The arena was quieter than usual that evening.
Practice had ended nearly an hour ago, and most of the players had already left, their laughter and arguments fading into the parking lot outside. The cleaning crew hummed softly in distant corridors, and the steady scrape of resurfacing machines echoed faintly across the ice.
Sheila remained.
She sat alone near the analyst station, reviewing training data on her tablet, though she had reread the same set of numbers three times without absorbing them. Her mind kept drifting back to the hallway… to the way Atticus had looked at her before Carter pulled him away.
And to the message on her phone.
You’re getting too close.
She exhaled slowly, rubbing her temples. She hated how this situation was blurring her focus. She hated how Atticus Finc
