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The message wasn’t from Mom but from Coach Balakin, the man I’d been about to drive to meet at the arena.
I’m sorry to end things like this, but I can’t watch you cling to this unfortunate dream any longer. You haven’t progressed to the level you’d need to truly compete, and I don’t think there’s any point in continuing to coach you. Let’s end this here, and you can move on to other dreams.
I stared at the sentences until they blurred together.
Rafael leaned toward me. “What’s the matter?”
“I—I don’t know. This doesn’t make sense.”
The bottom of my stomach had dropped out as I’d read Balakin’s dismissal, a burn of shame and frustration forming in the back of my throat.
He’d been my coach since I’d first started training seriously when I was five, and in some ways the message shouldn’t have been a surprise. He’d always said I wasn’t quite there yet, not quite skilled enough that there was any point in entering competitions.
At nineteen, my time to reach that point was running out.
But getting this message right now felt wrong. Just a couple of days ago, Balakin had pulled me aside and told me, in a weirdly urgent voice, that he thoughthewas holdingmeback from what I could really achieve. That maybe I should find a new coach who could let me really take flight.
He’d seemed so twitchy when he’d said it that I’d asked him if everything was okay, and he’d covered it up with a nervous-sounding chuckle. I’d had no idea how to take that statement.
It was the total opposite of what he was saying in this text, though.
I swallowed the lump of emotion that’d constricted my throat. “Something strange is going on. I need to talk to him properly.”
I tapped out a quick message telling Balakin to wait for me at the arena so I could hear him out and then shoved the phone back in my pocket.
The rest of Rafael’s expression stayed typically reserved, but something flashed in his eyes. “If he said something that upset you—”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that,” I insisted. “That’s why I’m going to find out exactly what he did mean. I don’t need you to protect me from my coach.”
Rafael’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t push. If Ihadneeded protection from the man I’d spent more time with than my own family for the past fourteen years, I had no doubt that my bodyguard would have leapt to my defense without a second’s hesitation.
I drove along the outskirts of Austin to the small arena where I’d done most of my training for years. It was safer going someplace that wasn’t very busy—easier for Rafael to keep an eye out for threats, less chance of anyone who might have a beef with my family even knowing I was there.
My body moved through the motions automatically. My heart was thumping heavily in my chest with a mix of apprehension and swelling grief.
What if the message was real? What if Balakin had just wanted to get out of coaching me without hurting my feelings the other day, and he’d been nervous because of how sick he was of trying to bring me up to par?
I gritted my teeth and focused on the road ahead. It didn’t help anything thinking like that.
All that mattered was what Balakin would say when I could look him in the eyes. If he really felt that way, then I’d accept it.
The parking lot outside the dingy arena building was empty other than Balakin’s blue Honda. At least he was here.
I hustled into the building, heading straight down the hall to the rink, where we usually met up. “Coach? I’m here. I don’t want to argue with you—I just—”
I stalled in my tracks a few feet from the scuffed boards that surrounded the ice. A stark red smear had just come into view, standing out against the pale surface beyond.
My pulse hiccupped. I threw myself the rest of the way to the boards.
My hands hit the plexiglass, and a cry burst from my throat.
Coach Balakin lay sprawled on the ice at the base of the boards, his head lolled to the side. His pale eyes stared blankly.
His sweater was drenched with blood from multiple stab marks that’d broken through the fabric. The crimson fluid splattered his hair—once blond and now pure silver—and the waxy-looking skin of his face.
Above his head, someone had streaked more blood across the ice to form the wordsDeath to the Rose.
“No,” I mumbled, as if I could argue my coach back to life. “No, no, no. Why would anyone—how could they—?”
