25. RYAN
RYAN
I’ve lost track of the number of demerits I’ve earned for not doing up the top button on my shirt, but I swear it’s choking me. Every move I make is watched, every activity planned and closely monitored.
I’m suffocating.
They took my phone. I can’t even call Tate. I’ve thought about getting one of the guys to do it, but what if they decide to inspect their phones? I don’t want them in shit because of me, but also, it could get their phones confiscated, and if there’s an emergency, I need access to the outside.
I never imagined that this would be my breaking point, trapped at North Point. But I know why. It’s because it’s too familiar, too much like before when Father kept me in the house, never letting me leave, other than when he needed me to be somewhere repping the family.
I can’t fucking go back to that.
It’s an ugly fucking weakness, because if Tate rides through that wrought iron gate on his death horse, I might go with him, Griff or no Griff.
No, I know I will.
No breath. No oxygen. That’s what being trapped here is.
I’m in the tank again.
I gasp, clutching my chest, looking around.
I’m outside in the sluggish air. Sweat has become another layer of my skin.
I wish the dark clouds that have been threatening to open all afternoon would.
For once, not even Kane is in detention with me.
It’s just one of this season’s rookies and me.
I haven’t been the best team captain this year with all the shit that’s been going on.
I’m tempted to ask him how he’s doing, check in as I usually would.
But it’s better I don’t talk. The only thing getting me through is going over plays in my head as extra prep for conference finals.
It begins as a low thud-thud, thud-thud, and then it gets louder. Someone, decked in camo, runs toward us. “Ryan! Ryan!”
Scout. Torin’s younger brother. He’s not even using the proper form of address in front of an officer.
My heart pounds against my ribcage.
He bends over, sucking wind, unsteady. “Dad. Your dad. Griff,” he forces out.
“What’s going on here, Cadet S. Ackerman?” Officer Carter says, walking over from where he was supervising.
“Just go, Ryan. Dean’s office.”
I drop my shovel.
“Don’t you dare, Cadet Savage. You haven’t been dismissed.”
Huh, I’ve never actually run away from an officer giving an order. Kane has a few times. This is my first.
Feels good.
Caked with mud and sweat, I make it to the dean’s office as my father, Griff, and Kline exit.
Kline?
Did he escape? No, he couldn’t have. The only way he was getting out of Tate’s dungeon was if Tate let him out. Why the fuck would he let Kline go?
He’s got a long scar across his face, crudely healed thanks to my husband.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
“Not the time, Ryan,” Father says, turning. Holy shit. His face. What the fuck happened to it? The swollen skin around his eye is bruised a nasty purple, nose a little crooked. He looks like he had a run-in with a grizzly bear or a hockey player.
“The fuck it isn’t. Griff.”
Griff shakes his head. But I’ve been doing what he wanted all fucking semester, even though it felt wrong, and I’m tired of it.
“I have help for us, Griff. You don’t have to go with them. Come with me.”
Two more emerge from the dean’s office. Dean Soloyov, who’s just behind … what the fuck? I look between Griff and the other guy. I’m seeing fucking double. The other guy is a much thinner, paler version, but otherwise, a replica of Griff.
“Ryan, meet your other half-brother—Cooper,” Kline says, voice raspy. May his vocal cords never recover from whatever Tate did to him.
Wait, Cooper? As in Cooper Kline, the guy Gideon is high-key stalking?
I’m gonna pass out.
I look into Griff’s green eyes. They’re filled with some angsty hybrid of worry, regret, and shame. But not surprise.
“Did you know?”
He nods.
“Since when?”
Griff points to his head. His military fade. A faint beat of warmth in my chest, because I can still make out what he means by the clues he gives.
“Block training.”
He nods again.
“I’m … s-sorry,” he rasps with a stutter.
My brain quickly does math I’d rather not do. Griff—and I guess Cooper—are an image of Mom. It’s the red hair, green eyes, and they both have her nose and high cheekbones. If Cooper really is Kline’s son and Griff and Cooper are twins, then Kline is Griff’s biological father.
