Exhaling sharply, he turned on his heel, pushing out of the bathroom and down the stairs. “We had a disagreement and we haven’t spoken since.”
“That’s nothing new. You disagree all the time.” I opened the front door, ushering him out. “Want me to follow you?”
“Nah. My car. This time it was different. He— I did something he didn’t like, and he had words to say. Why can’t the asshole just trust me when I say I know what the fuck I’m doing?”
“Uh…” Sliding into the passenger seat and tossing my backpack onto the seat behind me, I eyed his tense profile. “What did you do?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” He started up the engine, checking his mirrors before slamming his foot down on the accelerator. I jerked back, shooting him a warning look as he peeled away from the curb in a screech of tires.
“Watch it,” I snapped, and he eased up on the accelerator straight away, his hand coming down onto my thigh in a quick, light squeeze—a silent apology.
“It’s just…fucking Cross.” There was something else in his tone that had my radar pinging. A sense of guilt, almost. Shit, what had he done? If he wasn’t going to tell me, I’d have to get it out of Grayson.
We remained silent for the rest of the ride, both lost in our own thoughts. When we pulled into the rink parking lot, it was empty except for Gray’s teammate Miller exiting the lot in his SUV as we entered. Except—no, Grayson’s SUV was parked in the far corner, with Ava’s car next to his, both hidden in the rink’s shadow.
“Good. They’re both here,” I said.
“We were supposed to be coming to see your dad,” Cruz reminded me, bringing his car to a stop next to Grayson’s.
“Yeah, I’ll ask Gray if he seemed weird during practice.” Grabbing my bag from the back seat, I slid out of the car, waiting while Cruz locked up. His eyes met mine over the top of the car, and he blew me a kiss, which relieved me somewhat.
“C’mon. Let’s find our—” I paused. How did we define our relationship? “Our fucked-up little family,” I decided, and Cruz laughed.
“FULF,” he said, swatting my ass as we entered the building.
“I’m not sure that acronym’s gonna stick…”
My words died in my throat as his hand clamped over my mouth. Yanking me to a stop, he tugged me into him and put his mouth to my ear.
“What thefuckis that sound?”
My heart pounded out of my chest. I could feel Cruz’s heart pounding just as hard as mine.
“Gray. Ava,” I whispered as quietly as I could, and I felt him nod against me. Releasing me, he turned to the doors. I grabbedhis hand, needing the contact as we opened the doors to the ice rink.
A cold trickle of fear slid down my spine.
The rink was pitch black, and echoing around us, coming from all sides, playing in a loop, over and over again, was a voice. A girl’s voice, soft and eerie.
“One, two, I’m going to get you…”
21
AVA
“Son of a bitch.”
It was not the reaction I had expected from Grayson after our kiss. Now that I noted the change in his tone, I could also feel his body was stiff in my arms. I opened my eyes, and I didn’t see a thing. I couldn’t see a thing; the whole facility was pitch black.Okay, son of a bitch is right.
A chill ran down my spine as my eyes struggled to see a fleck of light.
“The emergency lights,” I whispered as I held on tighter to Grayson.
This was done intentionally because, in the event of power loss or another calamity, the emergency lights were set to activate and illuminate the arena.
“Who the fuck is there?” Grayson shouted.
We needed to move, but both of us were on skates, and even though we knew this rink well, we didn’t know if it was safe to move around freely. Darkness and skate blades were not a good combination.
