Page 41 of Shattered Ice
Her voice is a scalpel—calm, sterile, sharp enough to cut without leaving a trace of blood. But her hair falls forward as she leans in again, and it changes everything. It’s wrong for her. Soft. Loose. A sign of vulnerability.
I drag my eyes back to the paper. “What if I don’t feel like performing for you tonight?”
“You think this is a performance?” she says, her pencil tapping once against the desk. “It’s math. You can’t fake it.”
I let the silence stretch, enjoying the way the tension builds. Then I deliberately write the wrong answer. Not a subtle error. A blatant one. Just to see what she’ll do.
Her pen hits the desk. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious,” I say, leaning in, my voice dropping low. “You’re a lot prettier when you’re pissed off, Harrington.”
That freezes her. Just for a second. I see the flicker in her eyes, the slight parting of her lips before the shields go back up. Then her chin lifts, sharp as ever. “And you’re a lot dumber when you flirt through failure.”
Thunder cracks outside, a loud, violent sound that rattles the windowpanes. She doesn’t flinch. Neither do I.
Her voice clipped, she keeps talking, eyes fixed on the page. As she pulls the notebook closer, her thigh brushes mine under the table. Light, lingering pressure. She doesn’t pull away. I don't either. If anything, I return the slightest pressure, a deliberate, silent challenge. My pulse quickens. I recognize the consent hidden in her defiance. I shouldn’t notice the warmth seeping through my jeans, or the space between her lips when she talks, or the way her fingers twitch when she’s suppressing a retort. But I do.
And then the lights flicker. Not once. Twice. A stutter of pale, buzzing light. We both look up. They cut out completely.
The darkness is absolute, instantaneous. The hum of the fluorescents dies, leaving a ringing silence that is immediately filled by the roar of the storm. The void is loud enough to bruise. A gasp escapes her—sharp, involuntary, a sound of pure, unadulterated fear.
And then, without thinking, she leans toward me.
It's a subtle movement, but it's enough. Her shoulder brushes mine, her cold fingers blindly seeking my wrist. She's real, solid, right here. My other hand instinctively cages the table's edge near hers, a silent assertion of control without making contact. In this suffocating darkness, the formidable Clara Harrington—the girl with the fortress of notes and biting wit—has found her anchor in me. A raw, possessive triumph surges through me, hot and dark, a silent roar in my blood.Fuck yes. She came to me.
She doesn’t move away.
The power returns with a low electrical sigh, the fluorescents buzzing back to life with a harsh, clinical glare. She freezes, caught, her shoulder still pressed to mine, her hand hovering just above my wrist. She looks like she’s only now realizing how close she is, how completely she just gave herself away. Her breath is a little too fast. She pulls away with practiced grace, but it’s too late. I saw it. I felt it. She tucks her hair behind her ear as if the simple gesture can erase the last five seconds.
A cough cuts from another table. A reminder we aren’t alone. Someone saw the outline of her leaning into me in the dark.Good. Let them talk.
I don’t call her on it. That would be too easy. Better to let her know that I know, and that I’m choosing to hold this information for later.
“You okay?” I ask, my voice low. A probe, not a question of concern.
She doesn’t look at me, just stares at her perfectly aligned notes. “It’s just the dark. I don’t like it.”
Her voice is steady, but not casual. And just like that, I have it. A new piece of her. A real one. She’s afraid of the dark. The admission is a key placed directly in my hand. My first thought is leverage—a weakness to pocket and use later. But the idea dissipates as fast as it forms. No, it's more than a weakness now; it's a crucial piece of the puzzle, a clue to who she is beneath the armor. My objective sharpens. It's no longer enough to simply break her.Breaking her isn’t enough; I want the ruins to spell my name.I want to be the sole witness when she shatters, to understand the origins of both her fear and her strength. A dangerous, consuming curiosity now drives me.
She straightens her papers like they’ve misbehaved. “Let’s go back to the history practice test. To the question you got wrong.” She points to a question about historical dates. “You know the events, but you keep mixing up the years. It’s like you see thewhole play develop on the ice, but when you have to write down the final score, the numbers get jumbled.”
I stiffen, a cold knot tightening in my gut.She’s too close. Sees too much.“Just tell me the answer.”
“No,” she says, her gaze surprisingly steady. “That’s not the problem. You’re trying to outrun the words instead of reading them. We’re going to slow down. I’m going to teach you how to actually see it.”
My jaw tightens. I hate this. Hate the way she talks to me like I’m some fucking problem to be solved.
She continues, either not noticing or not caring. “For the dates, link them to something you already know. Jersey numbers. World War I ends in 1918. Who wears number eighteen for the Bruins?”
The answer is instant. “Zacha.” The name tastes like ash.
I want to tell her to shove it, to take her pop psychology and her stupid hockey metaphors and get out of my head. But I don’t. Because the infuriating thing is, she’s not wrong. It’s the dumbest fucking thing I’ve ever heard, and it’s also the first thing that’s made a lick of sense all night. My brain is a mess of crossed signals and false starts, and somehow, this girl is seeing right through it. It makes me want to break something.
“I’m still sitting right here,” I murmur, deflecting.
She glares, quick and scathing. “Don’t mistake your proximity for contribution.”
My lip quirks. “You missed me.”
