All Chapters of Faking It With Hockey Alpha: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Aurora.My father’s words landed like a physical blow, scattering every tidy memory I had preserved of my mother across the cold concrete floorboards. For twelve long years, I had believed she was just a gentle local news reporter who wrote human interest pieces about community gardens and lost her life in a tragic intersection accident on a rainy Tuesday afternoon.Now I was forced to reconcile that comfortable memory with a woman who vanished into thin air, returned three days later with golden light burning behind her pupils, and chose to take that secret to her grave without ever warning her own daughter about what was lurking in her blood.“What do you mean she vanished for three days?” I asked, stepping slightly away from Roland’s side so I could face Arthur directly, my voice shaking before I caught my breath to steady it. “Where did she go, Dad? Who took her?”Arthur’s shoulders slouched beneath his coat, his hands digging deep into his pockets as he stared at the dusty floorb

Aurora.I watched Roland’s hands tremble as he slowly unfolded the small piece of thick cream parchment, his knuckles turning chalk-white under the harsh, buzzing overhead lights.A single dark red smear caught the dim reflection near the corner of the paper, making my stomach drop into a dark, bottomless pit before he even read a single syllable out loud.I moved instinctively closer to his side, sliding my arm through his and pressing my shoulder firmly against his ribs, needing to absorb whatever shockwave was about to hit us. He didn’t pull away; his fingers twitched against the page, clinging to my presence like a lifeline in the middle of a collapsing storm.“Read it, Roland,” Adrian demanded, his voice strained and hollow as he stepped up beside us, his massive frame radiating a dangerous, frantic heat. “What does it say?”Roland swallowed hard, his throat working as his golden-tinged eyes swept back and forth across the crisp curs

Roland. I snatched the phone straight out of Aurora’s hand before her fingers could press the answer icon. Some raw, primal instinct inside me refused to let Victoria’s voice reach her directly without me standing between them first. I took a deep breath, fighting down the hot rage surging beneath my ribs and slid my thumb across the screen. I put the caller on speaker, holding the device between Aurora and me while my father and Arthur closed in around us in absolute silence. “Victoria,” I said, keeping my tone smooth and even, forcing a quiet composure I didn't feel in the slightest. “Roland! Thank goodness you finally picked up,” Victoria’s voice floated through the small speaker, bright, warm, and entirely normal. “I’ve been trying to reach you and Aurora for twenty minutes. The media outlet just dropped a draft of the morning press release an

Aurora. The heavy, dead silence that followed Adrian’s brutal confession felt as though all the air had been sucked straight out of the service tunnel. Roland stood entirely frozen beside me, his jaw slack and his golden eyes staring at his father like the concrete floor had dissolved right out from under his boots. Everything he had believed about his duty, his family and the terrifying shadow of Magnus hunting us all season had just been exposed as a grotesque performance staged by his own blood. My phone vibrated violently against my palm a second time, the sharp buzzer cutting through the thick shock like a rusty blade. I looked down at the pale screen, reading the text twice before the words actually registered in my numb brain. It wasn’t a threat, nor was it another cold demand from Victoria’s usual contact number. It was a precise set of geographic coordinates followed by a t

Aurora. A surge of fury roared through my veins as I stared at Victoria standing composed in the center of the armed squad. She looked entirely untouched by the night’s violence, her beige trench coat without a single speck of dust while Eleanor’s life was hanging in the balance somewhere across the city.  The urge to storm forward and demand answers clawed at my throat, but the sudden, rigid tightness around her eyes stopped the sharp words before they could leave my lips. It wasn’t the cold triumph of a villain backing us into a corner; it was the quiet, hollow exhaustion of a woman who had been carrying a crushing weight for far too long. “Stand down,” Victoria ordered, her voice cutting through the hum of the garage with sharp, undeniable authority. “Lower your weapons.” For a long, agonizing beat, nobody moved in the bright glar