LOGINKnox's POVI heard him coming.Not the footsteps — those I heard a second later. The first thing I heard was the change in the air behind me, the specific shift that the wolf in me picked up before my human senses caught up to it. The change that meant something was moving toward me with intent.I had just enough time to half-turn before the punch connected.It caught me on the side of the head rather than the jaw this time — a different target, harder, the kind of punch that came from someone who had decided they were not going to get the same result as before and had adjusted accordingly. It hit and it was real and it knocked my balance sideways.I caught myself.I turned fully.Ethan was right there. He had not stopped at one — he was already coming with the second one, his face set with the expression of a person who had moved past calculation and was running on something older and less managed. He had wanted this since the path. He had wanted it since the office. He had walked ou
Knox's POVCoach Harlan sat behind his desk for a long time.He was not the kind of man who rushed decisions. I had known that about him since my first year — he was methodical, he weighed things, he believed that a decision made fast was usually a decision made wrong. I had respected that about him for three years. Right now, sitting in that chair waiting for him to finish thinking, it was harder to respect.Ethan sat beside me saying nothing.That was unusual. Ethan's default in a room full of authority was to talk — to manage, to reframe, to work the situation. The silence from his direction told me that even he understood this was not a moment where talking was going to help him.Coach finally looked up.He looked at Ethan first."I am going to look into what Knox has described," he said. "The incidents he referenced. The documentation with school management. The reports." He said it flatly, without emotion, the way he communicated decisions that were not up for discussion. "While
Knox's POVCoach Harlan's office was small.Two chairs across from a desk, a whiteboard on one wall covered in play diagrams, trophies on a shelf that had run out of space and started a second row in front of the first. A window that looked out over the side of the training complex. A room that smelled like lineament and old coffee and the specific combination of a place where difficult conversations happened regularly.Ethan was already there when I came in.He had taken the chair on the left. I stood until Coach came in behind me and closed the door and gestured at the other chair, and then I sat.Coach sat behind his desk and looked at both of us for a moment."Tell me what happened," he said.Ethan went first.He was good at this. I had known that for three years — had watched him work coaches and teachers and administrators in the specific way that people who understood authority learned to work it. He was calm. He was measured. He used the right words in the right order and he b
Knox's POVEthan moved first.Not physically — he had already done that and it had not worked out the way he planned. He moved with his voice, which was the other thing he was good at, the other tool he had when the first one failed."He came at me," Ethan said.He said it to the group. Not to me — to Darius and Marcus and the three others standing at the edge of the path. His voice had recovered its composure with impressive speed, the rawness tucked back somewhere and the managed version back in place, the version that was calm and reasonable and slightly aggrieved."I was walking back from training," he said. "He called me back. He got in my face. I defended myself."Nobody said anything immediately.Ethan looked at Darius specifically. Darius was the one he knew best on the team — they had overlapped for a year before the expulsion and they had been friendly enough. If there was going to be a person willing to hear the version, Darius was the candidate.Darius looked at Ethan's fi
Knox's POVI looked at him.The question was hanging in the air between us — crude, deliberate, designed to produce a reaction. That was what Ethan did. He found the pressure point and he pressed it and he watched what came out. He had done it to Ember for months. He had done it to me in the corridor before the holding cell. He was doing it now, standing on this path with that smile, waiting to see if this was the version of the conversation where Knox Rivers finally showed him something worth seeing.I was not going to show him that.What I was going to do was answer the question."Since you want to talk about it," I said. My voice was even. "Let me ask you something."Ethan's smile stayed."You dated her," I said. "For a long time. Months. She was your girlfriend and you were with her and you had all of that time." I looked at him directly. "And yet when she came to me — on her birthday, after walking in on you with someone else in her own room — she had never been with anyone."The
Knox's POVI should have let him walk.I knew that. I knew it the same way I knew all the things I should do in moments like this — the rational, measured knowledge of a person who had been taught from a young age that composure was not optional, that losing it had costs that compounded, that the wolf in you was always looking for a reason and your job was to not give it one.I knew all of that.I called after him anyway."Ethan."He stopped. Turned around slowly, like someone who had expected this and had patience for it.I walked toward him. Not fast. Not with anything in my posture that gave him more than I wanted to give. Just closing the distance between us to the kind that meant a conversation rather than a shout across a path.I stopped four feet from him."If you actually want to come back to this team and have it function," I said, "then there are things that need to happen first."He looked at me. The smile was still there. Patient. Waiting."I am the captain," I said. "The
Ember's POVI looked at Claire. "Plan B for what?""She did not say what," Claire said. "Just that if the first plan didn't get them what they wanted, Plan B was ready.""Who was she talking to?""I don't know. A group of girls near the vending machines on the second floor. I didn't recognize them.
Knox's POVI had spoken to Rebecca on Tuesday evening, shortly after everything with Ethan settled down.I had kept it simple — told her I needed to know if she had mentioned the fake relationship to anyone after Ember told her. Not an accusation. Just a question. Rebecca had said no, clearly, and
Ember's POVBy the next morning the story had already mutated again.Now it was Ethan attacking Knox in the dormitory corridor, Knox defending himself and Ember, school management being called in. Some versions had Ethan throwing the first punch. Some had Knox going after Ethan unprovoked. One vers
Knox's POVHer hand was on my arm.That was the thing that reached me. Ember's hand wrapped around my arm and holding on, steady and certain, like she had decided she was not letting go.I came back.The red at the edges of my vision pulled back first, slow and reluctant,then the sound — there had b







