20. Miles
Twenty
Miles
The meeting with Cain lasted longer than I wanted it to.
I replay every second of it while Mason drives. The tattoo. The network. The confirmation that this thing is bigger than we thought. Cain’s silence said it all.
I rub my forehead, because fuck it’s starting to get to the point where the headache is turning into a migraine, the lack of sleep, and now having two lives. Me, Miles, and the stalker. Even though the lack of sleep isn’t the stalker, it’s the work I’m buried in.
But my mind keeps returning to last night, the moment I left her room, my thoughts have been with her.
Sadie.
To the way she begged me to fuck her. The way she spread her legs for a masked man she barely knows.
The sweet, addictive taste of her cunt on my tongue.
The way she cried out when I buried my cock inside her, so tight and wet and perfect.
The way her pussy milked me when she came, pulsing and fluttering like she was trying to keep me there forever.
She let me claim her.
She let me fill her with my cum.
She’s mine now. Whether she fully understands it yet or not. She can try to push me away, try to tell herself she’s in control, but after last night she won’t be able to function without me. Her body already craves what only I can give her.
I own her now.
I shift in my seat, my cock twitching at the memory of her moaning beneath me.
“You’re doing the face,” Mason says.
“I don’t have a face.”
“The one where you’re somewhere else entirely.” Mason turns to look at me, his eyes glance to the three phones. “Miles, you need to take a break from it, one night man, just give me the phones.”
“And what if I do, and another girl goes missing, because I gave you my phone?” I look at my software running on my burner phones. I only have one phone which the family has the number to, but all the others are burners. I’m not risking anyone breaking into my phone.
Mason says nothing, and I already knew he wouldn’t, but I hear Declan behind us.
“Miles, one night isn’t going to change anything. Have you looked in the mirror lately, you look like shit.”
“Thanks, and once we get there, I’ll put the phones away for a bit,” I reply, and the subject is dropped. They know how much it’s starting to mess with my head now, until this ends, I’m not stopping.
***
The athletics center is louder than I expected.
Not so much the crowd, the crowd is exactly what Sadie described, parents and the occasional faculty member, nothing remarkable.
But the space itself feels different. The high ceiling catches every sound and sends it rolling back across the arena.
Every cheer, every landing, every breath hangs in the air, charged with the energy of people watching something that matters.
We find seats in the stands. Lileah immediately gets the best seats and rearranges everyone accordingly, which takes two minutes and nobody argues with her because when she is like this, we know to leave her alone. Plus, I don’t have the energy to say anything to her.
I scan the floor and find her immediately.
Sadie is with her team at the far end, the five of them in matching warm-up jackets, stretching, talking with the easy pre-competition focus of people who have done this long enough to know how to carry the nerves without being carried by them.
She's doing something with her arms, a slow arc, working through a range of motion and even in a warm-up movement the quality of it is different from the people around her.
I didn’t know much about gymnastics until her, but then I watched every Olympics to see what it takes to be the best. I probably know this sport as well as hockey.
She turns and sees us.
Something moves through her expression; she’s surprise that we really came.
I have to admit I wasn't sure about coming, but then Lileah has a way of getting her way when she wants.
Then there was something warmer underneath it, and she crosses the floor toward the stands. She stops below us, looking up.
"You came," she says.
"I did." I hold her gaze. "Lileah made me."
Lileah, from two seats over: "I absolutely did."
She looks at me for one beat longer then she smiles. "I'm glad you're here," she says. Then she goes back to her team.
Mason says nothing, but I feel him staring at me. I’m both shocked and surprised he doesn't make a comment.
***
The floor routine goes last in the rotation.
I watch her mount the competition floor and take her position. I’ve seen her do this in practice, but she doesn’t know I’ve been watching her at practice, no one knows.
Sadie’s name is announced, and then the music starts.
Debussy. The arrangement I suggested, slowed down for timing. On paper, it shouldn't work in a gymnastics arena. But as the opening notes spread through the stands, every conversation fades, and the whole room seems to lean toward the floor.
She moves.
I've watched her on the second-floor library window table, through a feed, across a courtyard, and at two parties.
I've watched her more than she knows and, in more ways, than she'd be comfortable with.
