Promised To The Devil On Ice

Elowen "Tonight, the Black Ridge Ravens honor one of their own." The coach's voice shakes on the last word. He clears his throat, grips the podium like it's the only thing keeping him upright, and tries again. "Ivo Mercer was..." He stops. Starts over. "Ivo was the heart of this team." Somewhere behind me, someone lets out a sob they can't hold in anymore. Zadie's hand finds mine and locks on hard enough to hurt. I don't cry. Not yet. I'm too busy staring at the photo of Ivo propped against a wall of white lilies ... laughing, of course, because Ivo never took a photo where he wasn't laughing ... and trying to convince my body that this is real. The Black Ridge Ravens sit together in the front rows, black suits, black ties, like a funeral is just another away game. Tate Rowan's jaw is clenched so tight I can see it from here. Jace keeps swiping at his face like he's mad at himself for crying. Even Kai, who has never once in his life been serious about anything, sits with both hands pressed flat against his knees. And then there's Nikolai Sterling sitting right there in the front row his spine straight hands folded. Everyone else in this room is falling apart in their own quiet way. Nikolai looks like he's waiting for a bus. He hasn't moved once, his best friend is dead and he looks bored. The doors at the back of the chapel slam open so hard the sound cracks through the room like a gunshot. "Where is he?" It's a man's voice, wrecked and furious, and I know before I even turn around. "Where is Sterling?" Ivo's father. Tie loose, eyes red and wild, already shoving down the aisle like the pews, like the people flinching out of his way, are nothing at all. Mr. Mercer reaches the front row and grabs Nikolai by the collar, hauls him half out of his seat. The whole chapel detonates into noise. "You did this!" His voice breaks on every word. "You did this to my son and you sit there like...like it's nothing..." "Sir, please..." Tate gets a hand on his shoulder. "Hey. Hey, I know. I know, sir, please..." "Don't touch me!" Mr. Mercer wrenches away, and it's Ethan who catches him this time, low and careful. "Get your hands off me, you're all ... you knew. You all knew and none of you said a word..." And through all of it, Nikolai just watches. Head tilted. Unreachable. Like he's studying an experiment and waiting to see how it resolves itself. "That's enough." Nikolai's voice isn't loud. It doesn't need to be. It cuts clean under the chaos and every person in that chapel goes quiet to hear the rest of it. "Let him go." He commands. "All of you. Sit down." And they do. He stands, straightens his jacket like he's about to walk onto the ice instead of into a father's grief. And then he does the thing I will not be able to explain to anyone later, the thing that will not leave me alone for days. He walks toward Mr. Mercer. Not away…Toward. He doesn't flinch when the older man's hands come up again, shaking. He doesn't stop until he's close enough to fold his arms around him. A full embrace, chin against the man's shoulder, like they're family. Like Ivo is both their loss. Mr. Mercer goes rigid. Then, slowly, horribly, he breaks. Sobs wrack through him and he clutches at the back of Nikolai's jacket like it's the only solid thing left in the room. Nikolai leans in. Says something against his ear. I can't hear it. Nobody can hear it. It lasts maybe four seconds. Mr. Mercer staggers back like he's been struck. He looks at Nikolai like he's seeing an entirely different person than the one who walked toward him. The fury just ... drains out of him, replaced by something closer to devastation. He lets Tate and Ethan guide him back to a seat. Doesn't fight it. Doesn't look at Nikolai again. The chapel exhales. "Oh my god," Zadie whispers. "Oh my god, that was ... Elowen, that was actually kind of beautiful?" "No." "What?" "That wasn't beautiful, Zadie. Look at his face." "He looks sad." "He looks like nothing. That's the point." I can't stop staring at him. "Whatever he just said to that man wasn't comfort." "How do you know that?" "Because I know him." Around us, I watch it happen in real time ... two hundred people's grief pivoting like a door on a hinge. They stop looking at Nikolai like a suspect. They start looking at him like he's the one who needs comforting. "God, that poor boy," a woman murmurs behind me, and I have to bite down hard on the inside of my cheek to keep from saying something I can't take back in a room full of flowers and Ivo's photograph. … The service ends in that strange, hollow way funerals do ... a final hymn, a final photo on the screen, people rising like the room itself is exhaling them out the doors. I find Nikolai instead, alone for exactly as long as it takes me to cross the lobby. "What did you say to him?" He turns like he was expecting me. Maybe he was. Nikolai Sterling always looks like he already knows how a conversation is going to go before it starts, which is one of the many things about him that makes my teeth hurt. "Hello to you too, Elowen." "What did you say to him?" "I said I was sorry for his loss." His green eyes hold mine, calm, unreadable. "Is that a crime now?" "He looked like you told him something that broke him in half." "Grief does that. You'd know." It lands exactly where he means it to. I don't flinch ... I refuse to give him that ... but something in my chest goes tight and hot anyway. "Don't," I say quietly. "Don't use Ivo to get me to back off." "I'm not using anything." He steps closer. Close enough that I have to tilt my head back to keep looking at him. "I'm simply pointing out that you're standing in a memorial for your best friend, interrogating me, when you could be grieving instead." When I don’t respond he continues, "You ask questions like you're already building a case." A ghost of something almost-amused crosses his face. "It's a very particular skill. Almost like you've had practice." "Don't change the subject." "I'm not." He tilts his head. "I'm making an observation. You'll get used to that. We're going to be spending a lot more time together." "What is that supposed to mean?" "Nothing." The corner of his mouth moves ... not a smile, just the shape of one. "Yet." "Nikolai..." "Ask your mother," he says. "She'll enjoy telling you more than I will." "Nothing." He's already stepping back, already sliding his hands into his pockets like the last thirty seconds didn't happen. "Forget I said it." "You insolent piece of…" "I have somewhere to be." He's already turning, already walking, black coat cutting through the last of the crowd like he owns the church, the grief, all of it. "Go home, Elowen. Ask your mother." I stand there alone, disgusted and confused I turn to walk away but someone bumps right into me. “What the-” I barely catch a glimpse of a gray sleeve before they're already rushing through the side doors without so much as an apology. Rude. My shoulder throbs where they hit me. I'm about to let it go, about to go find Zadie and get out of this building before I say something to Nikolai Sterling I can't unsay, when I see it. A folded square of paper, pale against the dark stone floor, right where the stranger's shoulder brushed mine. I frown. Glance toward the door they disappeared through. Nothing. No one. I pick it up my curiosity getting the best of me. I unfold it right there in the vestibule, my thumb pressing a crease flat, and the words are small and blunt and typed, like whoever wrote them didn't trust their own handwriting to stay steady. ‘IT WASN’T SUICIDE.’