Chapter 5 Beckett
Girls like Adela Kalkaska don't know what to do when control slips through their fingers. They've never had to earn anything, especially safety.
I breathe softly into the black mask, staring at the screen, and wait.
"Come on," Silas whispers. "Take the fucking bait."
I'm sitting in the corner of my room, wearing all black, with a black sheet pinned to the wall. No identifying features. No face. Nothing she can trace back to a person, let alone a name.
"She'll accept it," I say quietly. "They always do."
Silas glances at me. "You sound sure."
"I am."
The screen starts loading. Silas is a little too excited — jaw forward, leaning in. Theo watches from the couch, arm held carefully still, doing a bad job of pretending it doesn't hurt.
A face fills the screen two seconds later.
Her pupils are blown. She hasn't slept. Good.
She's silent for a moment, eyes searching the dark room around me, trying to find an edge, something to identify. She won't find one.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are," I say. The voice distorter strips everything warm from the words.
"I'm right here," she says, leaning in. "And I'm not playing—"
I cut her off. She thinks accepting the call gives her footing. That's always the first mistake.
"Answering the call already started the clock, princess Kalkaska. Now you're going to do exactly as I say—"
"Fuck you."
The call ends.
I stare at the blank screen.
She hung up in anger. Not fear.
That's interesting.
Silas breaks into a laugh, slapping my shoulder. "That went beautifully."
"She'll reach out," I say, closing the laptop. I pull the mask off and set it aside without rushing. "Give her time."
"How much time?"
"Not much." I stand and stretch. "Most people can't tolerate silence for more than a few hours before they do something impulsive."
Silas is already on the burner phone. I watch him tapping away.
"What are you sending her?" I ask.
"She texted first, actually." He holds up the screen.
Theo leans forward from the couch. "What did she say?"
I take the phone from Silas and look. I don't react. I walk it across the room and toss it toward Theo's right side — the bad one — deliberately, without hurry. Not out of cruelty. Just to see.
He catches it on reflex, and the flash of pain across his face lasts exactly half a second before his expression locks back down.
"Wear the sling," I say flatly. "We need you to be functional this weekend."
Theo looks at the phone, and something shifts at the corner of his mouth. It’s almost a smile.
"Do you think she'll go to the police?" Silas asks.
"Yes," I say, without hesitation. "Fear always seeks authority first. It's the most predictable response there is. Let her. It won't matter."
Silas nods slowly, turning it over. "So what's Plan B?"
I tap my chin, running the sequence. Her house is the mayor's residence — gated, staffed, and insulated. Getting to her physically isn't the play right now. That's not where she's vulnerable anyway.
"We don't go to her," I say. "We bring her to us."
Theo's eyes move to me. Silas waits.
"Give me a day."
The team gathers in the locker room, gear half-on, rain-soaked and restless. Coach Crick walks in, clapping once, twice, the way he does when he wants everyone sharp.
"As you've likely heard by now, Cody Ravenshaw was attacked near the edge of campus two days ago.
The police are treating this seriously. If anyone has information, come forward.
" He pauses. "Cody will not be returning in the immediate future, but his spot will be here when he's ready.
In the meantime, that position goes to Silas. "
He pats Silas on the back.
Silas's eyes sweep the room in quiet satisfaction. I give him nothing — just a single nod. He knows what it means.
A first-year raises his hand. "What happened to him exactly?"
"An unfortunate event," Coach says. "Details are limited."
"Is he alive?" Isaac asks.
"Yes."
"Can we visit?"
Coach straightens. "He's in a coma. No visitors at this time."
A few gasps. Someone mutters something I don't catch.
Coach wipes his mouth, recalibrates. "I'll give anyone a pass who needs the day. This is hard news. But the reality is we're playing UCLA again this weekend. After the hit Theo took—"
"I'm fine, Coach," Theo says. "I can play."
Coach studies his arm briefly. "Broken?"
"No."
A beat. "All right. We're winning this one. For Cody?" He scans the room.
A few murmurs.
"I can't hear you."
"For Cody!" the room echoes.
I watch the faces around me. Genuine grief on some of them. Obligation on others. I don't judge either. People perform loyalty because it's required, and sometimes they even mean it. The ones who mean it are the easiest to predict.
Cody never saw any of this coming. That's what happens when you mistake admiration for loyalty. He looked at this locker room and saw brothers. He should have been counting exits.
Coach turns and walks out.
I stand, clapping once to cut through the noise. "You heard him. Whatever happens outside this rink stays outside it. We're not pussies. He's not dead. We work." I look around. "Gear up."
The team responds. That's the thing about momentum — you have to point it in the right direction.
On the ice, Silas runs the center position like it was always his. Because it was, Cody got that spot through proximity to power, not because he earned it over Silas. Talent should outweigh access. That's the only meritocracy I believe in.
I skate up behind Theo, close enough to be heard under the noise of practice. "Take it easy today. We need you sharp this weekend, not broken."
He hits me with his stick.
I skate off laughing.
The thing about Theo is he'll push that arm past fracture before he admits it's a problem. In another context, I'd call that a liability. In ours, it's useful.
After practice, we dress down. Silas moves differently now — head an inch higher, unhurried. He's waited a long time for this and earned the right to carry it.
"How does it feel?" I ask.
"Like it should have been like this all along."
"Yeah." I close my locker. "Now keep it."
He asks what I'm doing after. I tell him my father has a list, and I'm apparently on call. He grimaces in sympathy. His relationship with his own father is distant enough to qualify as comfortable.
I step out into the rain, jog to my car, and reach into the center console for the burner.
I gave her three hours before she'd crack.
It's been two and a half.
I'm going to the police.
Predictable. I knew she'd go to the authority’s first — it's what people do when they want to feel like they've done something without committing to action. Reporting isn't fighting. It's outsourcing.
I set the phone down and stare through the rain-streaked windshield.
If Cody wakes up, he wakes up to a team already moving on without him, a program quietly shifting beneath his feet, and a girlfriend who's been touched by something she doesn't have the language for yet.
Reputation is leverage. Leverage is control.
We lose to UCLA on purpose this weekend, and the story writes itself — a team rattled by tragedy, understandable, sympathetic, completely plausible.
Coach Crick can thank himself for handing us the narrative.
I pocket the burner and start the engine.
She'll go to the police, and they'll find nothing.
And then she'll have nowhere left to go except exactly where we want her.