Page 89 of The Pucking Coach's Daughter

He hangs up just as the light over my head flickers and goes out.

The whole row does.

I stare at my phone in shock. I know more than I think? I know more about him than he’s let on? That all but confirms he knows who I am in real life—and it still leaves me in the dark.

Both metaphorically, and now, literally.

There’s still light coming from my left, where the ramp comes down from the next level up. I hurry in that direction, heading up the incline toward the glowing red exit sign.

Someone steps out from between two cars ahead of me.

I stop short. It isn’t that I’m surprised to see someone else. It’s that they’re not moving toward the exit like me. They stop in the middle of the aisle facing me. They’re wearing all black, shadows clinging to them in the darkness. Their hood is up, hiding their face.

They slowly remove a hand from their pocket, and with a flick of their wrist, a blade appears in their hand. It catches the faint light from the other level.

Clear threat.

Nope.

I turn and run.

twenty-six

sydney

I rush away from the armed stranger, back down the way I came with my friends. I swing around the corner, into the lit section.

His footsteps are right behind me.

I make it down another straight section before he catches me. He grabs the back of my hoodie and slows me down, then swings me sideways into the back of a car. I catch myself, gasping in shock, and twist sharply.

His hold—they’re a him for sure—is ripped away, but I only make it three more steps before he’s on me again.

This time we go down in a tumble. He lands on top of me, his knees on either side of my hips. He drags my head up by my hair, and the cool edge of the blade presses to my throat. He climbs off of me and gets me up, first to my knees and then standing.

He directs me back up into the shadowed part, pushing me between cars.

I don’t breathe.

“Such a valiant fight,” he whispers in my ear.

Carter.

The knife blade pricks at my skin. He drags his free hand through my hair, tossing it over my shoulder, and his lips touch the crook of my neck a second later.

Doesn’t matter that he’s still got the knife against my throat, that he could cut me at any second.

“Undo your jeans,” he orders.

I inhale.

“Now.”

I do it. My fingers tremble on the button, but I get it free and drag the zipper down. He keeps kissing my neck, moving up higher to just behind my ear.

“Sweatshirt off.”

He backs up long enough for me to tear it off and drop it on the hood of the car next to us.