Chapter 2

The next morning, I went to the training center to file the Skating Sectionals paperwork.

I was halfway down the corridor when I saw them. Silas with Lyla on his arm.

Lyla spotted me first. She flinched and ducked behind his shoulder.

"Silas, I'm scared."

He stepped in front of her like a wall.

"Maeve. Don't start."

I went to walk around him. He caught my wrist.

"What is your problem? Lyla didn't do anything to you. None of this was her call. Why do you have to make a scene?"

I yanked my arm back.

"Let me go."

People in the hall were starting to look.

Lyla's eyes filled up right on cue. She slipped out from behind Silas and took a step toward me.

"Maeve. I'm so, so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. If you need to hit someone, hit me. I deserve it."

She came closer with her chin raised. Silas grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against his chest.

"Look at her," he said to me, low and furious. "Look at what you're doing to her. I never thought you could be this cruel, Maeve."

The whispers started.

"That's her. The skating club's part-time girl."

"Wait, isn't she the one who lost the grant?"

"Lost it to Lyla, yeah. Honestly, look at her face. Total ice queen. No wonder he got tired."

"Lyla's literally an angel. I'd pick her too."

I didn't look at any of them. I kept my eyes on Silas.

"I said, let me go."

He didn't move but shoved me.

I stumbled back and hit the row of lockers behind me. My shoulder blades cracked against the metal.

I stayed there for a second, my back against the lockers, looking up at him.

He was looking right back at me. There was nothing in his face. No flicker. Nothing.

We grew up together. He was ten when his family sent him out from New York.

His first week in the town, he picked a fight with three older boys behind the rink and was getting his teeth kicked in when I came around the corner.

I held up a sharpened blade in my hand. They ran.

After that, he followed me everywhere. When a boy at school bullied me, Silas put him on the ground.

"Maeve. I've got you. Always."

"We're getting out of this town. Both of us. Training Center, Olympics, the whole thing. You and me."

And now he was in front of me with another girl tucked against his ribs, and he had just put me into a wall.

Lyla started to cry harder.

"Silas, please, let's just go. It's my fault. All of this is my fault."

He turned his head and kissed her hair.

"It's not your fault. None of it is."

He gave me one last look — a warning, and walked her past me down the hall.

I stayed against the lockers until I could breathe again.

The office was at the end of the corridor. On the way I passed the Featured Athletes wall.

Lyla's photo was right in the center, bigger than the others. Underneath, in clean black letters:

Promising young talent overcoming hardship. A story of resilience.

I looked at it for a second and laughed bitterly.

I remembered one night, I came back to the skate shop after a late training session.

My dad was waiting in the parking lot. He smelled like whiskey from ten feet away.

"Where's the money?"

I didn't answer. I tried to walk past him to the door.

He grabbed my hair and slammed me face-first into the side of the building.

"I'm talking to you. Are you deaf in both ears now?"

"There isn't any money."

"Bullshit. That Kensington kid throws cash around like it's nothing, and you're up his ass twenty-four seven. You telling me you can't squeeze a few hundred out of him for your old man?"

He hit me across the face.

"You holding out on me? Hiding it somewhere? Huh?"

He started patting me down, yanking at my pockets. I shoved him off.

That was the wrong move. He kicked me in the stomach so hard I went down on the asphalt.

"You ungrateful bitch. You're just like your mother. Trash, both of you."

He went looking for something heavier. A tire iron, a piece of pipe, I didn't see what.

That was when Silas's car pulled into the lot.

He was out before the engine stopped. He put my dad on the ground in two moves and pulled me up off the asphalt.

His hands went over my face, my arms, my ribs, checking.

"Where did he hit you? Maeve. Where?"

I couldn't answer. He took off his own jacket and put it around my shoulders.

"It's okay. I'm here. I've got you."

He didn't go home that night. He sat on the busted couch in the back of the shop until morning.

The next day he walked into the police station and didn't leave until they had my dad in a holding cell.

When he came back, he sat down next to me and said,

"I'm taking care of you from now on. You don't have to worry about anything. Ever."

I'd actually believed him.