Chapter 1 #2
I kicked my aluminum case upright, grabbed the handle, and took the concrete stairs up to the administrative mezzanine two at a time.
I needed to focus. Dr. Morris was expecting me, and that eight-thousand-dollar research fellowship was the only barrier standing between me and an administrative drop from the university registrar.
I reached the frosted glass door of Suite 210, smoothed my wind-tangled hair, and knocked once.
"Enter," Dr. Morris called out.
I opened the door and stepped inside.
The office was warm, smelling of dark roast coffee and radiator steam, but the air felt instantly heavy. Dr. Evelyn Morris sat behind her mahogany desk, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, her expression pinched and severe.
Sitting across from her in a leather guest chair was Derrick Palmer, the Barrow University Athletic Director. He had his suit jacket unbuttoned, his tie loosened, and a thick legal folder open across his knees.
My stomach dropped an inch.
"Nadia," Dr. Morris said, gesturing to the empty chair beside Palmer. "Close the door. Sit down."
"Good morning, Dr. Morris. Director Palmer.
" I closed the door, the latch clicking into place with ominous finality.
I remained standing, holding my binders against my stomach like a shield.
"If this is about the revised timeline for the force-plate capstone, I have the updated kinematic calibration models ready right here. "
"Put the binders down, Nadia," Morris sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "This isn't about your capstone proposal."
Palmer turned in his chair, his gaze cold and calculating. "We have a significant institutional situation on our hands, Miss Gregory. And as of eight o'clock this morning, it involves your funding."
My chest constricted, the air suddenly thin. "My departmental fellowship?"
"The NCAA Compliance Committee issued an informal notice of review yesterday afternoon," Palmer said, tapping the edge of the folder.
"Following an off-ice incident in the tunnel during the Northland series, combined with an unacceptable accumulation of major penalties, our top player is facing an immediate five-game athletic suspension. "
Killian. Of course it was Killian.
"With all due respect, Director Palmer," I said, my voice tight, "the hockey team's disciplinary issues are outside the scope of the biomechanics lab."
"They weren't until thirty minutes ago," Dr. Morris interrupted gently, though her eyes were hard.
"The athletic department has proposed an alternative to immediate suspension: an intensive, mandatory sixty-hour Kinematic Motion Recalibration and Behavioral Redistribution program.
If Killian completes sixty logged hours of supervised biomechanical retraining, the compliance board will allow him to retain his captaincy and remain on the ice for the upcoming NHL showcase. "
I stared at her, a cold prickle of dread creeping up my neck. "Sixty hours is a massive clinical commitment. Who has the laboratory clearance to oversee that kind of data collection?"
"You do," Morris said flatly.
The room went dead silent. The only sound was the faint hum of the heating vent above the window.
"No," I said instantly, the word slipping out before I could filter it. "Dr. Morris, no. I'm running the gait analysis study for the track program. My capstone—"
"The track grant lost its private booster funding this morning," Palmer said smoothly, leaning forward. "There is no money left in the general kinesiology pool for your senior fellowship, Miss Gregory. None. Unless the athletic department underwrites a specialized behavioral research stipend."
He opened his checkbook-sized institutional ledger, his pen hovering over the paper.
"Eight thousand dollars," Palmer said, staring right into my eyes.
"Paid directly to your student account by Friday noon.
It covers your remaining tuition balance and guarantees your capstone honors credit.
In exchange, you log sixty hours of motion-capture analysis, pelvic torque correction, and impact deceleration tracking with Killian Castaneda. "
My heart pounded so violently I could feel it in my eardrums. Sixty hours. Locked in a room with the man who had ruined Gavin, the man whose hands had felt like an iron trap on my skin five minutes ago.
"He won't cooperate," I managed to say, my voice cracking slightly. "You know what he's like. He treats science like an insult."
"He doesn't have a choice," Palmer countered, his voice dropping into hard corporate reality. "And neither do you. If he doesn't log the hours, he sits. If you don't take the assignment, your tuition account defaults on the fifteenth, and the registrar cancels your enrollment for the spring term."
The walls seemed to lean in, the ceiling pressing down on my skull. My father’s scarred, calloused hands flashed in my mind—the grease ground into his knuckles, the twenty-year-old boots wrapped in duct tape so I could buy textbooks.
Don't you dare come back to the yard with a wrench in your hand.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat, my fingers digging into the spine of my binder until the plastic cracked.
"When does it start?" I whispered.
Dr. Morris slid a heavy steel key across the desk, its brass tag stamped with black ink: SUB-BASEMENT LAB 04.
"Tomorrow morning," Morris said quietly. "Five-thirty AM. Every weekday until the sixty hours are logged. Just you, Killian, and the motion cameras."
I picked up the key. The metal was freezing, burning like dry ice against my palm.
The heavy brass latch clicked behind me, and Coach Briggs's gravelly bark echoed down the hall as the shadow of number eighty-eight filled the doorway, his dark eyes locking onto mine like a storm that had just found its target.