Page 175 of Filled

“Don’t come. Please.” His voice breaks on theplease, and Cruz Bennett’s voice doesn’t break. Ever. “Victor was here. He saw all of us. The way we were with her, the way we were with Brady. Man, there was no hiding it, we didn’t even try. If you show up in the middle of the night, an ex-coach who resigned two weeks ago, running to her? That’s it. That’s the whole story confirmed, no deniability left for any of us. Your resignation bought us a chance. You walking through those doors burns it.”

I stand in my kitchen with my keys biting into my palm. Dakota faced her abuser with a knife in her home, and Brady bled for her, and I’m across town in an empty apartment being noble.

Noble. What a useless word.

“Is she really okay?” I ask.

“She took him apart. I had to pull her off him because she was about to choke him to death.” A shaky laugh. “You trained her well, Coach.”

I didn’t train her to face him alone. I trained her so she’d never have to.

“Keep me updated,” I say. “Every hour if you have to. I don’t care what time.”

“I will. And Eli?” He hasn’t called me that in weeks. Coach, always Coach, even in bed. “She asked for you. First thing, when the adrenaline dropped. She asked where you were.”

He hangs up before I can answer. Which is a mercy, because I don’t have one.

I put the keys back on the hook. Then I pick them up again. Then I put them back.

The updates come in fragments through the small hours. Dakota and Brady have been released from Mercy. Gerald’s arraignment is set for morning and the DA is pushing to deny bail, flight risk, history of violence, the works. Each messagearrives from Cruz’s number and each one is a door I can’t walk through.

The sun comes up around six, gold and pink crawling across walls I’ve stared at for two weeks. I watch the light change and catalog everywhere I should be. Holding Dakota while the shaking works its way out of her. Checking Brady’s bandages while he tells me to quit hovering and leans into my hand anyway.

Instead I’m here. Protecting them by abandoning them. The math made sense two weeks ago, now it doesn’t.

I try to eat. The eggs go cold on the plate. I try to sleep. Every time my eyes close, there’s a knife in a dark apartment and I’m too far away to matter.

When the monster from her childhood came through her door, the man who taught her was lying in bed thirty minutes across town, being careful.

Around noon, a text from a number I don’t recognize.

It’s D. Borrowed phone. Everyone’s at Cruz’s. She’s finally sleeping, on the couch between Cruz and Brady. Bail denied. He’s held till trial.

I exhale for what feels like the first time since 3 AM.

42

DAKOTA

Water drips from my hair down the back of my shirt, cold trails that I don’t bother wiping away. The locker room door swings shut behind me and Victor is standing in the hallway like he’s been waiting.

“You got a minute?”

I nod because my voice left somewhere between Eli’s resignation text two weeks ago and the hospital waiting room last night.

I follow him to his office and sit in the chair across from his desk.

He doesn’t speak right away. He studies me with those dark eyes. I resist the urge to squirm. I know what he’s seeing. I saw it in the mirror this morning and looked away. “Ray stopped your session early.”

“I know.”

Victor blows air through his nose. “You dropped your hands three times in one round. You ate a jab from a girl you’d normally see coming from across the room.”

“I know.”

“Cruz came in smelling like whiskey he thinks he covered with mouthwash. Brady’s throwing himself through warm-upslike he wants to tear something. Dante hasn’t said a full sentence in weeks. Two fighters asked me if he’s sick.”

I stare at the edge of his desk. There’s a coffee ring there, I focus on it because focusing on Victor’s face feels like standing in front of a firing squad.