Chapter 4: Cold Path

Elliot's POV

"Hold still, Elliot. This is going to sting," Austin said, pressing an antiseptic wipe against my cut lip.

I winced, pulling back slightly as the sharp burning sensation shot across my lower jaw. My right shoulder was throbbing with a dull, constant ache from colliding with the glass, but I kept my back straight on the edge of the small dorm bed.

"You really don't know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?" Austin sighed, dropping the bloody cotton pad into the trash bin. He pulled up a desk chair and sat across from me, his face tight with genuine concern. "Calling out Nathaniel was risky enough, but talking back to Cruz in front of the whole squad? Are you trying to get kicked off the team on your second day?"

"Nathaniel threw a hit from behind, Austin," I said, my voice rough. I flexed my shoulder carefully, feeling the tight pull in my muscles. "And Cruz sat there and made excuses for him. Should I have just smiled and thanked them for slamming my face into the glass?"

"No, but you need to understand how things work here at Westbridge!" Austin leaned forward, lowering his voice until it was almost a whisper. "Cruz isn't just the team captain, Elliot. His father is Arthur Blackwood."

I frowned, wiping a stray drop of water from my chin. "What does his father have to do with what happens on the ice?"

"Arthur Blackwood is the head trustee on the academy's board," Austin said, staring right into my eyes. "He donates millions to the athletic department every single year. He practically owns the rink we play on. If Cruz goes to his father and says you're a disruption, your scholarship will be gone before Friday morning. One single signature from his dad, and you're back home, pack and all."

I sat in silence for a moment, the weight of his words settling in my chest like a block of ice. I thought about my mother working double shifts back home to pay for my train ticket here. I thought about my old, tape-wrapped gear sitting in the corner of the room. Everything I had worked for my entire life was riding on this single scholarship.

"So what am I supposed to do?" I asked quietly, looking up at him. "Just let them push me around because their parents have money?"

"I'm saying you need to swallow your pride and apologize," Austin pleaded, reaching out to tap my uninjured shoulder. "Go to Cruz before morning practice. Tell him you lost your cool, tell him you respect his leadership, and just play hockey. Don't let your temper ruin your entire future."

"Apologize to him?" I let out a bitter laugh, shaking my head. "He made me skate twenty extra laps while my lip was bleeding, just to show everyone he could. I didn't do anything wrong, Austin. I'm not bowing down to him."

"Elliot, please," Austin urged, his voice full of worry. "He watched you from the stands the entire time you skated those laps, didn't he? He's testing you. If you break, he wins."

"I'm not going to break," I said, setting my jaw firmly. "And I'm not apologizing for standing up for myself."

Austin let out a long breath, realizing he wasn't going to change my mind. "You're stubborn. You know that, right?"

"I have to be," I answered softly. "If I'm not stubborn, I don't survive here."

By ten o'clock that night, the throbbing in my shoulder had turned into a deep, sharp knot that made it impossible to lie down comfortably. Austin was already fast asleep, his breathing steady on the other side of the room.

I pulled on a gray hoodie, zipped it up over my bruised chest, and quietly slipped out into the hallway. The dorms were silent, the long corridors dimly lit by overhead fixtures. I needed an ice pack from the athletic facility's ice machine near the cafeteria to reduce the swelling before tomorrow's morning skate.

I walked outside into the cool night air. The campus was completely quiet, surrounded by tall oak trees and stone walkways. The walkway connecting the dorms to the main sports building was dark, lined with small path lights that barely cut through the night.

As I rounded the bend near the courtyard, a quiet figure stepped out from under the shadow of the brick archway.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart jumping straight into my throat.

Cruz was standing there alone near the edge of the path. He wasn't wearing his formal Westbridge jacket or his hockey gear. He just wore an oversized dark sweater and plain black trousers, his hands resting deep inside his pockets.

Without the bright lights of the arena or the rest of the team surrounding him, he looked completely different. The cold, untouchable aura he wore on the ice was still there, but beneath it, his shoulders looked tense, his posture carrying a quiet, heavy weight that didn't belong to a nineteen-year-old captain.

We stood three feet apart in the quiet dark, neither of us saying a word for what felt like an eternity.

"Your shoulder is swelling," Cruz said first. His voice wasn't harsh or shouting like it had been on the ice. It was low, quiet, and surprisingly smooth.

I swallowed hard, keeping my distance. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're walking with your right side tucked in to avoid moving the joint," Cruz noted flatly. He took a step forward out of the shadow, revealing his face under the dim light of the path post. His sharp feature were settled, his dark blue-gray eyes fixed entirely on me.

"Are you out here to give me another twenty laps, Captain?" I asked, my voice rising with immediate defense. "Or are you going to tell me again how it's my fault Reed hit me from behind?"

Cruz didn't answer right away. He looked down at my face, his eyes lingering on my cut, swollen lower lip for a second before meeting my gaze again.

"Nathaniel was out of line," Cruz said quietly.

The sudden admission hit me like a splash of cold water. I blinked, caught completely off guard. "What?"

"I said Nathaniel was out of line," Cruz repeated, his tone calm and steady. "It was a cheap hit. It should have been called."

"Then why didn't you call it?" I asked, stepping closer to him, the frustration bubbling right back up to the surface. "You yelled at me! You made me look like a fool in front of the whole team and forced me to skate until my legs gave out!"

"Because if I call it, Nathaniel goes to his father, his father goes to Coach Vale, and you get quietly removed from the roster before the end of the week," Cruz replied without hesitation, his eyes locking onto mine with an intense, burning seriousness. "You think you're the only one playing politics here, Hayes? If I let you pick a fight with Nathaniel on the ice, you give them every reason they need to tear your scholarship apart. I gave you laps so they would see you getting punished, instead of seeing a reason to throw you out."

I stood frozen, the breath catching in my throat as his words echoed through the quiet night. I stared at him, my mind spinning fast as I tried to process what he was saying.

He hadn't been protecting Nathaniel. He had been covering for me.

"You... you did that to keep me on the team?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Cruz didn't smile. He didn't look pleased. He just reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a fresh, plastic ice pack wrapped in a clean white towel. He must have gotten it from the training room before coming out here.

"Take it," Cruz said, holding the ice pack out between us. "Put it on your shoulder before you go to sleep. If you show up to practice tomorrow unable to lift your stick, none of this matters anyway."

I looked down at the ice pack, then back up into his cold blue-gray eyes. My mind was completely tangled—half of me still furious at how he had treated me on the ice, and the other half completely shaken by the quiet truth in his voice.

Slowly, I reached my hand out to take the ice pack from him.

As my fingers wrapped around the cloth, Cruz didn't let go immediately. My fingertips brushed directly against his warm skin.

A sudden, sharp shock of heat shot right through my fingers, rushing straight up my arm and slamming into my chest like an electric spark.

My breath hitched instantly. I froze in place.

Cruz froze too. His eyes widened slightly in the dark, his gaze dropping down to where our hands were touching on the small towel, before snapping back up to meet mine. Neither of us moved. Neither of us pulled away. The cold night air around us vanished entirely, leaving only the intense, burning stillness between us in the dark.