Chapter 2
Adrian
The locker room detonates the moment the door swings open.
Not just noise—ritual. A thunder of sticks slams the floor.
Helmets hit lockers with the force of a challenge.
Gear is dropped, pads stripped, everything discarded like fallen armor.
Music explodes from the speakers—Cole’s choice, some throbbing bass meant to drown out anything soft or real.
The sound bounces off tile and wood, shaking the bones of the building, a war drum for the monster they’re all trying to worship or outrun.
But I’m already beneath it, not escaping, just slipping under where nothing can touch me.
The noise is both shield and distraction, a chaos I can walk through untouched.
I move through the storm of grins and shouts and testosterone-fueled posturing, feeling none of it.
This isn’t brotherhood; it’s performance.
Every laugh is a dare, every slap on the back a test. They’re all convincing themselves they’re invincible, that the world can’t get to them as long as they snarl louder and hit harder.
Calder’s already stripped down, a towel tossed over his shoulders like a prizefighter, flexing in the mirror with the lazy arrogance of someone born to be admired. He lives for this reflection, for this adoration. He’d fuck his own image if he thought it would moan his name.
“That goalie’s gonna have PTSD,” Calder crows, raking a hand through sweat-damp hair. “Should send him a sympathy bouquet.”
“Should send him flowers for his funeral,” I mutter, low enough that no one answers, sharp enough to sting if they hear.
“I’ll hand-deliver it,” Cole Maddox yelps, dropping onto the bench next to him, half in and half out of his pads. He’s grinning like a dog that’s never felt a boot, desperate for approval, starving for it. If that hunger were mine, I’d carve it out before it consumed me.
“Write him a poem, Cap. Roses are red, your crease is a mess—”
“Try again when you’ve got chest hair,” Dante Voss interrupts, his voice razor-sharp, all edge and no warmth. He leans back in his stall, long legs sprawled as he watches everyone with a predator’s patience. “Or when you stop screaming every time you get hit.”
“Wasn’t screaming,” Cole snaps, cheeks flushing. “Strategic noise-making.”
“Sure.” Dante’s smile is all teeth. “Scream that loud when the scouts are watching.”
Laughter slides through the room, low and dangerous.
Not friendly. Never that. It’s the sound of knives being sharpened, a constant search for weakness.
Everyone in here is prey if they slip. In the corner, Declan Reid unlaces his skates with surgical precision—slow, methodical, unbothered.
He doesn’t need to join the banter; his silence is heavier than their noise, pressing down harder than their laughter—a noose tightening for anyone foolish enough to step into it.
His eyes meet mine, a question sharp and unspoken. You good?
My answer is silence, but I hold his stare a second too long. Not really.
I break the connection, shedding my gear piece by piece until I’m free.
I push past the bodies, ignoring the hands that try to grab my shoulders, and disappear into the showers.
The spray is scalding, a punishment that feels close to cleansing.
I turn it hotter, welcoming the burn, letting the water flay the skin from my back.
Steam scalds my lungs—a punishment I can’t scrub away.
I stand there until the chaos fades to a dull, muffled roar, leaving only the sound of my own breathing and the loud, frantic beat of my heart. The one rhythm I can’t out-skate.
When I step out wrapped in a towel, the room is quieter.
Most of the team has cleared out, leaving behind the lingering scent of sweat and cologne and the damp chill of a room slowly emptying.
The music keeps humming, but without bodies, it’s hollow.
An empty church, an empty prayer. It’s in this hollowed peace that my phone buzzes against the bench.
I already know who it is. No one else would dare. Even before I see the screen, I can taste his disappointment, sour and metallic in the back of my throat. I reach for the phone, fingers still damp.
The caller ID is a curse: HALE.
I answer, jaw tight. “Yes?”
“The investors were in the box with me.” No greeting. No good game. His voice is ice—sharp, clear, inhuman. “They noted your hesitation on the defensive pivot in the second period. Sloppy.”
The silence that follows is suffocating, thick as blood. My own silence is my rebellion, the only line he can’t cross. It hums like a blade pressed to my throat.
“They were otherwise pleased,” he adds, as if we’re discussing quarterly returns and not the bone and blood I left on the ice. “The investment looks sound. Don’t get complacent. Call me tomorrow with your updated academic report.”
A familiar, hot dread coils in my gut, different from the usual anger.
The thought of the black and white lies on a page, the neat columns that always feel like a trap, makes my hand tighten on the phone.
He hangs up without waiting for a response.
That’s how power works in my family—cold, transactional, absolute.
I stare at the black screen, my reflection faint.
A pale mask stretched over something ugly and empty.
The hollow in my gut deepens into a pit.
There’s no love in this legacy, only assessment.
The endless, silent proof that I’m nothing more than his best investment.
I shove the phone away, the brand of his gaze still cold and calculating on my skin.
I pull on a long sleeve and joggers, the fabric sticking to me like second-rate armor. Addison. Grades. Legacy. The three-headed beast hunts me every night.
“Hale.”
The voice slices what’s left of the silence like a blade. Coach Addison stands in the doorway to his office, one hand braced against the frame, the other clutching a folder. He doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t need to.
“Office.”
The walk from my stall is a gauntlet. The corridor is colder, the air biting with disinfectant and the metallic tang of anticipation.
