Hitting the knob, it slides off from the dampness of my limbs. I reach again, this time latching on. Eager to put as much distance between that revelation and myself as humanly possible.
Flinging it open, I round the hall, only to be met head-on with my doom. Fate really is a coldhearted bitch.
Our eyes connect.
My temple pulses, pounding into my skull before it goes numb. Same as everything else inside my body now is.
“We had a deal, lil sis.”
fifty-four
Rory
Haveyoueverknownwhat it feels like to be paralyzed in your own fear? Weaponized to the one thing that reminds your body you are still alive.
Only this type of cage isn’t wrapped in bars or cement, it’s contained entirely by our consciousness. Instead of it waking me up, I feel like I’m shutting down.
I’m alert, but I can’t move, frozen to my spot.
Barricaded, I stand against a wall of male hellhound flesh. Their dismembered faces stare me down. A criminal stuck to her cell, that’s what I am.
That’s how they watch me.
“We had a deal,” Finn repeats gravelly like the words didn’t already hurt bad enough the first time.
I don’t try and defend myself because he’s right. We had made a deal. A contract forged with words instead of paper. Finn would let me run alone if I came to every home game.
Both of us holding up our parts until now, breaking my half.
“Why weren’t you at the game?”
I can feel my lashes as they start to stutter, ticcing. That’s how aware I am of everything going on around me right now. Any slight gesture I feel because I can hardly feel anything at all.
“I—”
“It’s my fault, son,” Abram says. “She was in my office with me, and we lost track of time.”
Finn’s eye pulsates, shifting his gaze from me to Abram. Leveling him with a stare of the same intensity. The same magnitude.
All three of the guys are here. None of them have spoken up yet, letting Finn have the floor. Cole and Eli don’t say anything but that doesn’t mean I can’t read them.
An equal balance of anger to relief radiates off them. All of them, Finn included. They’re upset for some reason, but their shoulders have also hunched. Relaxing a hair from the stiff, straight peaks of before.
I don’t focus on that though, I can’t. More concerned about what Abram has done for me just now. Why did he defend me?
He can’t know that I know what is on his desk. I’d been the last one in the room.
“We had a deal,” Finn says it for a third time like that’s the only sentence he can seem to string together in his temper.
“Rory would have made it if I hadn’t held her back.”
Something scratches at the back of my throat. There Abram goes again, defending me. More weight to his tone now.
Finn’s gaze comes back to me. His anger overshadows his compassion. I swore I saw something else swimming there. Deeper, more like fear, but it gets shadowed too.
“We lost.” His voice low but patronizing.
If I could move, I imagine my hand would be flying to my mouth. Their perfect season gone. They’d worked so hard.