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“You were amazing considering this is your first major competition.” He slung his arm around my shoulders. “They were only minor slips. We should still do pretty well. Don’t worry about it.”
We both knew that he was just being nice, but I wasn’t going to argue him out of his good mood. I swallowed down the lump of guilt that’d formed in my throat.
Beating myself up in front of him wouldn’t change my performance. It’d just make both of us feel worse. As long as he was putting on a hopeful front, I could do the same for him.
Niko’s bright smile shone at us from beyond the boards as if we’d been nothing but brilliant, and I could hear Emi letting out a few whoops as we reached the gap in the boards. But, just our luck, Quentin sauntered by right as we were easing off the ice.
“Isthatwhat we were supposed to be worried about? All I saw was a couple of screw-ups and a lot of fumbling. And here I thought you might at leasttryto give us a real challenge.”
“Go fuck yourself, Wolfe,” Jasper muttered under his breath, and tugged me over to Niko.
Our coach grabbed both of us in a hug. “You were fantastic. Don’t let the little things get you down. The judges will see through them. No one else has given them anything like that final sequence.”
I tried to absorb his confidence, but it couldn’t completely ease the tension in my gut. I found myself scanning the stands for the man with the orange hair and navy jacket. If I could spot him and confirm whether it was or wasn’t one of the Harvester’s thugs.
But I couldn’t make out the guy in the crowd. I wasn’t even sure which part of the stands I’d seen him in.
And he could already be moving—toward me, or toward Emi if the Harvester’s people had spotted her with me and the guys.
I barely heard the judges announce our score. Jasper let out a sigh that was mostly relief, but I thought it had a slight tinge of disappointment. “One hundred and two point four eight. That’s not bad at all.”
My head jerked around. “Didn’t the pair that went on second get a hundred and five? They were within a point of us after the short program. We’re already down to second place.”
Niko rubbed my back. “It’s fine. Still a very good showing for a qualifying round. And there are only a couple more pairs left to perform.”
“How high do we need to be to qualify for Finals?” I asked with a sinking stomach.
Jasper shrugged. “It’s all relative. Depends on the top scores from the other qualifying competitions. Usually second at any of them would be enough.”
He kept his tone casual, but his earlier good mood had vanished, his gray-green eyes turned solemn. I sank down on the bench, my shoulders slumping.
Niko pulled out his phone. “From what I recall, none of the other competitions elsewhere have shown stunning results. Let me look them up so we’ll have an idea where you rank overall.”
The couple on the ice right now weren’t particularly inspiring me with their pedestrian song choice or their sluggish movements, but it was hard to tell how much that was an objective evaluation and how much my own low spirits coloring my impressions.
I dragged in a breath and scanned the crowd again, keeping a particular eye around the section of the stands where Emi was leaning forward.
No one had moved toward her or us since we’d sat down. Everyone I looked at appeared to be focused on the skaters on the rink.
If the Harvester or his lackey Sheeran had wanted to make a point, wouldn’t they have gotten on with it by now? Really, it’d have made more sense for them to come at me before I’d had the chance to skate so they could ruin my chances.
I couldn’t totally regret my paranoia, though. Not when dismissing the flash of possible recognition could have cost me or one of my companions their life if things had gone in the opposite direction.
Jasper nudged me with his knee, and my haze of thoughts evaporated. “Looks like there’s only Quentin and what’s-her-name left.”
I made a face. “Not what I want to be looking at right now.”
“Hey, we can heckle them quietly between the two of us. That could be fun.”
I should have been relieved to hear Jasper talk about his rival so flippantly. But right then Quentin and Jess swaggered past us, Quentin shooting us a triumphant grin as if he’d already beat us and Jess pursing her lips in a mocking air kiss, and all I wanted to do was punch the both of them.
It was a hell of a lot easier to put on a good performance when you didn’t have to worry about murderous criminals.
I’d have liked to surreptitiously mock them with Jasper, but the moment their music started up, my body tensed up.
They’d gone ambitious even though they’d come to the Pairs competition late. The accompaniment they’d chosen was much quicker and more intense than what Jasper and I had picked. But they must have believed they could match the pace.
I’d already known that Quentin could handle the technically difficult moves, but it seemed I’d underestimated Jess. My jaw went a little slack watching them whip across the ice.
