Page 71 of Through the Flames
“Hey. We’ll figure it out, okay? You’re not alone in this.” I squeezed his shoulder, trying to paste on a reassuring smile.
“You didn’t cheat, Dom. You were lied to. Thatmatters. Let me think. I’ll find someone. There’s gotta be a way to clear this.”
And now he was looking at me like I knew what to do. Like his big sister could fix this.
My mouth felt dry, like I’d swallowed a whole bucket load of sawdust.
“It wasn’t just the coach. Some of the guys knew,” he admitted.
Leaning forward with his elbows braced on his knees, he rubbed his hands together as if he could scrub the guilt off. “I thought they were just being weird about it, but no. They wereinon it.”
His voice is softer now. “One of ‘em said we’re just the fall guys. That Coach has someone cleaning things up behind the scenes. They think he’s got people covering his ass.”
Fuck. My stomach tightened at the crestfallen expression on his face. I didn’t know who was protecting the coach, but maybe I knew someone who could dig under the floorboards.
“Okay. Okay. I’m gonna need you to calm down, and I’ll … see what I can do.” I rubbed my palm across my forehead.
“I didn’t want to drag you into this. I haven’t even told Sierra. If her name gets dragged into this in any way, I’d never forgive myself.” He squeezed his eyes shut, his head bowed. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore, Ella.”
I felt my chest tighten. I thought back to everything we’d navigated together before. The secrets we’d uncovered, the ways we’d shielded people we cared about from the fallout, even when it meant putting ourselves at risk.
It’s what we did: protecting one another.Always. No matter how messy or impossible things got, we carried each other through.
“I can’t promise anything, but … just let me try, okay?”
If someone was making things disappear, maybe it was time to fight fire with napalm.
And I just so happened to live with the most dangerous kind of arsonist.
Long after Dom left, my fingers were still hovering over my phone, like I hadn’t made the decision yet.
I hadn’t texted or called Hunter, but I’d been thinking out loud, and if anyone could hear thoughts that shouldn’t be broadcast, it was him.
I shuffled down the hallway to my bedroom, phone in hand and dragging my blanket behind me. In the dim light, the room felt smaller, with shadows pooling in the corners. Yet it felt more like my space than the rest of the house.
I collapsed onto the bed with my laptop propped on my knees and started scrolling through articles and forums on performance-enhancing drugs in football.
My heart raced, and my mind went into overdrive — a mixture of curiosity, worry and disbelief.
Outside the window, the winter light had long faded, and the house was quiet except for the soft hum of electronics.
A single thought echoed through my head.
If anyone can fix this, it’s the man who never asks questions, but simply makes things disappear.
My phone buzzed, and I wasn’t even the least bit surprised when his name flashed across my screen.
Hunter: I heard about Dom. Come to my room.
When the fuck had he even gotten home?
I sucked in a deep breath. The truth was, I wasn’t even dreading going to his room. In fact, my stomach was fluttering with excitement about finally having a reason to be close to him again.
Whatever this was, it had already set in motion, and I wasn’t sure I could stop it anymore. Or if I wanted to.
Without even opening the text, I walked toward my door, slowly, deliberately.
Some people ran from the fire, but I’d always liked to play with it.
