CHAPTER 002
1370 Words
PRISCILLA
My legs carried me through the crowd, past the bar, past the DJ booth, past a bouncer who glanced at my face and looked away fast.
Even he didn’t want to be part of this.
I pushed backstage, the heavy door slamming behind me. The girls yelled at me for startling them. I didn't give no f**k.
Igrabbed Andrew’s sweater from a hook and it yanked it over my dress. The fabric still smelled faintly of ice.
Should I even be wearing this now?
The videos were already everywhere, on every phone, every sports blog, every coach who’d ever believed in me, every judge who’d ever scored me.
My father in his hospital bed… if someone showed him—
And Mom, if she ever saw it…
Speaking of the devil.
The dressing room door creaked open behind me. I froze.
She stepped inside and set her purse on the nightstand.
It was the same cluttered surface where I’d finished my makeup three hours ago.
"Priscilla." She didn’t turn around at first, her fingers brushing across a scattered eyeshadow palette.
I didn’t move. "Mom."
The word felt foreign and heavy on my tongue.
"What are you doing here?" My voice came out sharper than I intended.
"Can't a mother check on her daughter?" She picked up a stray false eyelash from the vanity and flicked it away in disgust.
"You haven’t checked on me in ten years."
She paced a few steps, her heels clicking against the concrete floor, then stopped near a rack of glittering costumes. "Sit down, Priscilla."
I stood still. I hated that there were other people watching and listening to a conversation as personal as this.
My chest felt tight; the inhaler I’d taken earlier had done nothing. Nothing was helping tonight.
I watched her move around the cramped space. She opened a drawer she had no business with.
"How’s your father?"
Something cold twisted inside me. "He had an accident. You know that."
"I heard." She shrugged, rifling through a pile of discarded heels like the conversation bored her.
That was all. *I heard.* Two words for the man who had worked himself sick so she could live comfortably.
I sank onto the vanity stool, my legs giving out. "I lost the admission."
She paused, one hand still on a feathered costume.
I don’t know why I said it. Some stupid, desperate part of me hoped she had returned for a reason. That tonight could be different.
"Silverblade?" she asked, finally looking at me.
"Yes."
She slammed the drawer shut with a sharp bang. Then she turned fully, arms crossing over her chest.
"I saw the video," she said, her voice flat, like she was reciting lines from a script.
"The one going around. You, on the pole. In that dress."
"Mom—"
"It’s embarrassing." Her fingers drummed against her arm. "You’re embarrassing yourself. You’re embarrassing me."
"You never cared anyways," I shot back.
"I don’t need to care to be embarrassed by my daughter."
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. "Why are you even here? What are you thinking? Stripping at a nightclub like you have no—"
"Because of him." My voice came out harder than I expected. I gripped the edge of the vanity, knuckles whitening.
"Because Dad’s oxygen machine costs four hundred dollars a month. Because the ICU doesn’t take IOUs. Because I’ve been the only one keeping him alive for eight months and I needed the money. I didn’t have another way—"
"So you took your clothes off."
The slap cracked across my face before I could brace. A cold, stinging strike from the woman who had abandoned us a decade ago.
My head snapped to the side. I pressed a hand to my burning cheek, the skin already hot.
The dressing room fell quiet except for the distant thump of bass from the main floor.
"You have nothing," she continued, her tone icy.
She snatched her purse off the nightstand.
"No school. No future. No savings. Your father is on life support and you’re still chasing figure skating like some little girl who never grew up.
Not to mention you were too busy dancing like a slut at a club and thought no one would find out?"
I didn’t answer. My cheek throbbed.
"Give it up." Her voice dropped lower as she paced again, knocking a tube of mascara off the vanity with her elbow. It rolled across the floor.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to sweep everything off the counters and scream until my throat gave out.
Instead, I whispered, "You don’t know anything about my life."
"I know enough."
"You left." My voice cracked. I stood up so fast the stool scraped backward.
"You left us. You left him. He’s in that hospital right now and you’re standing here like—"
"Like what?" She slung her bag over her shoulder, eyes cold. "Like a mother who came to knock sense into a daughter who has none?"
I was speechless.
She looked at me like she was trying to convince herself I wasn’t hers. Like this was the last time she ever wanted to see my face.
"Then stay out of my life!" I yelled.
I yanked the silver lace mask from the bottom of my bag — the one I used for masked sets on weekends — and tied it over my face. Tears soaked through the fabric before I finished the knot.
I bolted from the dressing room, shoving past the costume rack so hard sequins rained onto the floor.
I pushed through the back exit.
Made it two steps into the alley.
Then crashed into a wall.
Not a wall. A chest.
The impact knocked the air from my lungs. My bag flew. My knee cracked against something hard.
Whiskey, expensive and sharp, mixed with rich leather.
"Well." His voice was thick with alcohol.
A hand settled on my waist, fingers pressing into the curve above my hip, holding me there as if deciding whether to push me away or pull me closer.
"How much for the rest of the night?"
I jerked my head up.
His face was inches from mine. Sharp jaw, dark hair falling over his forehead, a yellowing bruise along his left cheekbone.
I knew that face.
Every hockey fan in the Midwest knew it.
Knox Ryder.
Silverblade’s star. The most talented and most hated player in the league. Suspended twice for on-ice violence. Arrested once for a bar fight that hospitalized two men. Yet still the reason every home game sold out.
Andrew had called him only one thing: his biggest rival.
Knox’s thumb traced the hem of the hoodie. Something dark shifted in his eyes.
His jaw tightened. His gaze flicked to mine.
"Silverblade sweater," he murmured, grip tightening. "You somebody’s girl?"
The automatic answer *yes, I’m somebody’s girl, I’ve been somebody’s girl for four years* should have come instantly.
But it didn’t.
His other hand rose slowly to my face. He hooked a finger under the edge of my lace mask, right along my cheekbone, and began to lift.
I stopped breathing.
Then he froze.
He didn’t remove the mask. His hand retreated to his side without a word.
He just looked at me with those dark eyes, like he understood masks and the people who hid behind them.
They don’t want to be seen.
I should have pushed away, grabbed my bag, and disappeared into the night. A smart person would have.
But I was nineteen, and everything I had lay in ashes. The boy I loved had told me to go f**k myself on my birthday.
I looked up at Knox Ryder, the worst possible person to be pressed against in a back alley behind a strip club, on the worst night of my life.
I knew this was the worst decision I could make.
Maybe that’s exactly why I wanted it.
Andrew had destroyed me with my rival.
So maybe I’d return the favor with his.
Knox’s eyes never left mine.
I leaned in until my lips nearly brushed his ear.
I whispered, "Name your price."
Knox Ryder smiled.
And it was the most dangerous thing I’d ever seen.
- Writer
