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Just how bad could this situation get before we could say goodbye to the Devil’s Dozen forever?
TEN
Quentin
I couldn’t restraina low whistle as I followed Lou and Jasper into the fancy-pants new arena where they’d scored a private slot for the first time today. “And I thought the other place was nice. This is a top-level rink.”
Jasper shouldered me teasingly. “Hope you’re not too intimidated.”
I guffawed. “Oh, I’ll rise to the challenge, no problem.” I cracked my knuckles and put on my best confident face even though my heart wasn’t totally in it.
It was important to keep practicing. I wanted to be ready to blow everyone away when the next competition cycle started. But it was hard to throw myself onto the ice with full enthusiasm when I was surrounded by skaters who were getting to show off their skills on a stage I hadn’t earned the right to.
Next year. Next year I’d make it to Worlds again. Anyway, I still didn’t have total flexibility in my arm after the bullet wound that’d mostly healed. It was better to take things a little easy while I had the chance.
I’d just have to keep reminding myself of that.
The coach and skaters who’d had the slot before ours were just wrapping up on the ice. Lou and Jasper fell into a conversation about their twist lift, but when one of the guys stepped off the ice, Jasper waved to him. “Good practice, Andrews?”
The skater, who I vaguely recognized from the British team, shot him a jaunty grin in return. “Hopefully better than yours will be.”
Lou tsked her tongue at him, her eyes gleaming. “Those sound like fighting words.”
“It’ll be a battle on the ice!” Andrews declared, chucking off his skates. As he wiped the blades, he glanced over at me and offered a more reserved dip of his head. “Wolfe, right? Quentin Wolfe?”
“Yeah,” I said, and then just sat there awkwardly. We’d never really talked before—I wasn’t sure we’d ever had much chance to. And Jasper had already asked the most obvious small-talk question.
The other guy loped by to the locker rooms before I needed to polish up my conversational skills. I guessed it wasn’t really surprising that he hadn’t tried to chum up with me. It wasn’t as if I’d been particularly friendly with most of my competition over the past several years.
Withanyof my competition, really. Even the guy I knew who was training in Nagano and had helpfully sent me that video of the Russian pair I could only really call an acquaintance. I was pretty sure he was more sucking up to me as a guy he saw as having good connections rather than wanting to show his appreciation for me as a person.
That was fine. There was nothing wrong with being practical—the skating world could be a cutthroat place.
But not as cutthroat as the world Lou had come from. As she and Jasper eased onto the ice, I looked down at the skates I’d only finished loosening the laces on and then across the stands.
Rafael was prowling around somewhere nearby. The current police escort of two cops were stationed in the stands. Neither of those facts stopped a prickle of apprehension from creeping down my back.
My practicing didn’t matter that much. If anything interfered with Lou’s… I hadn’t taken this fucking gunshot for her harpy of a mother to ruin her chances now.
“I’m going to grab a drink from the vending machine,” I called to Niko, who was standing near the boards. He gave me a salute, and I used the excuse to justify heading out into the hall for a brief prowl of my own. Call it a very basic warm-up to stretch my legs.
I didn’t see anyone lurking in the arena’s halls—or walking normally, either, other than when the last slot’s skaters pushed out the doors right before I returned to the rink area. Their upbeat chatter trailed after me until the door thumped shut in their wake.
On the ice, Lou and Jasper were running through that twist lift, Lou spiraling in the air over Jasper’s arms. I paused for a second, catching my breath at the spectacle.
Her mother was an idiot as well as a harpy. Even a total imbecile should be able to see this woman was meant to skate.
And I should be skating too. Trying to skate off the restlessness that was still gnawing at me, I sat down to pull on my skates, only for my phone to buzz with an insistent vibration.
Maybe it was my not-quite-friend in Nagano with more inside info. I dug the phone out of my pocket and checked the number, but I didn’t recognize it. But then, I couldn’t remember if I’d bothered to save him in my Contacts.
With Lou and Jasper’s music bouncing off the high ceiling, carrying on a conversation in here would be a pain. I jogged back to the doors and slipped out into the hall before answering.
“Hello?”
A sharp, all-too-familiar voice penetrated my eardrum even though it sounded a little tinny with distance. “There you are, Quentin. Don’t you dare get off the phone.”
My heart lurched. Shit. After all the turmoil it’d taken to finally block Mom’s number, it’d never occurred to me to worry that she might borrow a phone or pick up a new one to hassle me from.