And she’s there—Maya Maddox, Cole’s sister.
A reporter’s notebook in hand, eyes sharp as glass.
Same hunger in her blood, but she hides it better. She pushes off the wall as I approach.
“Hale, a moment for the Chronicle?” she says, all cool professionalism. “Great opening game. Care to comment on the final goal?”
I don’t break stride. One sharp look, and I keep walking. She’s just noise, another vulture circling the kill.
She presses in. “What about the fight? Looked personal.”
I reach Addison’s door and slam it behind me, shutting her out. I won’t bleed for an audience. By morning, the Chronicle will paint me as uncoachable. Let them. Fear headlines faster than they cheer.
Addison’s office smells of burnt coffee and pressure, the sour stench of rot masked in paper and ink. He drops the manila folder on his desk, his movements as precise as autopsy cuts. He’s dangerous not because he’ll yell, but because he’ll carve you up and call it mercy.
“Academic compliance report.”
My eyes snag on the dense block of text through the plastic.
I hate the look of it already. Words on a page are a different kind of cage, one I’ve never learned how to break out of.
The pages glare at me—black ink, neat columns of failure.
Addison doesn’t hand it over; he reads it himself, each word clipped and precise, like he’s tallying a body count.
“Statistics—two failed quizzes. History—three missing assignments. Biology—half your labs skipped.”
Each line lands like a strike, brutal in its clarity. A muscle jumps in my jaw, a tell I can’t suppress. On the ice, I’m a machine. Off it, I’m a liability. This is what it feels like when the machine stalls.
“If these don’t move before midterms,” Addison says, his voice even, merciless, “you’re suspended.”
Suspended. The word is poison, tasting of blood in my mouth. Instant death wrapped in syllables. In my head, my father’s voice cuts sharp: Hales don’t get benched.
Addison keeps going. “Compliance flagged you this morning. The NCAA won’t care how many goals you score if your grades kill eligibility.”
Something breaks beneath my skin—ice under too much weight.
“I’ll fix it,” I say, low and tight.
“You’ll get help to fix it,” he says, no room for debate. “Mandatory tutoring sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays. The rest of the team has required study hall on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you’ll be there, too. My daughter, Talia, will be proctoring.”
The word lands like a blow. Tutor. Babysitter. Leash. A hot flush creeps up my neck. Tutors are for kids clawing their way up, desperate to survive. Not for captains. Not for Hales.
Addison slides a paper across the desk. “Library. Five p.m. Mondays. The Academic Center has already assigned someone.” He wants me to feel it, to choke on the shame of being handled.
“You’re the captain. Perception matters.
You don’t stumble in public. Donors can buy new scoreboards, not eligibility. ”
The slap is clean, brutal. My teeth ache from being clenched. “Who is it?”
“Scholarship pool. Top tier. Library staff. No-nonsense. You’ll get the notification tonight.”
Scholarship. The word hits like a puck to the ribs. The ghosts who walk the halls with their heads bowed, terrified of taking up space they haven’t paid for in blood or money. Weak. The idea of one of them seeing me like this—a failure to be pitied—is a humiliation that tastes like bile.
“I’ll be there,” I say. The words come out low, a threat, not a promise.
“Good.” The folder snaps closed. I’m dismissed.
When I return to the locker room, it’s a tomb.
No music, no noise. Just the slow drip of melting ice and the hum of pipes.
I drop onto the bench. Addison’s words cling to me.
Tutor. Scholarship. Talia. Each one is a new chain.
I reach for my phone, my thumb swiping the glass with a violence that feels like control.
Buzz.
Academic Center Notification: Tutoring Appointment Scheduled. Monday, 5:00 PM. Room A312. Further sessions to be scheduled for Wednesdays.
The first shackle snaps shut.
Buzz.
Study Hall Confirmation: Tues/Thurs, 7–9 PM. Proctored by Talia Addison. Attendance Required.
They built the walls of my cage. My time is no longer my own.
Buzz.
Tutor Assigned: Clara Harrington.
The final insult. My handler.
I read the name twice. Foreign. An intrusion.
A crack in the foundation I’ve spent my life pouring concrete over.
Clara Harrington. The name cuts through me like broken glass.
She doesn’t belong here, an outsider who will see me at my weakest. She’ll sit across from me with secondhand books and wounded eyes and just…
know. Know that I’m not untouchable. That Hale bleeds.
I will not allow it. I will not be a project for a ghost in a marble hall.
Something dark coils in my gut, hot and violent.
I don’t enjoy being vulnerable. I don’t like being seen.
And I sure as hell don’t like being studied by someone I could break with my bare hands.
She’s an infection—something foreign lodged under my skin.
If I can’t cut her out, I’ll grind her down until she learns the cost of trespassing.
She’s stepping into my cage without an invitation; I’ll decide if she walks back out.
I lock my phone and hurl it into my duffel bag. The weight of the name doesn’t leave. It lingers like a threat.
Clara Harrington.
The first variable I can’t control. She’s not just an obstacle. She’s a foreign body in my system. One I must neutralize. I will learn her weaknesses, her tells, and the scent of her fears. I will collect every detail until I know how to unmake her, piece by piece.