Ashes Of The Past

Mara Bell's POV

"Mara! Rhett! Are you down there!" Ivy's voice shouts from the top of the stairs and it echoes so loud that both of us freeze in the middle of the dusty room.

Rhett bangs his fist against the metal door again and shouts back, "Ivy, stay back, the door is locked from outside, Voss locked us in."

I hear Ivy's fast footsteps coming down anyway because Ivy never listens when you tell her to stay back, that is kind of her whole personality.

"Mara, I heard Rhett roar all the way from the equipment room, I thought someone died down here," she pants when she reaches the bottom and she tries the handle, "oh my god it is locked, who locked you in, why are there photos of you everywhere, what is this place."

Rhett looks at me and his gold eyes are still glowing a little in the weak yellow emergency light, "Ivy, find Coach Reyes and get the master crowbar from the maintenance closet, we need to break this lock now."

Ivy does not ask why, she just turns and runs back up the stairs shouting for Coach Reyes so loud that her voice cracks.

For a few seconds it is just me and Rhett alone again in the room that watched me grow up and the air feels heavy and cold and the old photo of our fathers with Voss is still burning a hole in Rhett's pocket.

"Rhett, if that was Voss on the speaker, he knows we found the photos, he knows we know about the ring," I whisper because I am scared that saying his name too loud will make him come back.

"I know," Rhett says and he puts both hands on my shoulders and he looks down at me like he is trying to memorize my face in case something bad happens, "but we have proof now, that photo is proof that he was with our fathers that night, no one else has that, the council has to listen now."

Before I can answer we hear more footsteps, heavier this time, and Coach Reyes's voice, sharp and angry.

"Who sealed this level, this level has been sealed for seven years, who opened it," she shouts.

"It was us, Coach, we opened it," Rhett shouts back, "Mara had a key, we found something you need to see."

There is a loud clang as Coach Reyes hits the outside lock with the crowbar, once, twice, three times, and on the fourth hit the lock breaks with a scream of metal and the door flies open.

Fresh air rushes in and Ivy grabs me and hugs me so tight that I cannot breathe.

"Mara, you are freezing, what were you doing down here, you look like you saw a ghost," she says and then she looks at the walls covered in my photos and her mouth falls open.

Coach Reyes steps inside and she stops dead when she sees the walls, her face goes from angry to shocked to pale in two seconds.

"What is this," she whispers, "Mara, is this you, all of these are you."

I nod because my throat is too tight to speak and Rhett pulls the old yellowed photo from his pocket and hands it to her.

"That man in shadow with the silver ring is Director Callum Voss," Rhett says and his voice is calm but it is the kind of calm that comes before a storm, "he has been watching Mara since she was eleven, he was there the night my father and her father died, he is the one who has been leaving the carved pucks and breaking into her dorm."

Coach Reyes takes the photo with shaking hands and she looks at the ring and then at me and then at Rhett and I can see her connecting everything she has seen over the past few weeks.

"I knew something was wrong with that man," she says quietly, "he always asks about you, Mara, every time I send my roster he asks if you are still on equipment, I thought he was just being thorough about scholarships but now..."

Ivy makes a small scared sound, "Mara, does that mean the man in the long coat at the game was him, the one with the ring."

"Yes," I say and my voice finally comes back, small and hoarse, "he was watching me from the top row right after Rhett rejected me and I had the vision, he was making sure I did not remember."

Coach Reyes looks around the room again at all the photos tracking my life and her face gets hard like she is about to go to war.

"We need to take all of this to Agnes Marrow," she says, "she knew both Samuel and Marcus personally, she is the only elder who will believe us without needing council approval, if anyone knows what that symbol carved into the wall means, it is her."

Rhett nods, "I was going to go to her tomorrow but we cannot wait now, Voss knows we found this room, he will clean it tonight if we leave it, we need to take as many photos as we can."

So we do something crazy, we rip photos off the walls as fast as we can, me and Ivy and Coach Reyes stuffing them into equipment bags while Rhett keeps watch at the door with his phone flashlight, his wolf still close to the surface so his eyes keep flashing gold every few seconds.

We hear a distant door slam upstairs and all four of us freeze.

"Someone is in the arena," Ivy whispers, "it is after hours, no one should be here except us."

Rhett turns off his flashlight instantly and pushes us behind him toward the back wall, "Thorne, it has to be Thorne, Voss's enforcer, he is always where trouble happens."

We hear heavy boots walking slow across the arena floor above us and then coming down the rusted stairs, one step at a time, not hurrying, like he knows we are trapped and he enjoys making us wait.