But this, this is different. This is Sadie Elliot with nowhere to hide and nothing between her and the thing she does better than anything else.
The opening tumbling pass lands clean. Both feet. Her weight is perfectly distributed. She doesn't pause to register it, already moving, already into the next sequence. The routine pulls her forward the way good music pulls you through a song without letting you stop.
Then the middle section hits.
The music softens, and she softens with it.
Not the difficulty of the routine, but the feeling.
Something changes in the way she moves. The gymnastics disappears, leaving only fluid, effortless motion, each movement flows naturally into the next.
Her arms trace the melody. Her weight shifts with quiet control. Her spine lengthens.
She hits the leap series and the switch ring lands with an impact I feel from the stands; it’s executed exactly as it was meant to be. The turns flow, they are clean, connected, with no catches.
Then she comes to the final corner.
Three steps. The full twisting layout launches and there's a half-second where the gym holds its breath and then her feet find the floor and she sticks it. Both feet. Arms up. Still.
The gym breaks into noise.
I don't make a sound.
I just watch her stand there in the middle of the floor with the music fading around her. I lean back in my chair and look at my phone.
“I thought you said no phone,” Mason leans closer looking at my phone.
“I’ve watched what I want, now I can work until her next…”
“You know, the family think I’m the crazy one, but if they knew you better, you’d be the fucked up one,” Mason jokes, and it makes me smile.
“I just hide it way better. Plus, I’m having fun.” I don’t look up from my phone, looking through some of the CCTV footage I found.
“Yeah, I can see that.” Mason laughs, and Lileah looks over at us, and I put my phone away as the beam comes to a start.
I'll be honest, I understand the floor. I understand the musicality of it, the way it maps onto something I can read without knowing the technical language. The beam, I have to watch differently. I’ve watched so many of them I still have no idea what's happening with it.
Sadie stands there looking at it, she takes in a deep breath and mounts it cleanly. The first pass is a split leap into a backward walkover. That's all I know about this discipline.
This is the one she told me about. The one that used to catch her out. I watch her hit it and something shifts in my chest. The relief of watching someone trust the work they've done, the moment the doubt drops and the body takes over.
The dismount lands solid. Both of her feet, and then her head is up. The expression on her face in the second before the score goes up is the most unguarded thing I've seen from her in person. It’s pure, unfiltered, and the joy of a body that did exactly what it was built to do.
Mason leans over. "She's good."
"Yeah,” is all I say.
I watch her for a moment, she’s happy, carefree and beautiful.
***
The party is in full swing, music pulsing through the house, the lights are low and there are bodies everywhere. Regionals are over. Sadie crushed it, her best performance and the whole group has been celebrating hard.
I have no idea whose house this is, but Juno said it was someone from regionals. And all the girls said they were partying tonight because they won.
I’ve spent the last hour watching her from across the room, the way she laughs, the way her dress hugs her body when she moves. Eventually she drifts over to me, her cheeks flushed from dancing and a couple of drinks.
“Hey,” she says, smiling up at me. Her eyes are bright, and a little glassy.
“Hey yourself.” I lean against the wall, letting my gaze drag slowly down her. “You looked incredible out there today. Still can’t stop thinking about that last tumbling pass.”
She bites her lip, stepping a little closer. “Yeah? You were watching pretty closely.”
“I always am.” I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, letting my fingers brush her neck. “Are you nervous about anything now that it’s done?”
“A little.” She glances around, then back at me. “Mostly I’m just… wired. I can’t seem to come down.”
I smile, my voice dropping. “I know a few ways to help with that.”
Her breath catches. She holds my gaze for a long second. “Is that an offer?”
“Very much so.” I can’t stop thinking about last night, and if there’s one thing I want right now, it’s Sadie on a bed begging me to fuck her.
She bites her lip again then shakes her head. Is she thinking about Ghost, is that why she won’t take it further with me?
“I need to run back to my room quickly. My phone’s dying and I forgot my charger.” She clears her throat, she’s nervous, I’ll take that.
“I’ll walk you,” I say without hesitation. “I’m not letting you go back to the room in an area we don’t know, there can be freaks out there.”