Page 44 of Shots & Echoes

Iris stared up at me, green eyes burning with defiance, that fucking fire flickering behind them. She didn’t just push—she fought. She hit nerves I thought were long since dead, buried under years of bitterness and regret.

And I felt every goddamn strike.

“You don’t get it,” I bit out, voice low, lethal. “You’ve never had to fight for your fucking spot.”

Her chin lifted, sharp and defiant. And then—she stepped into me.

Right up in my space, like she belonged there.

Like she wasn’t afraid.

“You think I don’t fight?” she shot back, her breath uneven but her voice steady, a live wire of fury.

We were chest to chest now. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off her, close enough that if I so much as twitched, I’d be on her.

“You think I don’t deserve this?” she demanded.

I let out a sharp breath, a dark chuckle rolling off my tongue. “I think you’re a spoiled little golden girl who’s never had to prove a damn thing.”

Her eyes flared with something dangerous. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t back down. She just burned hotter.

“I think you’ve had everything handed to you.” The words dripped from my lips like venom, meant to cut, meant to make her break.

And for a split second—I saw it.

The crack.

A flicker of something deep beneath all that fire, something real.

But then—she slammed the armor back into place.

“Everything?” she hissed, voice tight, vibrating with barely contained emotion. “You have no idea what I’ve sacrificed.”

The air between us thickened, suffocating, electric, a live fucking grenade waiting to detonate. And despite the fury clawing up my spine—I wanted to see her break it first. Wanted to see if she’d shatter. Or if she’d fucking fight me harder.

She shoved me—harder than she had to. Not enough to move me, but enough to make her point. Enough to make my blood fucking burn.

“Screw you, Callahan.”

I didn’t move back. Couldn’t. Not when I felt that fire in her words, the heat rolling off her like a goddamn furnace.

“You don’t get to decide what I’ve earned,” she snapped, voice sharp as a skate blade cutting across ice.

My hand shot out, fingers closing around her wrist before I even thought about it. Not rough. Not to hurt. Just to stop her.

And the second I did—the whole world fucking shifted.

The background noise of the rink faded, the weight room, the buzzing lights—all of it disappeared.

Just me. Just her. Just this.

Her pulse pounded against my grip, fast and erratic—matching the wild beat hammering in my chest. She wasn’t just angry. She was alive with it.

And I felt it too.

Felt it in the heat licking up my spine. In the sharp, shallow breaths between us. In the way she wasn’t pulling away.

She was waiting.