Page 19 of Shattered Ice
Her gaze flicks—just once—to my bruised knuckles. It lingers for half a second, long enough to register but not to acknowledge. Nothing escapes her notice. She chooses her battles. I take the folder, the cardboard edge biting into my palm. Her scent clings faintly to the paper. She makes sure our fingers don’t touch.
“You’ll need them if you plan on surviving Monday,” she adds. Not kindness. Not concern. Precision. Distance. A challenge.
“I knocked,” she says, already stepping back. “No one answered. I assumed it wasn’t locked.”
I see right through her. She knew exactly what she was doing, walking straight into the lion’s den to prove she wouldn’t flinch. And damn her, she pulled it off perfectly.
“Clara—” I start, the name feeling raw in my mouth.
But she’s already retreating, turning her back on the entire team without hesitation. “Monday. Five.”
The door clicks shut behind her. She invaded my cage and left with the silence chained at her heel. The scent of her—that clean, sharp, winter-air smell—lingers for a moment before being swallowed by the steam. The locker room exhales, but the air still tastes of blood. Someone cranks the music again, but theswagger is gone from the beat. No one’s flexing in the mirror now; the usual posturing is gone, replaced by a tense, watchful quiet.
I sit on the bench, folder in hand, staring at the smudge where her thumb pressed the paper.
Across the room, Rylan’s voice breaks the quiet. “That her?”
I don’t answer.
Gio whistles low. “Didn’t think she’d look like that.”
Calder mutters, his voice edged with a new kind of respect. “Didn’t think she’d walk in here at all.”
My voice is quiet, final, deadly. A line drawn in ice. “She’s not yours to fucking laugh at. She’s mine to deal with. Anyone else bleeds for it.”
They go still. They understand. Off-limits. Untouchable to them.
As I shove my gear into my bag, my eyes meet Declan’s. He gives a single, slow nod—not of approval, but of grim understanding. An acknowledgment that a line has been crossed, that the game has changed. I shove the rest of my gear into my bag, the strap squealing under my hand. The folder slides in last, too careful.
I stalk out of the locker room, the heavy door swinging shut behind me. The hallway smells of disinfectant and wet concrete. And Maya is there, leaning against the far wall, a patient predator. She tries to corner Camden as he storms away from the coach’s office.
“Just one quote, Camden, is your captain losing his edge?” she calls out, her voice sharp.
Camden just snarls and shoves past her. Her eyes flick to me for a split second, searching, calculating. Another vulture circling. But I feel nothing. My mind is already elsewhere, dissecting a different problem, a different girl. One who didn’t ask for a quote but demanded answers.
She left with her spine straight and her head high. The guys think that means she won.
They’re wrong. She drew first blood.
And now the war is mine.
Chapter 12
Clara
Mydormdoorrattlesbefore I even get the chain off, the sound sharp and violent against the thin wood, like someone testing the strength of a cage.
“Clara Jean Harrington, open up,” Zoë singsongs, knuckles pounding against the frame.
I’m still replaying the locker room scene from Thursday—the steam, the suffocating silence, twenty pairs of eyes tracking me, the raw, possessive fury in Adrian’s voice. His gaze had sliced through the heat, leaving me exposed. Skinned. Branded. All without a single touch. The knock jolts me from the memory, an electric snap in my nerves.
I don’t move fast enough. Genny’s voice seeps through the gap, dry as salt. “She’s ignoring you. Again.”
“I’ll kick it in,” Zoë threatens, and I know she means it.
“You’ll break your heel,” Genny responds, completely unbothered.
I sigh and undo the chain, catching my reflection in the tarnished brass. For a second, I see the same haunted stare I brought back from that locker room—raw, unsettled, not quite mine. As if something he left behind is living in me now.
