I can’t wait around for any of them. I have to get out of here. If, by some miracle, I take them all out, would Griff come with me? Not sure, but I am sure he won’t impede me. Before I can attack the one closest—the dean—I hear the familiarclick-clickof a firearm.
“Hands up,” Major Jarvis says, firearm pointed at me.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You’d shoot me?”
“If you attack the dean, I’ll make sure your hockey career is over.”
I slowly raise my hands. “Okay. Let’s just everyone chill.”
“On your knees.”
In front of everyone, I sink down, hands in the air. It’s humiliating. Griff watches, not saying a thing, and maybe that’swhat I’ll remember later, maybe that’ll make me come to my senses. Griff doesn’t want to be my brother anymore.
Big maybe on that, though.
Carter and Jarvis descend with handcuffs. They’re rough, yanking my arms, pushing at the wrist cuff to secure the cool metal. “Up,” Major Carter says.
“Looks like we need to tighten the reins again, son. Don’t worry, I won’t fail you this time. Take him to his room.”
My insides scream, but on the outside, I fake calm. I turn my head for a last glance at my brother. He holds himself rigid enough to look like he’s still, but the faint shaking in his jaw betrays him. The tears won’t stop no matter how much he wipes at them.
He doesn’t want this. He can’t want this.
26
RYAN
I’ve been under strict confinement since Tuesday. It’s Thursday. Conference Championship Weekend starts tomorrow. Here. Hockey is about the only thing I have right now, the only thing they haven’t taken away from me.
“We have to do something,” Becks says at dinner.
“What?” I snap, a bit crazed. Griff is gone. Fucking gone. “What are we supposed to do?”
He shuts his mouth because he knows we can do fuck all. I want to go back in time. It won’t change anything with my father, but maybe I can prevent Griffon from finding out the truth. He’d still consider me his brother. I’d tell Past Me not to be such a fucking hothead.
This all started because of Beckett in the first place. He talked me into that stupid game of murder hockey. Can I blame him for everything?
What did I end up with? I’m more of a prisoner than when I started. Tate probably likes me right here, on a doll shelf for when he wants to play. He even said he was glad about it. I thought he was just being … well, him. But maybe he meant it. It can’t be all that hard for him to get into North Point to tell me what the fuck’s going on. He’s done it so many times before.
When we’re released for the evening, my friends huddle around me, forming a protective barrier.
“We’re not letting them take you, too,” Beckett says. “Two of us will always be with you until this is over—and it will be fucking over, Rye.”
But when I turn off to head to the hallway that would take me to my room, they stop me and guide me to an empty classroom.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I hiss. “This is a great way to draw the wrong kind of attention to my ass.”
“Nah, bro,” is all Kane says.
We’re ground level, and there’s an open window. An officer who looks suspiciously like Ethan, with swelling tugging one eye narrower than the other, is on the outside, waving his hand in a gesture that means, “Get your fucking ass out here,now.”
I glance at my friends.
“Just go, we’ll cover for you,” Torin says.
Ethan marches me across campus as if he’s an officer taking me to detention, but instead of heading to the far fields, we head into the woods toward old access roads. There’s a patrol that goes through this area, but no high-level security checkpoints like where we do our tactical training. The dense terrain itself functions as natural security.
In other words, you have to be a crazy motherfucker to head into this area, especially at this time of night when the sun is going down.
