Chapter 23 Theo
Beckett is still slow on the ice.
I notice it during the first drill — a simple breakout pattern we've run a thousand times, muscle memory that should flow without thought. But he hesitates at the blue line, just a fraction of a second, his eyes tracking the play instead of anticipating it.
That fraction costs him.
The puck deflects off his stick, and Silas has to adjust his route to compensate. It's minor. Most people wouldn't clock it.
But I'm not most people.
I watch him through the rest of practice, cataloging each micro-failure. His reaction time is off. His positioning is reactive instead of predictive. His focus is divided.
You don't get soft in the middle of a war.
Coach blows the whistle for a water break, and I skate to the bench, grabbing my bottle and watching Beckett across the ice. He's talking to Silas, but his body language is tight. Defensive.
He knows I'm watching.
Good.
I don't confront him because I don't need to. The warning I gave him in the locker room two days ago was clear enough. If he wants to ignore it, that's his choice.
But choices have consequences.
I drain my water and toss the bottle back onto the bench, skating back onto the ice for the next drill.
We run through power-play setups, penalty kills, and two-on-one rushes.
I execute each one with precision. Hockey is simple when you break it down.
Physics and geometry. Angles and velocity.
Read the play, exploit the weakness, capitalize on the opening.
People are the same way.
After practice, I drive back to my apartment in silence, no music, just the hum of the engine and my thoughts.
I park in my assigned spot and take the elevator to the eighth floor, unlock my door, and step into the controlled chaos of my space. Everything has a place. Everything serves a purpose.
I drop my keys on the entry table and walk to my desk, pulling open the bottom drawer.
The necklace sits exactly where I left it, coiled like a snake atop a stack of encrypted USB drives.
Pink Swarovski crystal. Delicate chain. The kind of sentimental bullshit that rich girls wear because it costs too much money not to.
I pick it up, letting it dangle from my fingers, the crystal catching the late afternoon light and throwing tiny rainbows across the wall.
I remember the night I took it. The way she slept so peacefully while I stood over her bed, the weight of the pliers in my pocket, the satisfaction of cutting through that delicate chain without waking her.
I remember her counting later, tied to that chair, her voice shaking with terror.
One, two, three, four…
She was supposed to break.
Instead, she bonded.
With Beckett.
The thought irritates me more than it should.
Not because I'm threatened. I'm not. Beckett is useful but replaceable. And Adela Kalkaska is just a pawn.
But she was mine to dismantle.
Beckett doesn't get to rebuild her.
That's not how this works.
I drive past campus on Tuesday afternoon, no particular destination in mind. Just circling, thinking, planning my next move.
That's when I see them.
Beckett and Adela, walking across the quad together. Not touching — he's smart enough not to make it that obvious. But close. The kind of proximity that speaks to familiarity.
She's laughing at something he said, her head tilted back, the afternoon sun catching in her dark hair.
I don't feel threatened.
I feel annoyed.
Because that's not the expression I left her with.
The last time I saw her face, she was devastated. Broken. Crying over videos of her boyfriend's betrayals while I watched from the shadows.
And now she's laughing.
Like, I didn’t just crumble her entire world. Like she's not drowning in grief and confusion and the kind of existential crisis that makes people question everything they thought they knew.
I watch them disappear into one of the academic buildings, then pull back into traffic.
This wasn't the plan.
She was supposed to spiral. Become desperate. Cling to anything that offered stability—including the investigation into what happened to Cody, which would eventually lead her exactly where I wanted her to look.
Instead, she's clinging to Beckett.
That's a problem.
Not an insurmountable one. But a problem nonetheless.
I visit my mom on Wednesday afternoon.
She's in her study when I arrive, tablet in her lap, glass of white wine on the side table. She looks up when I walk in and smiles — warm, genuine, the kind she reserves only for me.
"I wasn't expecting you," she says.
"Passing through." I drop onto the leather couch across from her.
She sets the tablet down and studies me the way she always does — quietly, thoroughly, like she's reading something just below the surface of my face.
My mother is brilliant in a way that doesn't announce itself.
She doesn't practice law like my father.
Doesn't hold office or wield power in obvious ways.
But she understands people in a way that has always made me careful around her.
“How was the game?”
"We lost to UCLA," I say, before she can ask.
"I saw." A pause. "How's your arm?"
"Fine."
She accepts that with the same expression she uses when she doesn't accept something. She picks up her wine, takes a small sip, and then sets it back down with the deliberate care of someone choosing their next words.
"I want to talk to you about the session you missed."
I keep my face neutral. "I had practice."
"You've missed practice for less." She doesn't say it with accusation. That's what makes her effective — she states things like they're already agreed upon. "Nessa said something during the session. Dr. Hartley flagged it for me afterward."
I wait.
She folds her hands in her lap. "She said she understands why people disappear."
The room is very quiet.
"She wasn't talking about running away," my mom continues, her voice measured, each word placed carefully. "Dr. Hartley asked her to explain, and she said — some people disappear because someone decided they should."
I look at the window.
"She was talking about Cody," my mom says.
"She's grieving," I say. "People say things."
My mom tilts her head slightly — the tell she has when she's deciding how much to show. "I'm not asking you as your mother right now."
