Page 22 of Shattered Ice
Zoë drops into a lawn chair. “The look on Calder’s face when you stood up to Hale?Worththe price of admission.”
Genny stands, leaning against the rail, assessing me. “You handled it well.”
Talia nods in agreement. “They test everyone,” she says, her voice quiet but firm. “Especially people they see as a threat. You didn’t flinch.”
I let out a short, bitter laugh. “It didn’t feel like a win.”
“Of course it didn’t,” Genny says softly. “They don’t let outsiders feel like they’ve won. That’s the point. Adrian had to dismiss you like that. You challenged him on his turf. To acknowledge you would be to give you power.”
Zoë leans forward, eyes gleaming. “Who cares? You rattled them. And Hale? He only gets that icy when someone actually gets under his skin. Congratulations, scholar—you’re in his head.”
I shake my head, rubbing my arms against the wind. “I don’t want to be in his head.”
“Too late,” Zoë singsongs.
Genny’s tone softens. “Don’t let him set the terms, Clara. That’s what they want. To make you feel small.”
I grip the railing, the wood biting splinters deep into my palm. “Let him try to shrink me—I’d burn before I bent.”
“Exactly,” Zoë says, raising her cup.
Inside, Adrian Hale pretends I don’t exist. Out here, I know better. He saw me. He won’t forget it.
Chapter 13
Adrian
ElmHouseemptiesoutof my ears in waves—the bass first, then the scraped laughter, then the wet slap of shoes on sticky floors. I don’t go home. I stalk the night, jaw locked, fists jammed in my pockets. Cold air knifes through my hoodie, ripping what little heat remains from my skin until I’m raw. Good. I need to feel something sharpened, not just the bruises under my gear. The path around the quad glows in slices under the lampposts, everything between swallowed in October shadow. It fits my mood. Bare branches shiver as the dark closes in. The campus feels like prey, crouched under the weight of its own silence.
I replay the party because I’m a fucking idiot. Her voice, clean and lethal. The way the room’s temperature dipped when Ibaited her. The way she didn’t blink when I made the whole pack laugh with her name in my mouth. I did what I was supposed to do. I set the tone. I reminded the room—and myself—that she isn’t mine, isn’t close, is nothing but an obstacle.You keep a boundary or you bleed.Simple as that. The problem is, for the first time, the boundary feels like it’s on the wrong side of the line. I’m the one who feels caged in, and she’s the one on the outside, looking unimpressed.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, the screen lighting up with the team thread. Digital jackals, circling the scraps.
Calder: babysitter’s got fangs
Gio: ice queen won’t drink w/ us
Rylan: tell her to bring flashcards to elm lol
I don’t answer. Not because it doesn’t bite—I’m used to being the target, but this is different. This is about her. A possessive, ugly coil tightens in my gut at the sight of her name on their screens, in their mouths. They see a joke, a conquest, a temporary diversion. They don’t see the steel in her spine or the intelligence in her eyes. I scroll, thumb hovering. One more message about her and I’ll gut the thread. The urge to delete the whole chat claws at me, to kill their laughter before it festers. I won’t feed hyenas sniffing around something worth chasing. I won’t give them her. She’s not a punchline. Not forthem. If Calder says her name again, I’ll take a tooth for it.
I cut down to the rink instead of the dorm, adrenaline burning, my jaw aching with the urge to hit something that hits back. The arena’s locked, but the side door never sits right in winter. A little pressure on the rusted bar and it grudgingly gives with a groan of metal like bones grinding. Inside, the air is dampand metallic, the kind that settles in your chest and won’t leave. The lights are off except for the emergency strip, turning the ice into a slab of faint, ghostly silver. Empty boards. Empty stands.Perfect.
It’s different in here without people. My footsteps echo, hollow and thin, up into the rafters. Pipes groan somewhere in the walls. The place smells of coolant, wet wood, and old sweat that no bleach ever completely kills. The boards creak like bones settling in the dark. The rink is a cathedral for predators, with pews of empty seats and ghosts whispering louder than hymns.
I lace up by phone light, the leather stiff with salt, fingers numb and uncaring. Salt stings the old splits in my skin. I step out and the first glide bites—blade to crystal, a clean hiss that cuts straight through the noise in my head. I skate lines until my quads shake. Sprint the length. Stop so hard ice dust sprays my shins. Again. Again. The physical burn is a welcome distraction, a way to translate the chaotic energy in my head into something I can control. I push until my muscles scream, trying to outpace the memory of her, but she’s faster. Every stop on the ice, I hear her voice, steady and unbroken.
The echo of my own breathing ricochets off concrete and steel, coming back like some other animal’s. Every stride scrapes my thoughts down to bone. Every stop rattles the glass like punishment. I skate until a memory surfaces, sharp and unwelcome: ten years old, a championship game, a missed shot in overtime. My father was silent the whole drive home, the chill in his gaze a punishment worse than any yelling. That’s what this feels like. The prelude to a judgment that never comes, only the silent, endless expectation to be more than human. That silence taught me everything—that failure isn’t an outcome; it’s a character flaw. That love and approval are conditional, tied directly to performance. It’s the lesson that lives in my bones,the one that drives me to skate in a dark, empty rink at two in the morning.
Coach says discipline is a habit. My father says optics are everything. Neither says a word about the part where you turn yourself into a machine so the human stops leaking out where people can see it.
I don’t think about her.That’s the lie I repeat with every slash of my skate.Don’t think about the girl who didn’t flinch. Don’t think about her mouth. Her voice.Don’t think about the way the room felt when she refused to be intimidated. She’s nothing. She’s not theirs to mock. She’s mine to break.
I think about midterms. The compliance office. Addison’s icy silence. Calder’s mouth and how much fun it would be to turn his teeth into a lesson. My name on the back of a jersey and how it weighs more than the man wearing it.
I skate until the idea of sleep sounds like surrender. Then I keep going. Surrender isn’t an option.
When I finally strip the skates off, the skin at my heel is raw, dotted with blood. I cover it with a fresh strip of tape by habit. Pain isn’t clarity; it’s just a way to fill the space where mistakes breed. The old superstitions: bleed before battle, never let it show.
