007— COLD FINGERS.

"Why did Crew send you?"

My heart stopped.

Just… stopped. One full second of nothing before it slammed back so hard I felt it in my throat.

Crew.

Someone in this town knew that name. Someone was standing behind me right now saying it like it was nothing. 

My whole body went cold because I had been so careful. I had changed everything. My name, my history, my entire life — and somehow, somehow…

I turned around slowly.

And felt the second shock land directly on top of the first.

Kai Volkov stood at the far end of the rink.

Him.

Of course it was him. Of course the one person who had already made my life a misery was standing on my ice at six in the morning holding Crew's name in his mouth like a weapon.

How does he know that name, my brain fired. How does he know, does Crew know he knows, is this a setup, was any of this ever—

"What do you mean?" I said.

My voice came out completely steady.

I had no idea how.

He didn't answer. Just walked toward me with that unhurried walk that had never once considered moving out of anyone's way. 

The shadows peeled back and the rink light caught his face fully. 

I held my ground because I always held my ground even when every instinct I had was screaming something different.

He stopped directly in front of me.

The full reality of his height hit me up close in a way it hadn't at the scrimmage. I had to tilt my chin up just to find his face and I hated every centimeter of that. 

His eyes moved over me. Not like a person looking at another person. Like a problem being measured.

"Why did Crew send you?" he said again.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Try again."

"I genuinely don't know who Crew is." I held his gaze and kept my voice even.

"You've got the wrong person."

Something shifted in his jaw. He reached out and held my chin—not gently, just firm fingers tilting my face up like I was something he was inspecting.

Every muscle in my body locked.

"Do not waste my time," he said. "Sloane Thorne. First daughter of Beta Aldric Thorne of the Silvercrest Pack."

The bottom dropped out of my stomach.

No. No no no…

I kept my face completely still. Raised one eyebrow like he'd said something mildly interesting. 

"I'm Gaya Morrison. And I don't know what gibberish you're…"

His hand left my chin and closed around my throat.

Everything became very small very fast.

Cold fingers. No warning. My back hit the boards hard and my teeth clacked together. 

The air was just — gone. Like my lungs forgot what they were for.

"Let—" I grabbed his wrist. Both hands. Pulled. Clawed. My nails had to be leaving marks and he didn't even flinch. "Get — off — you…"

I couldn't finish it.

No air to finish it with.

My face was burning. I could feel my own heartbeat in my temples, behind my eyes, hammering against his palm. 

My vision started breaking at the edges. Black creeping in fast, and my legs were scrabbling against the boards trying to find something solid.

"You just confirmed it," he said.

He leaned closer.

"Spy. Sent by Crew Harding."

Crew's name hit me again and my brain split in two directions at once. One half still screaming for air, the other firing questions I couldn't answer. 

He knows. He knows Crew's name and he knows mine and he said it like he's been sitting on it and how, how, how does he—

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

Not a word. Not even a sound. Just my mouth opening uselessly while my body screamed for air it couldn't find. 

The humiliation of that. Of being reduced to silent and gasping and completely helpless was almost worse than the pain.

Almost.

Until he lifted me.

My feet left the ice.

And that was when the fear stopped being something I could manage.

I was off the ground. Held against the boards by one hand. And he wasn't straining. That was the part that annoyed me the most. 

All my pulling and clawing and fighting meant absolutely nothing and the black was coming in faster now…

Not yet. I haven't done anything yet. I haven't found out anything. Not like this. Please… not like this…

"You have until tomorrow morning."

His voice came through like an underwater sound.

"Leave Briar Falls. Or I'll kill you myself."

He opened his hand.

I dropped.

My knees hit the ice and I didn't feel it. I was too busy trying to breathe. The first inhale came in like broken glass burning all the way down and somehow still the best thing I'd ever felt. I pulled in another. Then another. 

My hands flew to my own throat. I was making sounds I couldn't control — gasping, coughing, and I couldn't stop it.

I couldn't stop any of it.

My vision came back in pieces.

The ice. My hands. His shoes.

He crouched down in front of me. Brought his face to my level and his eyes were still flat. Not satisfied, not cruel — just certain. Like this was paperwork.

"After today," he said, "never show up in my sight again. I'll kill you. No one will find out." A pause. "Even if they do — nothing will be done."

I looked at him, gathered everything I had left.

And spat directly on his jaw.

He went completely still before blinking slowly.

Then he stood, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and walked away without a word.

"I hope you choke!" My voice was destroyed. It didn't matter. "I hope every single thing you own turns to ash! I hope you…"

The rink door closed.

I stayed on the ice.

Pressed my forehead against the cold surface and just breathed. In and out. In and out. Until my hands stopped shaking quite so badly.

I'll kill him, I thought, very clearly. And then I'll kill Crew. In that exact order.

I showed up to the diner at seven with concealer on my neck and murder in my heart.

"You're late," my manager said.

"By five minutes."

He looked at me. Really looked. "You okay?"

"Fine."

"You sure? Because you look—"

"Can I just start?"

He let it go.

I lasted twenty minutes before I delivered the wrong order to the wrong table, apologized, delivered it to another wrong table, and then stood in the middle of the floor holding a plate of eggs with absolutely no memory of who had ordered them.

"Morrison."

I looked up.

"That's been sitting in your hand for four minutes," my manager said.

I went back to the kitchen.

The morning passed like that. A customer waved at me twice before I saw them. I spun around at a crash from the kitchen so fast the table beside me went quiet. 

My manager said my name in the middle of a sentence and I realized I'd stopped hearing him somewhere around the beginning of it.

He knows Crew's name, my brain kept circling back. He said it like he's known for a while. Like I was the last piece of something.

Which means exactly what. Which means who else knows. Which means how long have I been visible without knowing it—

"Miss?"

I blinked. A customer was looking at me with their empty coffee cup tilted pointedly.

"Sorry," I said. "Sorry, I'm…"

I refilled it and walked away and told myself to get it together.

My phone buzzed. Anya. Three missed calls from last night and now a text.

are you alive or should I be worried

Then: asking for me. completely for me. not even pretending otherwise.

Something in my chest loosened. Just slightly. I typed back: alive. Tell me something normal.

Three seconds. Then a voice note.

I put my earbud in.

"Okay, so normal thing. Coach put us on the seven am drill schedule starting Monday and I need you to know I'm considering retirement. I'm twenty three. It's too early for this. Also I found a twenty in my jacket from last month and bought us both coffee. Yours is in the locker room fridge. Don't say I never did anything for you."

I stood in the middle of the diner and something that was almost a laugh came out of me.

Anya. Who left coffee in fridges and asked if I was alive without making it feel like a crisis.

I put my phone away and kept moving. Because that was the only direction available.

An old woman sat in my section at half past six.

Small. Still. She held her menu like she'd been here a hundred times. But something made me slow as I approached. A shift in the air, that particular awareness that came with being a wolf in a room with another one.

I stopped at her table.

She looked up at me. Her eyes were calm in a way that had nothing to do with age.

A thin silver ring sat on her left index finger, the wolf etched into it catching the light for just a second before she folded her hands.

"What can I get you?"

"Tea," she said. "And just a moment."

I looked at her.

She looked at me.

"I know how much time you have left."

The notepad slipped from my hand.

Her eyes didn't move from mine. 

"There's a way to stop it."