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"You didn't stretch."

"I stretched."

"You didn't wake me up."

"You needed to sleep." He reaches out and pushes my hair off my forehead. His fingers are warm. "You slept."

I did. I don't remember the last time I slept like that. Like somebody turned off a switch.

I remember last night. Some of it. Coming in at three. Make me forget. His hand on my face, and his voice saying I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, over and over, until I believed it.

"Sorry," I say. "About last night. I wasn't—I was a mess."

"Don't."

"I broke the rule. You asked and I didn't⁠—"

"Theo." He leans in and kisses my forehead. "Don't."

He gets up. He pulls on a T-shirt. He's moving strange, careful, like a guy carrying a tray of glasses.

"What?" I say.

"Nothing." He doesn't look at me. "Game day. You should eat."

Halvorsen calls me at twelve-thirty.

Not a text. A call. Halvorsen doesn't call anybody. He thinks phones are for emergencies and grandchildren.

"Lindqvist. My office. Now, please."

Please.

I'm in his office in fifteen minutes. He's sitting behind his desk with his reading glasses folded in front of him, and he looks like he hasn't slept either.

"Sit," he says.

I sit.

He looks at me across the desk. On the whiteboard behind him, there's tonight's lineup. My name's still on the second line. There's no skull next to it anymore.

"Dane came to see me this morning," he says. "At my house. At six-fifteen."

I don't understand at first. I just sit there.

"He told me about the room at Harrow before the third period," Halvorsen says. "What Marrack said to you. He told me about a meeting Marrack had with his team this week. About Vasko and Brandt."

The room goes very cold.

"I made some calls," Halvorsen says. "Quiet ones. I talked to the commissioner, off the record. I haven't filed anything. I won't file anything without you." He leans forward. "But I need you to know where this is, son. Because it's not just in your hands anymore. And that's not my doing."

I'm not breathing.

He told. He told. And he couldn't have known about Cole. About Mikey. About the meeting in the video room. I never told him. I never said a word about Cole's texts.

My phone. On the floor, last night. Next to his. Same black case.

I never lock it.