The idea roots me to the floor, my brain unable to get words to my tongue. This can’t be fucking real.
Father makes an annoyed sound. “We don’t have time for this. Ryan, you and I will be speaking after conference finals—you’ll be returning to Phoenix next season, and we have some things to arrange.”
What?
“Griffon is going home with his father for the weekend,” he continues.
I call bullshit. If Griff leaves this campus, he’s not coming back. The look on Cooper’s face confirms that for me, his green eyes cast down, head bowed, trying to be seen but not heard. Nothing like the spitfire with black-cat energy Gideon described.
“Back to Phoenix…?” The thing I’d been working toward before I embarked on a new journey with Tate. All I’ve ever really wanted for myself. I would have even remained Father’s prisoner if I were happily playing hockey. And yet, no sparks of joy explode in my chest.
What the fuck is going on here? Did Tate somehow coerce my dad into getting me back on the team?
Something tells me that’s not it. Something’s very fucking wrong. If I could get my heart to stop fucking beating in my ears, maybe I could think for a second.
“Gentlemen, maybe you want to use my office for the rest of your conversation?” the dean suggests. Guess we are causing a bit of a scene, but for once Father doesn’t seem concerned about that. He’s almost gloating.
“I want to speak with Griff alone,” I say, fully expecting a rejection, but Father nods in Kline’s direction. Kline nods back.
There’s a tingle, invisible baby spiders crawling over my skin. I don’t like seeing those two agree on things.
Once we’re inside, I close the door, which is the equivalent of shutting out the mind-bending chaos outside. It’s just us.
Silent tears drip off his face, his body language small. “I’m not even a Savage,” he whispers.
“I don’t give a fuck if we only share half our DNA—that’s all you really share with a parent anyway. A half-brother is a brother. You’re my brother, Griffon.”
“But you hate Kline. He’s horrible.”
Ah. It finally makes sense why he’s been so cold and distant all term. It wasn’t just the rules that kept us apart. He really thought I’d reject him for being a Kline by blood.
“Kline is fucking horrible, but I’d never hate you, bro. Never. I married Tate for you,” I tell him.
He shakes his head. “Don’t tell me that,” he whispers.
“But I did, and I’d do it again.”
“You don’t love him?” His brows squeeze together, making his forehead wrinkle.
“I …” I sigh. I really don’t want to say this out loud, because then it will be real, and if I make it real, it’ll hurt so much worse if I get my heart broken.
Tate can’t love me. He said he cared about me and that’s enough.
It has to be. “I’m so fucking in love with him.
It’s pathetic, actually. But he’s kind of a psychopath and can’t love me back. So … yeah.”
He frowns. “That sounds awful.”
I shake my head. “Somehow, it’s not.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” he says, softly. His voice has been quiet or raspy this whole time. Is that how he speaks now? I don’t care how he speaks as long as he’s comfortable doing so. “So, husband, eh?”
I smile, imagining Tate’s handsome face. God, I miss him. “Yeah, and we’re gonna get us out of this situation. Don’t go with Kline. If you do, I don’t know if I can get you back.”
I don’t mean physically. Tate would burn down the earth to get me what I want, I know that now, but would I get this Griff back?
I don’t know what he’d be after whatever Kline has planned.
He’s been through things this semester that would’ve broken me.
How much more can he take before he’s beyond anyone’s reach?
He closes his eyes and opens them again. “This is something I have to do.”
What the fuck? Is he choosing this? No. Can’t be. Someone’s manipulating him. Or they plain lied. How fucking frustrating. When will he see these people for who they really are? He takes it on, as if the way they treat him is his fault. It ultimately leads to him walking into their traps willingly.
I shake my head. “No. I won’t let them do this to you, Griff.”
“You don’t get to dictate my life either, Ryan,” he says, anger fusing with his weak voice, hands balling into fists.
“Hey, I … I thought we were a team.” My voice wavers.