Coach Reyes grabs my arm, "back door, there is a service tunnel behind that shelf, it leads to the old Zamboni garage, I used it when I played here twenty years ago."

Rhett kicks the shelf over and behind it there is a narrow low opening, barely big enough for one person, dark and smelling like oil.

"You first, Mara, go," he says.

I get on my hands and knees and crawl, my heart hammering so loud I am sure the man upstairs can hear it, Ivy crawls behind me, then Coach Reyes, then Rhett last, pulling the shelf back to cover the opening just as the boots reach the bottom of the stairs.

We hold our breath in the dark tunnel and we hear Garrick Thorne's voice, cold and quiet, exactly as described in the outline, the man who is easy to overlook until you notice he is always where trouble happens.

"I know you are still here, little wolf," Thorne says in the photo room, we hear him moving photos, "Voss said you would come back here eventually, he said you never could leave the ice alone."

He is so close that I can hear his radio crackle and then Voss's voice on the other end, calm and polished even through static.

"Is the room clean," Voss asks.

"Not yet, they took some photos but they left the main one, the old one is still here," Thorne says and I realize with horror that we forgot the old yellowed photo on the table in our rush, the most important proof.

Rhett curses silently and tries to go back but Coach Reyes grabs his arm and shakes her head hard, because Thorne is still in the room and we would be caught.

Thorne picks up something, we hear paper crinkle, "I have it, I have the old photo, should I bring it to you."

"Bring it to me and burn the rest," Voss says on the radio, "and find the girl, she should not have lived this long anyway."

The line goes dead and Thorne starts pouring something that smells like gasoline and I smell smoke.

He is burning the room that proves everything.

"No," I whisper without thinking and Rhett clamps his hand over my mouth but it is too late, Thorne heard.

"What was that," Thorne says and his boots turn toward our shelf.

Rhett does not wait, he shoves the shelf hard and it slams into Thorne and Thorne falls back with a grunt, and then Rhett is on him, not human, wolf, his eyes full gold, his teeth bared, his hands turning into claws for the first time in front of me, just like the outline said would happen when he loses control to protect me.

I have never seen Rhett shift, not even partially, and it is terrifying and beautiful at the same time, his whole body shaking as he tries to hold the shift back while still pinning Thorne to the floor.

"Rhett, stop, you will kill him," Coach Reyes shouts because if Rhett kills Thorne here, the council will call it murder and Voss will win.

Thorne laughs even with Rhett's claws at his throat, "do it, heir, show everyone what you really are, show them you cannot control your wolf."

I crawl out of the tunnel and I grab Rhett's arm and the second my skin touches his, the vision hits us both, not just me this time, both of us, a hallway soaked in blood and a hand with a silver ring reaching down and this time I see clearly that the ring is on Voss's hand as he pulls a younger Thorne up from the floor.

It is the night our fathers died and Thorne was there too, younger, scared, watching Voss do it.

Rhett gasps and his claws retract a little because the vision shocks him out of his rage and Thorne uses that second to shove him off and run up the stairs, taking the old photo with him, leaving the room burning behind him.

"Get out, now," Coach Reyes shouts and she drags me and Ivy up the stairs as smoke fills the hallway, Rhett right behind us, coughing, his eyes still gold.

We burst out into the cold arena air and the alarm finally screams and sprinklers turn on and I am soaking wet and shaking and holding the equipment bag full of photos that prove someone has been watching me for seven years.

Rhett grabs me and pulls me into his chest and he does not care that Coach Reyes and Ivy are watching, he holds me like I am the only solid thing in a world that just tilted.

"I saw him," he says into my hair, his voice shaking, "I saw Thorne that night too, he was just a kid, Voss made him watch."

I nod against his chest, "and now he works for Voss because he thinks he has to, because Voss owns him."

Coach Reyes looks at the burning door below and then at us, her face grim, "we need to get to Agnes Marrow tonight, before Voss says we started that fire, before he makes us the villains, that old woman is the only one who knew both your fathers and she is the only one the council cannot ignore."

Ivy squeezes my hand hard, "Mara, are you okay to go, you look like you are going to faint."

I am not okay, I am not okay at all, my whole life someone has been watching me, my father's murder was not an accident, my mother's warning note makes sense now, and the boy who rejected me in front of everyone is now the only person whose touch keeps me from falling apart, but I nod anyway because what else can I do.

"I am okay," I whisper, "let's go find Agnes before Voss finds us."

Rhett does not let go of my hand as we run out of the arena into the dark campus night, the bag of photos banging against my leg, the smell of smoke still in our clothes, and somewhere behind us Garrick Thorne is running too, with the one photo that could prove everything, taking it straight to the man who has spent seven years making sure the truth about that night stays buried.