Fractured Ice
1093 Words
Chapter Four: Fractured Ice
Nora's POV
Three weeks into coaching the Iron Wolves, and we'd already climbed out of last place. Not far. Not enough to matter to anyone outside this rink. But enough that the players had stopped looking at me like I was a mistake Theo had made at one in the morning.
"Run it again," I called out, and the whole line groaned in unison.
"We just ran it four times," someone shouted back.
"And you'll run it a fifth, because the gap closes half a second too late every single time."
"It's two in the afternoon. We've been on the ice since six."
"Then you'll be tired and accurate instead of fresh and wrong."
Theo skated up beside me, grinning. "You're enjoying this."
"I'm not."
"You absolutely are."
"I'm doing my job."
"Your job doesn't usually come with that much satisfaction in other people's suffering."
"It does when the suffering fixes their breakout."
He laughed and skated off to reset the drill. I watched the left wing hold his position, finally, and let myself feel it for half a second before I called the next correction.
"Better," Theo said, skating back. "You should tell them that occasionally."
"They'll get soft."
"They'll get a coach who isn't terrifying."
"I'll consider it after we win something."
Finn was waiting by the boards after practice, still in his Falcons gear.
"You're not supposed to be scouting the competition," I said.
"I'm not here for you this time. Not the way I usually am."
"Could've fooled me. You've shown up twice in three weeks talking about Grayson."
"This isn't that."
"Then what is it?"
"Someone in our locker room got a text last night. Threatening to leak Iron Wolves practice footage if you didn't quit." He held up his phone. "I forwarded it before I came. I wanted you to see exactly what I saw, not a secondhand version."
I read it. Last warning. Step down or the next thing that gets hurt won't be a camera.
"That's not the message I got."
"You got one too?"
"Three days ago. Different wording. Same idea."
"Then it's not random. Somebody's working through a list." His jaw tightened. "I don't know who. I'm telling you that straight, before you start wondering if I do."
"Does Grayson know?"
"Not yet. I wanted to ask you first whether you wanted him to."
"Why would that be my call?"
"Because last time he found out something concerned you, he didn't ask anyone's permission about what to do with it. I figured you'd rather decide that for yourself this time."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I keep it to myself, and you deal with whatever comes next on your own terms."
"That's a strange kind of loyalty, Finn. Keeping secrets from your own captain."
"It's not loyalty to him. It's loyalty to doing the right thing, even when it's inconvenient for everyone involved."
I brought it to Theo before I decided anything else.
"Two threats," he said, reading both messages on my phone. "Same person?"
"Maybe. Maybe someone else entirely. I don't know."
"I'm calling the rink's security company tonight. Extra eyes on every entrance, escort to your car after every practice, no exceptions."
"I don't need an escort."
"You don't get a vote on this one. Not when it's my team and my facility."
"Theo—"
"I watched you walk into that locker room three weeks ago and turn this whole place around. I'm not about to let some coward with a burner phone undo it." He handed the phone back. "Tell me if anything else comes in. Tonight, not tomorrow."
"Fine."
"I mean it, Nora."
"I said fine."
I should have asked more questions. I didn't get the chance.
Practice ran long that night, the rink mostly empty, just the hiss of skates and Theo's voice calling corrections from center ice. I stayed near the boards reviewing the drill on my tablet when something made me look up.
A shape stood in the shadows past the tunnel entrance. Still. Watching.
"You shouldn't be here," I said, walking toward him, low enough the players wouldn't hear.
"I know."
"Then why are you?"
"Finn told me about the texts."
"That wasn't his to tell."
"He didn't think you'd tell me yourself."
"He was right."
"Why not?"
"Because you don't get to reject me in front of an entire arena and then show up acting like my safety is suddenly your business."
"It is my business."
"It stopped being your business the night you made that very clear."
"I was wrong."
"That's not the same as having a right to be here now."
"I know I don't have the right. I came anyway."
My phone buzzed. I almost ignored it, until I saw the number wasn't one I recognized.
Last chance. Walk away, or your mother finds out what happens to people who don't.
I went cold reading it, my hand tightening around the phone.
"What is it?" Grayson asked.
"Nothing."
"Nora."
"They mentioned my mother."
His expression shifted, something sharp moving behind his eyes. "Show me."
"I can handle this myself."
"I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't have to do it alone."
"You don't get to decide that for me."
"I'm not deciding anything. I'm telling you I'm not leaving this rink until I know you've gotten home safe. You can be as angry about that as you want on the drive."
I wanted to argue. I had every right to, every reason built over three weeks of proving I didn't need him for anything.
"Fine," I said instead. "But you're not driving me. You're following behind, and you're keeping your distance once we're there."
"I can work with that."
"This doesn't change anything between us."
"I didn't think it would."
"I mean it, Grayson."
"I know you do."
He waited while I gathered my things, said nothing while I locked up the office, and kept exactly the distance I'd asked for the entire drive home, his headlights steady in my mirror the whole way. When I pulled into my building's lot, he idled at the curb instead of parking, like he understood that getting out of the car would have counted as too much.
I sat in the driveway a moment, engine off, watching him through the rearview mirror.
He didn't move
until I'd unlocked my door and stepped inside. Only then did his headlights finally pull away, and some small, traitorous part of me stood at the window and watched them go.
- Writer
