Page 15 of Blade

Ana looked at the man in the stands. The work they did in his office was covered in Chapter 12. “Turning Flight to Fight.”

“Go on,” Dawn said. “Take off your skates and meet with Dr. Westin. When he says you’re ready, we’ll try again.”

Ana felt a wave of electricity fly through her body. “No!” she said again. “I can do it.”

And with that, Ana skated out into the session, the adrenaline surging, tears forming in the corners of her eyes, screaming at herself,Just do it! You’re such a baby!

And she was a baby, crawling into Indy’s bed. Missing home after swearing she wouldn’t. Slowing down at the takeoff. But this—nothing was worse than losing a lesson.

She could feel the eyes on her, the other skaters, the mothers in the stands, as she picked up speed and hugged the boards all the way around to the other end.

Past Indy and Coach Emile, she cut into the center. Past Kayla, who slowed down to watch as she moved onto a left outside edge.Don’t slow down ... fight the fear.

Jolene was watching, too, as Ana made a three turn, then jammed her toe pick into the ice ...Don’t hold back...fight the fear... pulling in tight, arms crossed at her chest, right leg tucked behind the left. The blur, a split second,Don’t be a baby...you’re a freaking baby!

And then—no! It wasn’t there, the height, she felt it like an instinct, but she had to make it around. She tucked her legs higher, squeezed them tighter as she descended, every muscle turning to the left, until she felt her right blade slam into the ice and pop her backward, onto her tailbone, so hard she thought it must have shattered.

And as she lay there, taking in the shock, she heard a clap and a holler. “That was it!” Dawn yelled. “Three rotations!” Before she could get up, Dawn was there, looking down at her with a giant smile and a hand reaching for hers.

“That’s not the right way—you know that—but you made it around,” she said. “Come on—I’ll show you the marks.”

The marks on the ice—the takeoff and where she came down, on a straight backward edge, her body twisted, the edge unsustainable, but evidence of the full rotation.

Then a hug, so tight, and the words that hugged her tighter.

“I’m proud of you,” Dawn said. Then, without even a beat, “And I’m sorry about your mother.” The messages bleeding together to form just one. She was sorry about the malignant lesion in her mother’s head. But if that drove Ana to cry in closets and not hurl herself higher into the air, her dream would die, and all of this would have been for nothing.

She felt Dawn’s words leave her mind and burrow deep inside her, in her gut, where she suddenly felt a rush of something good, for a change. Something euphoric. And she wanted to wrap her arms around it and never let it go.

I’m proud of you.

No more tears,Ana thought.You big fucking baby.

Chapter Six

Ana

Now

I lie in bed early in the morning, staring at the ceiling as the memories play. I see the ice at The Palace, the way it was in the summer months, softer, slower. How my blades would disappear through the shallow puddles that remained after it was cleaned. I hear Mio explaining about the humidity in the air and how the water takes longer to freeze again after the Zamboni melts the top layer, evening out the grooves.

I see Avery Hall and the other Orphans. Jolene with her red hair and pink warm-up jacket. Pink lip gloss. Pink everything. Agirlie girl, Kayla would call her, sometimes with affection. Other times like an accusation.

And Indy. She comes to me in flashes of bright eyes and long, powerful legs that stroke around the bend of the rink like they’re separate from the rest of her. Like her upper body is attached to an engine.

Flashes, too, of her sadness and the defiance it bred. How I could feel it rise and fall in her chest as I lay beside her while she slept. Heaving in and out, breath that sometimes carried a faint moan. A cry. A longing to leave this place.

But it is Emile who steals this show that plays in my mind.

Emile—standing by the boards next to Dawn. I can almost see him here, in this room I’ve never been in before. And then, finally, lying in the field on a slab of frozen blood. Four strikes to his head from the heel of a blade.

I shake it off—grab a sweater and wool socks, and go to the kitchen.

No—I won’t let the past break through walls I built long ago. I won’t. I’m stronger than that.

My thoughts turn to my work, to the other children and crimes that have crept beneath my skin. The most tragic. The most preventable. The most shocking transformations from innocence to violence. Young lives hobbled before they could begin. There’s always a reason. Abused, misused, neglected.

The clock is ticking, I remind myself. I need to focus. Be strategic. Treat this like any other case.