Page 45 of Ricochet
“Nah.” He stretches, and I can’t keep my gaze from driftingover the rippling muscles in his back. “I have a good feeling about the game tonight.”
“You must still be drunk,” I mutter as I stand back up and slip my hoodie on over my head. Grabbing my bag, I head for the door. “See you downstairs. Hurry the fuck up.”
As it is, I’ll be right on time to meet everyone down at the bus, so Callum’s definitely going to be late. I never imagined him as an oversleeper. He usually beats me to class, and he’s always on time for our morning strength and conditioning training. I guess I just got the feeling that being on time was part of his personality. But he sure was sleeping fuckinghard.
Maybe he did get drunk last night.
Then again, I’m not one to talk. His coping mechanisms are probably healthier than mine.
Not that I have any regrets.
I needed that last night. I might not have been surprised by our loss, but I was still pissed off after. Mostly at myself. So I left and directed that rage at someone else.
When that man touched me to check for wires, my skin crawled. When he told me about his very lucrative business with the illegal kind of porn he runs on the dark web that he thought I wanted to get in on too, bile rose in my throat. Every time he laughed about the pain and fear he’s inflicted, I imagined making him choke on his own cock after I cut it off.
But when my knife sliced through layers of skin and muscle and organ tissue?
Fuck. Everything was right with the world.
Lacey always excels at finding the most secluded spots for me to conduct my…work. I’m grateful for it beyond the obvious. It gives me the time I crave to revel in the silence. Just like with my ritual of skating alone before practice or a pre-game warm-up when I can manage, that silenceafterthe chaos and the violence of a kill is just as precious to me.
After my first three kills when I was seventeen, I realized taking life didn’t affect me like I knew it’s supposed to.
I felt no guilt or shame or remorse.
Ilikedit.
Lacey believes it’s just the doling out of justice that I seek, of righting wrongs, being a wielder of karma. Taking vengeance into my own hands for those who can’t. And, sure, that’s certainly part of it. But there’s more to it that I’ll never admit to her.
I don’t like the idea of taking an innocent life, and I have no intentions of doing so. Killing vile, perverted scumbags keeps my beast satiated. Mostly.
After the beast got what it wanted, I cleaned myself and my knife in the water, disposed of my shirt, and put on the clean one I had stashed in my bag before I headed back to the hotel. When I found Callum fast asleep and that bag of Funyuns on my bed, it felt like a peace offering. I felt like shit for treating him the way I had earlier that day.
He confuses the hell out of me.
Even more so after that look he gave me when he first woke up.
Does he really have a good feeling about the game tonight?
Or is he just trying to get my hopes up only to smash them later out of revenge?
When we come out ofthe tunnel at Massachusetts’s arena, Coach is already on the ice, talking to someone who’s standing on the other side of the wall in front of the bench. The stranger is in street clothes—jeans and a Monarchs hoodie. His cheeks are flushed, his blonde hair shining beneath the stadium lights.
“Thanks for showing up, ladies,” Coach says like he didn’t arrive on the bus with us.
“Eric?”
I turn toward Callum who’s beaming at this new guy. He pushes his way past Nate and Brooks, and he and…Eric, apparently…embrace in a tight hug, Callum slapping him on the back with his glove.
Easy, beast.
Before I can stop myself, I ask, “You know him?”
Callum steps back and peers over his shoulder at me like he can’t be bothered to give me his full attention. “He was on the junior hockey team at our high school. We played a year together before I was moved up to varsity.”
“Oh, right.” Looking back at Eric,nowI recognize him. “You took my spot after I graduated.”
“That’s right,” Eric says, and he better hope that smug tone is all in my head.