It’s the only way I know she’s still here, on this campus, breathing the same cold air, not disappearing into some black hole I didn’t see coming.
11:37. 11:41.
Students filter out of the library doors, blinking into the dark. Groups peel off toward different dorms, their laughter thin and exhausted. A couple argues quietly by the bike rack. A girl shoves a guy’s shoulder with a smile. Normal.
And then her.
I know her silhouette instantly: the line of her shoulders under a too-thin coat, the way she holds her bag tight against her side, chin down, steps quick but measured.
Not running. Never running. Running draws attention.
She moves like she has a target painted between her shoulder blades and refuses to speed up to prove it.
Talia.
My chest loosens a fraction when I see her. Pattern intact. Tonight, at least.
She starts down the path. Same route as always. Crosswalk. Hedge. Maintenance building. Dead lamp.
I should start the engine. I should leave. She’s here. She’s moving. She’s fine.
Then I hear it.
Footsteps.
Not hers. Hers are light, fast, a steady tap-tap on the concrete. These drag. Heavy, uneven. Thud… scuff. Thud… scuff. One foot hitting harder, weight thrown careless.
My body recognizes the sound before my brain does. A second rhythm, behind her, closing the distance.
The pattern is broken.
My hand is on the door handle before I can talk myself out of it.
I slide out of the truck and shut the door quietly. No slam. No announcement. The night is knife-cold on my face, my breath showing in short bursts. I cut across the grass instead of taking the path, boots crunching softly on frost-hardened ground.
From here, I can see them.
She’s maybe thirty yards from the maintenance building now, the pool of light from a lamppost painting her in a weak halo. A guy staggers a few paces behind her—hood up, shoulders loose with alcohol, bottle glinting in one hand.
“Hey,” he calls, voice slurred, too loud for the quiet campus. “Hey, wait up. I’m talking to you.”
She doesn’t answer. Her shoulders draw up, just a little, like she’s trying to fold herself smaller without speeding up. Classic calculation: if she reacts, it escalates. If she ignores him, maybe he gets bored.
He doesn’t.
He lengthens his stride and closes the gap. “Come on,” he laughs. “Don’t be rude. I was being nice.”
My vision narrows. The rest of the quad fades out. It’s just angles and distances now. Her. Him. Me.
I cut back toward the path, still staying to the shadowed edge of the lawn. Gravel crunches under my boots for two steps before I move onto damp grass again.
He reaches out and catches her wrist.
The sight hits harder than any hit I’ve taken on the ice.
Her whole body jerks. Not a normal flinch. A full-body shock response. She stops dead, breath sharp enough that I hear it from twenty feet away.
“Let go,” she says. Her voice is small and razor-edged at the same time.
He laughs like it’s cute. His fingers tighten.
That’s as far as he gets.
I step in.
Three strides and I’m there, coming in at an angle that puts me between them without slamming into either. I plant myself just close enough that he has to register me—height, bulk, presence.
“You heard her,” I say, voice even, low. “Let go.”
He startles, finally noticing there’s someone else on the path. Up close, he reeks of cheap vodka and stale weed. His pupils are blown, tracking slow.
He looks me up and down, takes in the Briarcliff jacket, the taped knuckles. “Who the—” he starts, irritation winning over sense.
My hand closes around his wrist before he can finish.
My fingers wrap over his radius, below the joint, my thumb digging into the tendons. Not enough to break. Enough to compress. Enough to remind his nervous system that I’m more of a problem than she is.
He yelps and reflexively releases her.
“Hey, man—what the hell—”
I pivot, stepping into his space, angling my body so it blocks his line of sight to Talia completely. My forearm goes across his collarbone, backing him up until his shoulders hit the cool brick of the maintenance building. Controlled pressure instead of punishment.
He freezes when the wall touches his back. There’s just enough weight in my arm that he feels how quickly this could go bad.
“What you’re going to do,” I say quietly, “is walk away. Right now.”
He swallows, breath sour-hot against my jaw. “I wasn’t— I was just talking to her—”
“You grabbed her,” I correct. “That means you’re done talking.”
His gaze skitters, looking anywhere but my face. “Jesus. Chill.”
I lean in a fraction, enough that he can see how calm my eyes are. People like him expect yelling. The quiet rattles them more. “You’ve got three seconds,” I say. “One.”
He tries to shrug out from under my arm and doesn’t go anywhere. Panic flashes across his face.
“Two.”
“Okay, okay,” he blurts. “Fuck. I’m going.”
I step back.
He stays plastered against the wall for a beat, like he doesn’t quite trust it. Then he slides out sideways, keeping as much distance between us as he can, and stumbles down the path, half-jog, half-stagger, until the dark swallows him.
My focus shifts immediately.
Talia.
She hasn’t moved much. She’s a few feet back from where he held her, hands fisted in her coat, chest rising and falling too fast. Her eyes are huge, fixed on the darkness where he disappeared, then snapping to me.
The urge to go to her almost knocks me off my feet.
I turn toward her, lifting a hand to check her wrist.
She recoils.
It’s a violent, instinctive step back, her eyes locking on my hand—my taped hand—with raw fear.
It stops me cold.
Tuesday night, in the rink, she had her mouth on this hand. She kissed the tape like it was part of me. She trusted it to hold her.
Tonight, she looks at it like it’s a weapon. Like I’m the same as the drunk, just bigger and more efficient at hurting people.
I drop my hand instantly.
“I’m not going to touch you,” I say. My voice comes out rough. “I’m done. He’s gone.”
Her throat works in a swallow. She blinks, the panic in her eyes clearing just enough to recognize me, but the fear remains, sharp and bright. The violence just rewrote everything we built in the last week.
“You okay?” I ask.
She flinches at the question like it’s the first real hit she’s taken tonight.
“Fine,” she says automatically. The word cracks in the middle. “I’m— It’s fine. You didn’t have to—”
“Yeah,” I cut in, not unkindly. “I did.”
Silence stretches, cold and heavy. The distant hum of the rink presses at my ears. Somewhere far off, a car door slams. Out here, on this strip of path, it’s just us.
“I’ll walk you back,” I say.
Her eyes narrow a fraction. “You don’t have to do that either.”
“I know.” I angle myself toward her dorm, careful not to step closer. “I’m still doing it.”
There’s a moment where I’m not sure she’s going to move. Then she exhales, shoulders dropping a millimeter, and starts walking.
We fall into step.
I keep three feet between us. Enough space that our arms won’t brush, even if one of us trips. I stay to the outside, closest to the street and parking lot, where the shadows are deeper and the variables worse.
She keeps her gaze straight ahead, jaw tight. The air between us hums with leftover adrenaline and something rawer.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she says finally, voice low and tight.
My eyes stay scanning the path ahead. “Doing what.”
“Whatever this is.” Her hand flutters in a short, sharp gesture between us. “Showing up out of nowhere. Appearing in the dark. Watching me.”
I don’t try to lie.
“I am watching you,” I say. “Yeah.”