جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 30

I was setting up my clipboard when I heard Megan’s voice cutting through the pre-practice chatter.“God, some people have absolutely no shame, do they?”I didn’t look up, but I could feel the shift in the room’s energy. Conversations quieted. Footsteps slowed. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up because I knew that tone was aimed directly at me.“What’s that supposed to mean?” One of her minions asked.“Oh, come on.” Megan’s laugh was pure venom. “We all saw Little Miss Manager getting her private volleyball lessons yesterday. Very hands-on instruction, wasn’t it, Lily?”My pen stopped moving across the page. The blood drained from my face as half the team turned to stare at me.“I mean, I always wondered why she hung around the team so much,” Megan continued, her voice carrying across the gym. “Now I know. She’s working her way through the roster. Smart strategy, really. Start with Ethan. Now the star player.”“Shut your mouth, Megan,” Naomi snapped from across the gym, but she

Luca’s POVI sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair next to Lily’s cot, watching her sleep off whatever had been in that water bottle. Her face was still too pale, but her breathing had finally evened out after an hour of intermittent retching.Someone had drugged her. Someone had looked at Lily and decided to hurt her in the cruelest way possible.My hands clenched into fists before I could stop them. The urge to find whoever had done this and make them pay was so strong it made my teeth ache.“Any idea who might have given her the water?” Officer Martinez —no relation to our Coach—asked from the doorway. The school had called the police as soon as the nurse confirmed Lily had been drugged, though they were treating it as a prank gone wrong rather than assault. For now.“She said someone told her it was from me,” I said, not taking my eyes off Lily’s sleeping form. “But I never sent her anything.”“And you have no idea who would impersonate you?”I could think of several people, ac

“What do we do now?”I looked at Sarah’s tear-streaked face, then back at him. The logical part of my brain—the part that wasn’t still swimming from whatever Megan had put in that water—knew exactly what we needed to do.Megan had threatened Sarah’s family, used Luca’s name to make me trust the water, and watched me drink whatever poison she’d put in that bottle.“We go to Officer Martinez,” I said finally. “Sarah, you need to tell him exactly what you just told us.”Sarah’s eyes widened in panic. “I can’t. You don’t understand what she’ll do to my family.”“And you don’t understand what she did to me,” I replied, fighting off another wave of dizziness. “Sarah, I could have died. Whatever was in that water could have killed me.”She looked between us, then down at her hands. “I know. I’m so sorry, Lily. I really am.”“Sorry doesn’t fix this,” Luca said. “Someone needs to pay for what happened to her.”I touched his arm, feeling the tension coiled there like a spring ready to snap. “Le

I ignored it, pulling my pillow over my head. He tried again, more insistently this time.“Go away,” I called out, my voice muffled by the pillow.“Lily, please. I need to talk to you.”“There’s nothing to talk about.”“There’s everything to talk about. What I said—”“Was the truth. So congratulations, you finally said what you really think of me.”Silence stretched between us, broken only by the sound of my own ragged breathing.“That’s not what I think of you,” he said finally.“Isn’t it? Because it sounded pretty convincing.”“I was angry. I said something stupid.”“You said something honest. There’s a difference.”“Lily, please. Open the window.”“No.”“I’m not leaving until you talk to me.”“Then I hope you’re comfortable out there, because I’m not opening this window. I’m done, Luca. Done with the fighting, done with the drama, done with pretending we can live in the same house without wanting to kill each other.”“You don’t mean that.”“I mean every word. Find somewhere else t

The sound was sickening. Luca hit the floor hard, and the gym went silent. I was moving before I realized it. But the team medic was already there, kneeling beside Luca’s crumpled form. “Let me see,” he said. But when he cut away the fabric of Luca’s shorts, his face went white. The gash was deep, running from his knee to mid-thigh. Blood was everywhere, soaking into the court, pooling beneath him. It looked bad—the kind of cut that needed stitches. But as I knelt beside him, something made me freeze. The wound was… smaller than it should have been. He dabbed at the blood with gauze, then stopped. His face went pale. “What the hell?” the medic whispered. “This wound… it’s closing.” My heart hammered against my ribs. I could see the confusion in his eyes, the way he was trying to process what he was seeing. In another few seconds, he’d start asking questions. Not here, not now, not with hundreds of people watching. “He bleeds too much from little wounds,” I said, grabbin