Hold still

Ava’s pov

I didn't have time to run.

An arm hooked around my waist, a hand clamped over my mouth, and I was hauled sideways through a door I hadn't known was there. It clicked shut behind me.

Darkness. The smell of rubber and tape and old leather. A solid wall of heat against my back, a heartbeat hammering through two layers of cotton.

"Don't scream," a voice breathed into my hair. "Please."

I knew that voice. I went rigid. Then, very slowly, I nodded.

Outside, footsteps stopped. The pause stretched so long I could hear water dripping in the showers. Then a locker clanged, the steps retreated, and the heavy outer door groaned open and closed.

Silence.

The hand left my mouth. The arm around my waist did not, for a full three seconds, let go.

"You can," I said unsteadily, "let go now."

He let go.

The closet was the size of a coat rack. Neither of us could move without touching the other, so neither of us moved. A strip of light under the door showed his face in pieces: the line of his jaw, a pulse jumping at his throat, his eyes wide and fixed on me.

"You followed me," I whispered.

"Rule two." He said.

"That's not a real rule." I told him.

"It is now." His voice came out rougher than I think he meant it to. "You were about to get caught in a locker room by someone who just said whatever it takes. Pretty sure that's the part where you're supposed to run."

"You heard." I said.

"Every word." He replied.

A beat. In the dark, my breath hitched.

"So it's true," Damien said, and he made himself say it plainly. "You're Ethan's sister."

I didn't answer. But I didn't deny it either, and that was the loudest answer I had ever given.

"He talked about you," he said, quieter. "Back then. Said he had a sister in Ohio who beat him at every board game and cheated at the ones she couldn't win. Said you'd be the smartest person in any room and make sure everybody knew it." The corner of his mouth moved, almost a smile. "I should've known the second you called me a vending machine."

My eyes burned. I blinked hard, furious.

"Don't," I said. "Don't talk about him like you knew him."

"I did know him." He said.

"Then why are you the reason he's……" I cut myself off, teeth snapping shut. "No. I'm not doing this in a closet."

The words hung there. I felt him flinch, a small, awful movement through the dark, as though I had slid a blade between his ribs. He opened his mouth. I waited for the speech, the denial, the hundred smooth sentences.

None came.

"Whoever that was in here," he said instead, "they know who you are. They're scared of what you'll find. And I'd bet my captaincy it's somebody on this team."

"I know." I replied him.

"So you're done. You go home, you tell the Courier you can't cover hockey, and you stay away from….” He said.

"No." I replied.

"Ava." He called my name.

"No." I lifted my chin. "I did not spend a year learning to breathe around my brother's silence just to quit because someone in a hoodie is scared of me."

He stared at me. I could feel it, the weight of it, the stubborn line of my jaw and the shake in my hands I was hiding by gripping my notebook. I had no idea what my face looked like in the half-light. I only knew that something in his shifted, as if he'd just realized he couldn't make me leave.

"Then here's the deal," Damien said slowly. "You stay. You keep your access. But anything you find, anything, you tell me first."

"Why would I do that?"

"Because I'm the only person in this building who isn't lying to you."

I searched his face for a long moment. I wanted so badly to believe him that it scared me. Maybe it showed, because something in the way he looked at me made my shoulders drop an inch.

"A truce," I said. "Not a friendship."

"God, no."

"And you answer my questions."

"Some of them."

"All of them."

"Ava."

"Take it or leave it, Cole."

He held out his hand in the dark. I took it. His fingers were warm, his grip firm, and neither of us let go quite as quickly as we should have.

We left the closet five minutes apart, as agreed. I went first, walked the long way around the arena with my notebook pressed against my chest, and made it as far as the lobby before I heard my name.

"Bennett!"

Coach Brandt stood at the end of the hall with a clipboard, and a look on his face that said he had already decided something I wouldn't like.

"Away game at Halston, this Friday," he said. "Bus leaves at six. The Courier's covering it, which means you ride with us. Budget's tight, so you share the team hotel floor." Damien had appeared behind me, hands in his pockets, face carefully blank. "Cole, you're responsible for her."

"Coach, I don't think—"

"After last spring I'd say yes to the devil if he brought me positive press." Brandt finally met his eye. "Don't make me regret it."

He walked off. Damien and I stood in the empty lobby, a careful three feet apart, neither of us looking at the other. The overhead lights buzzed. I could see us both reflected in the glass of the trophy case: a hollow-eyed girl, a hollow-eyed boy, tied together by the one thing neither of us would say.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

Unknown number. A photo, no message at first. I opened it with my thumb.

It was the equipment closet door, taken from across the locker room. Half open. Two shadows pressed together in the gap, a boy and a girl, his hand still lifted to my waist.

The caption arrived a second later.

Careful who you trust, Ava.

Then a second message.

Not everyone in that closet is on your side.