Page 26 of Shattered Ice
He hesitates. “No one,” he says, his voice flat.
“Okay,” I pivot. “What’s your number?”
He looks at me, a flicker of suspicion in his eyes. “Seventeen.”
I write it down. “Okay. The Civil Rights Act of 1866. Think of two linemates. Who wears 66?”
He answers instantly. “No one. But Rylan’s 6, Calder’s 16.”
“Close enough,” I say. “Anchor the numbers to something you can see. A jersey. A player.”
He resists on instinct, then does it, and it holds. I keep my observations to myself, filing away the patterns. I just keep teaching.
By the hour mark, the window has fogged in a little oval where the cold met the room’s heat. His hoodie has pushed up higher on his forearms; a vein stands out along his wrist from the grip he keeps punishing. The dent in the pencil where his teeth grazed it is new.
“We’re done,” I say at 6:12. “You’ll redo those three Stat problems at half pace tonight. Handwrite the History IDs from your summaries—no cribbing from the book. Biology Wednesday.”
He doesn’t move. For a second I think he’s going to say something about Elm, or about the way I name the things hehides, or about anything human. He doesn’t. He stands. The chair legs rasp out their complaint and then silence eats it.
At the door he stops, his hand on the handle. He doesn’t look back. His voice is low, almost casual, but sharpened to a threat. “Careful, Tutor. You don’t know what you’re playing with.”
The silence stretches, my pulse loud in my ears.
His laugh follows, quiet and empty, a ghost of a sound. “Enjoy thinking you’re in control. It never lasts.”
The door closes behind him with a soft click. The room exhales. I don’t. I remain seated, feeling something shift in the air like barometric pressure before a storm. The books lie scattered where he left them—evidence of a battle fought in pencil marks and eraser dust. My fingers trace the mangled corner of his packet, pressing it flat against the table. What I’ve witnessed isn’t just sloppy work. It’s something feral—every page a war he refuses to lose, every mark a fight against ghosts no one else can see.
I arrange the textbooks into their perfect grid, each spine aligned, forcing order back into a space he left jagged. My mind replays every clenched jaw, every shattered line of graphite, the way he turned numbers into combat.The page is still a mess. But there’s a crack in the armor now. Thin, dangerous, and enough to let me see inside.
I write one note at the top of my planner where only I’ll see it:Not attitude → method. Build workarounds.It feels like a key, but I don’t yet know what lock it opens.
When I leave, the hallway’s lights buzz like hornets. A pair of students passes, one muttering under their breath: “He actually showed?” The other smirks. “She’s got him leashed.” The words prickle down my spine like a warning flare.
I tuck my hands into my sleeves against the draft and try not to think about his voice when he said leverage like it tasted familiar.
As I push through the heavy oak doors of the library and out into the night, I nearly run into Talia. She’s heading in, a tote bag slung over her shoulder, her expression tired but determined. Our eyes meet for a brief, loaded second. She gives me a small, questioning look—How did it go?—and I give a single, weary nod back.It’s complicated.No words are needed. She offers a tight, sympathetic smile before disappearing inside. Another girl tasked with managing the chaos of the Titans.
Zoë texts before I hit the stairs:
well?? did u castrate him with knowledge
Genny:
Proof of concept?
I type:
He’ll pass. If he lets me do it my way.
I don’t send:And if I can keep from setting him on fire first.
I don’t send:And if figuring him out doesn’t get me into more trouble than failing him ever could.
I shove the phone in my pocket. Outside, the evening is glass-cold, the sky the washed-out blue that comes right before the dark settles hard. The campus glitters in the expensive way money does—clean paths, trimmed lawns, donors’ names in discreet brass. It all hums like a machine built to smooth down anything with an edge.
I yank my hood up against the cold and quicken my pace across campus. There are equations to solve, strategies to map. For both of us. Strategy first, fire later. Even if one of us refuses to acknowledge it.
Chapter 15
