Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 51 - Chapitre 60

Chapter Fifty-One - Pest Control"How do I know you're not lying to me about the video? Maybe you just want a reason to harass me like you always do," I say, crossing my arms."You're not that relevant, sweetheart.""Show me the video then," I say, because I refuse to believe a single word he's told me without proof.Zane holds out his phone without getting up, arm stretched lazily across my sleeping bag like this is the most natural thing in the world. I take it with two fingers, the way you'd take something that might bite.The video is already on the screen. An account I've never heard of, rivalrytea, four hundred followers up to almost forty thousand in an hour. The thumbnail is a blurry frame of firelight and a blonde girl with her shirt halfway over her head. The caption says: west rivers cheer captain begging for it at 5am 😭 the way he said noUnder it there are already nine thousand comments.I watch about four seconds before I have to look away. Kenzie's voice, thin and desp

Chapter Fifty-Two - Season OpenerPriya doesn't talk to me for four days after camp.That's fine. I don't particularly want to talk to her either, not with the memory of her face going carefully blank in that tent, not with the screenshot of posting now, don't tell anyone it's me still burned into the back of my eyes every time I close them. I never confronted her outright. I didn't need to. She knows I know, the way you know a storm's coming by the pressure change in the air, and she's spent the last four days keeping a careful, wary distance, sitting one row back at practice, not quite meeting my eyes.I unblocked Zane the day we got back from camp. I don't examine that decision too closely. I just did it, thumb hovering for exactly four seconds before I tapped it, and then I set my phone face down and didn't check it again for an hour, like that would somehow prove something to myself.He hasn't texted.Four days of silence, same as before, except this time it's different, this tim

Chapter Fifty-Four - AdmissionsHe doesn't drive toward my house."Um, we just passed my house", I say, watching the familiar turns of my own house slide past the window in the wrong order."Your parents' cars aren't in the driveway.""How would you even know that?""I drove past on my way to your school earlier. Both gone." He doesn't look at me, eyes fixed on the road, jaw still set in that same tight line from the parking lot. "Not leaving you alone in an empty house after what just happened.""I'm not made of glass, Zane.""Didn't say you were." He pulls into his own driveway a minute later, cutting the engine. "Get out of the car.""Bossy.""Efficient." He's already out, rounding to my side before I've even unbuckled, and I roll my eyes at him through the windshield, though something in my chest loosens slightly at the sight of him actually waiting.Delphine's not home either, the house dark and quiet when we walk in, and Zane heads straight for the kitchen without asking if I wa

Chapter Fifty-Six - Picture, Picture on the WallI wake up to unfamiliar light, wrong angle, wrong ceiling, and for one disorienting second my heart absolutely rockets into my throat, panic flooding cold through my whole body before the details slot into place. Dark walls. That framed photo on the desk. The lingering smell of him on the pillow beside me.Zane's.I exhale, dragging a hand down my face, the panic softening into something warmer as last night comes back in pieces, the chase through the house, the blindfold, the ice rink, his jersey still hanging off one shoulder where it slipped in my sleep.The other side of the bed is empty.I sit up, glancing around, half expecting him to walk out of a bathroom or reappear from somewhere in the room, but the space stays quiet, just me and rumpled sheets and his phone charger still plugged in on the nightstand. I grab my own phone off the floor where it fell out of my pocket at some point last night, and pad barefoot out into the hallw

Chapter Fifty-Eight - Little Doubting PrincessI find Maddox by the equipment room after practice, and I don't waste time with pleasantries."What type of game are you playing?"I ask.He looks behind me and behind him as if to make sure he's the one I'm talking to."Hello ?" I snap my fingers in his face."Oh sorry just making sure crazy Volkov is not lurking anywhere near.""Don't even. You tried to hurt me--""And you're not scared to come to me again because?""Because I need answers.""What answers ?""I need to show you something."He straightens from where he's leaning against the wall, something cautious flickering across his face. "Okay."I hold up my phone, the photo still pulled up from this morning, and watch his expression carefully as he looks at it, searching for any flicker of guilt, any sign that he already knows exactly what he's looking at."That's you and Volkov. Cute and looking like a couple.""I'm aware.""Someone sent you this?""This morning. Anonymous number.