I get a weird-ass replay in my mind at light speed, of everything from us as kids all the way through to now.
My stomach dips, a plunge like a roller coaster drop.
Did I imagine it all? Was it my perception of reality?
Was Griff just there while I dragged him along?
Maybe we weren’t as close as I thought we were.
I always clocked that he didn’t feel like he belonged, which I blamed our father—my father?—for, so I did everything to make him feel included. To show him he was loved. I thought it bonded us, that he knew I did it all because we’re brothers and best friends.
“I wish we were a team, Ryan. But how can that be when you do everything for me? I’m useless.”
“You’re not useless, Griff. You’re everything.” What do I say to make him see? Time has run out. He’s slipping away. My brain scrambles.
“I have to go, Ryan. Go be happy with Tate and forget about me.”
“How can you fucking say that?” My voice breaks. I claw at my heart, unsure if I want to stop it from being ripped out, or if I should rip it out myself.
“Do you know why I t-t-tried to kill myself?” he whispers.
Everything’s hollow, like I’m in an echo chamber. His voice sounds more like a ghost haunting me than my favorite person who’s finally right in front of me.
“Because Father made you come to North Point.”
Don’t worry about me anymore …
Those words from his note.
They’re there, engraved on my damn ribcage with how close I’ve kept them to my insides. I thought he meant in connection to everything Father did to alienate him; he didn’t want to be around to aggravate him, causing me to worry.
If Father was out of the picture, so were all Griff’s problems.
Griff shakes his head. “Because I hate what I do to you. I hate that I’m your leech.”
“What? No. Griff, that’s not true.” He’s blurry now as the tears flood my eyes. My skin’s cold, tightening as the mud dries. “I love you. You’re my brother.”
“Half-brother.”
Something in my chest snaps. More hot tears. The room swims with the humidity of the day, seemingly getting hotter by the second.
“Don’t do this, Griff. Don’t fucking let them win.” How long does it take a heart to break? I think mine’s still breaking. Pain. So much pain to an organ that was never touched.
The door swings open. It’s fucking Kline. “C’mon, son. It’s time to go.” When he speaks, I catch that he’s missing a tooth.
It dawns on me now that Kline hasn’t said much during this whole ordeal, which is unlike him. Something’s very fucking off—besides the obvious. Am I in a nightmare? If I am, I need to wake the fuck up.
“No. You’re not taking him. I won’t let you have him.”
My father and the dean block the door. And I guess they decided they might need backup after my conversation with Griff, because Major Carter and Major Jarvis are there.
Where’s my damn backup? Shouldn’t Gideon be here to save his black cat? And where’s Beckett? He was so worried about Griff the night Tate and I got married, but he’s not here for this.
Speaking of, where the fuck is my husband?
I can’t wait around for any of them. I have to get out of here. If, by some miracle, I take them all out, would Griff come with me? Not sure, but I am sure he won’t impede me. Before I can attack the one closest—the dean—I hear the familiar click-click of a firearm.
“Hands up,” Major Jarvis says, firearm pointed at me.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’d shoot me?”
“If you attack the dean, I’ll make sure your hockey career is over.”
I slowly raise my hands. “Okay. Let’s just everyone chill.”
“On your knees.”
In front of everyone, I sink down, hands in the air. It’s humiliating. Griff watches, not saying a thing, and maybe that’s what I’ll remember later, maybe that’ll make me come to my senses. Griff doesn’t want to be my brother anymore.
Big maybe on that, though.
Carter and Jarvis descend with handcuffs. They’re rough, yanking my arms, pushing at the wrist cuff to secure the cool metal. “Up,” Major Carter says.
“Looks like we need to tighten the reins again, son. Don’t worry, I won’t fail you this time. Take him to his room.”
My insides scream, but on the outside, I fake calm. I turn my head for a last glance at my brother. He holds himself rigid enough to look like he’s still, but the faint shaking in his jaw betrays him. The tears won’t stop no matter how much he wipes at them.
He doesn’t want this. He can’t want this.