No breath. No oxygen. That’s what being trapped here is.
I’m in the tank again.
I gasp, clutching my chest, looking around. I’m outside in the sluggish air. Sweat has become another layer of my skin. I wish the dark clouds that have been threatening to open all afternoon would. For once, not even Kane is in detention with me. It’s just one of this season’s rookies and me. I haven’t been the best team captain this year with all the shit that’s been going on. I’m tempted to ask him how he’s doing, check in as I usually would.
But it’s better I don’t talk. The only thing getting me through is going over plays in my head as extra prep for conference finals.
It begins as a low thud-thud, thud-thud, and then it gets louder. Someone, decked in camo, runs toward us. “Ryan! Ryan!”
Scout. Torin’s younger brother. He’s not even using the proper form of address in front of an officer.
My heart pounds against my ribcage.
He bends over, sucking wind, unsteady. “Dad. Your dad. Griff,” he forces out.
“What’s going on here, Cadet S. Ackerman?” Officer Carter says, walking over from where he was supervising.
“Just go, Ryan. Dean’s office.”
I drop my shovel.
“Don’t you dare, Cadet Savage. You haven’t been dismissed.”
Huh, I’ve never actually run away from an officer giving an order. Kane has a few times. This is my first.
Feels good.
Caked with mud and sweat, I make it to the dean’s office as my father, Griff, and Kline exit.
Kline?
Did he escape? No, he couldn’t have. The only way he was getting out of Tate’s dungeon was if Tate let him out. Why the fuck would he let Kline go?
He’s got a long scar across his face, crudely healed thanks to my husband.
“What’s going on?” I demand.
“Not the time, Ryan,” Father says, turning. Holy shit. His face. What the fuck happened to it? The swollen skin around his eye is bruised a nasty purple, nose a little crooked. He looks like he had a run-in with a grizzly bear or a hockey player.
“The fuck it isn’t. Griff.”
Griff shakes his head. But I’ve been doing what he wanted all fucking semester, even though it felt wrong, and I’m tired of it.
“I have help for us, Griff. You don’t have to go with them. Come with me.”
Two more emerge from the dean’s office. Dean Soloyov, who’s just behind … what the fuck? I look between Griff and the other guy. I’m seeing fucking double. The other guy is a much thinner, paler version, but otherwise, a replica of Griff.
“Ryan, meet your other half-brother—Cooper,” Kline says, voice raspy. May his vocal cords never recover from whatever Tate did to him.
Wait, Cooper? As in Cooper Kline, the guy Gideon is high-key stalking?
I’m gonna pass out.
I look into Griff’s green eyes. They’re filled with some angsty hybrid of worry, regret, and shame. But not surprise.
“Did you know?”
He nods.