"Then don't ask."
"I'm asking because your sister is getting thinner every week and she's saying things in therapy that sound less like grief and more like—" She stops and recalibrates. "She sounds like someone who knows something she's decided not to say out loud."
I turn back to look at her.
She meets my eyes and holds them. "And the only person Nessa has ever protected unconditionally is you."
The silence between us is its own conversation.
"I'll talk to her," I say.
My mom watches me for a moment longer than is comfortable. Then she picks up her tablet, signaling the end of it. "Be gentle with her, Theo. Whatever she's carrying, she didn't choose it."
I stand and leave before she can add anything else.
Nessa's door is closed.
I knock once. No answer, but I open it anyway.
She's on her bed, back against the headboard, knees pulled up, headphones on. The room is dim — curtains drawn against the afternoon. There's a particular stillness to her that I don't like. Too loose. Too unbothered.
I cross the room and pull the headphones off her head.
She startles violently, knocking her water bottle off the nightstand. "What the fuck, Theo!"
"Are you high?"
"Get out of my room."
"Nessa." I look at her eyes. Her pupils are slightly wide and slow in the way she's tracking me. "What did you take?"
"Nothing. Get out."
I pull the desk chair over and sit backwards in it, arms folded over the top rail. She stares at me with the particular exhausted fury of someone who doesn't have the energy for this but doesn't have a choice.
"Mom told me what you said in therapy."
Something flickers across her face. Fast. Gone. "Mom shouldn't have told you that."
"She's worried."
"She's always worried." Nessa pulls her knees tighter to her chest. "I was just talking. That's what therapy is."
"You said some people disappear because someone decided they should."
"It was hypothetical."
"Really?"
She looks away. The muscle in her jaw tightens. She's doing the thing she does when she's decided not to say something — making herself very still, very small, waiting for me to get bored and leave.
I don't leave.
"What do you know, Nessa?"
"Nothing."
"What did he tell you?"
Her eyes cut back to me, sharp and sudden. "Don't."
"I need to know what—"
"I said don't." Her voice cracks on it, just barely.
She pulls the sleeves of her hoodie down over her hands.
"You want to talk about what I know? Fine.
Let's talk about what I know." She tilts her head, something shifting in her expression — the stillness becoming something more.
"I know that Beck has been spending a lot of time with Cody's girlfriend. "
The air in the room changes.
"I saw them," she continues, watching my face now. "Outside the IMA. They looked pretty comfortable together for two people who had just met."
"That's not what we're talking about."
"Oh." She pulls one earbud out of her hoodie pocket and turns it between her fingers. "She's pretty, Theo. Really pretty. The kind of pretty that makes people do stupid things." A beat. "Or maybe Beck's just doing what you told him to."
"Nessa—"
"I'm tired." She puts the earbud in. "Close the door on your way out."
I stand. The chair scrapes back. I look at her for a moment — small in the big bed, deliberately making herself smaller, using the one piece of information she knew would redirect me.
She learned that from me.
I leave and pull the door shut behind me.
In the hallway, I stand still for a moment, working through it. Nessa knows more than she's said. She's been protecting something — or protecting me — and whatever Cody told her before everything went sideways is still sitting inside her like a splinter she won't let anyone near.
And Beckett.
Outside the IMA.
I pull out my phone and stare at his name for a long moment.
Then I put it back in my pocket and walk downstairs, because whatever Beckett is doing, I already told him not to get attached.
Whether he listened is a different problem.
One I'll deal with when I have to.
Thursday evening, I sit at my desk with my laptop open, pulling up the university's student portal.
I already have her schedule. Already know her patterns. Already understand the rhythms of her day.
Political Theory: Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 10 AM.
Comparative Government: Tuesday, Thursday at 2 PM.
She studies in the library most afternoons. Third floor, near the political science section, usually in one of the private study carrels by the window.
Predictable.
I pull up the library's catalog system and search for a specific book — one I know is relevant to her Comparative Government coursework. The Federalist Papers, original printing, kept in the rare books section because the university likes to pretend it has culture.
I check the location. Third floor. Political theory section. Two shelves from where she usually sits.
Perfect.
I close the laptop and lean back in my chair, a slow smile spreading across my face.
I stand, walk to my closet, and pull out a dark hoodie and jeans.
Beckett is getting too comfortable. That's the problem with giving someone a role that requires proximity — eventually, they forget it's a role.
He's supposed to be keeping her contained, keeping her close enough that she doesn't do anything unpredictable.
Instead, he's sitting in her dorm room at two in the morning like he belongs there.
He doesn't.
I pull the hoodie over my head.
She's stronger than I calculated. I'll admit that.
I expected her to fold after the laptop.
After the flowers. After the night, we zip-tied her to that chair and made her watch Cody fuck all those women.
Most people would have gone home by now, called their parents, and disappeared back into whatever comfortable life they came from.
She's still here.
Still pulling threads.
She just doesn't know yet which threads lead somewhere worth pulling — and which ones I need her to leave alone.
That's what Beckett doesn't understand. He thinks keeping her calm keeps her useful.
But calm isn't what I need from her.
I need her to be moving in the right direction.
For Nessa.
I grab my keys off the dresser and head for the door.