Page 33 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Arianna

The next day was uneventful, and I found myself hurrying through it.

After lunch, I had Marcus’ class. I sat at the lunch table with Bill, Wade, Sally, and Kenna, trying to keep up with their conversation while my mind kept drifting to last night and whatever had made Marcus’ signature amusement fade from his face.

“Did you hear that? When you get famous, I want to be your agent, then I’ll leave Hade Harbor and all of you behind and never give you a second thought.”

An elbow in the side alerted me to the fact that my friends were speaking to me.

“I’m sorry, what? Who is getting famous?”

Sally smiled. “You are! If you move to LA, let me live in your pool house.”

I gaped uncomprehendingly at her.

“She doesn’t need to move to LA to be a famous musician. She can live in NYC,” Kenna argued.

She popped a fry in her mouth, and when I tilted my head at her questioningly, nodded to Bill.

“He recorded your performance yesterday and put it on the school socials… It’s been blowing up. You’re a viral sensation.”

Cold dread slowly sank through me. I reached out and took the phone that Sally was holding out.

“I thought it might inspire some of our erstwhile students to practice more! I had no idea that it would gain so much traction.” Bill smiled at me. “Enjoy it, though, you deserve it.”

I watched the video. There I was, sitting at the piano, and there was Marcus, bending over me, seeming to fuss with the sheet music. The rest was hidden. Then, the playing started. I checked the views. It was already heading toward a million.

I clicked the comments and stiffened.

This woman is a star, where has she been hiding?

She’s amazing! I want a whole album of this.

Then I saw it. The kind of comment I dreaded.

Hey, swear I know that woman! She looks like Arianna Spencer—she was the one to watch in her graduating class, but she dropped off the face of the Earth. I guess she’s a teacher now.

I stared at Bill, aghast.

“What? Don’t you like it? It’s exciting,” Wade said.

I gripped my shaking hands together tightly.

I’d always known I couldn’t hide forever.

I’d had to get a job at some point. I had to work, to eat, to live.

There’d been no other option, and yet, the thought of who might be watching the video turned my stomach.

HHU was clearly mentioned. If anyone was watching for news of me, they’d have gotten it.

Which meant they could be on their way here, right now.

Whether my brother was dead or alive, it seemed he was destined to haunt me for the rest of my days, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

“It’s—it’s fine,” I managed to get out and smoothed a bland smile on my face.

Bill snorted and stared at his phone. “Just fine? I guess we have different definitions of the word.”

“Okay, I’m changing the subject,” Sally announced. “Are you coming to the alumni event?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “No. Am I supposed to?”

She nodded emphatically. “All the staff usually attend, as well as anyone else outstanding at school. You have to go, and you have to wear something black tie.”

Great. Black tie. That was going to be a tricky find at Goodwill.

“We can get ready together if you want,” Kenna announced breezily.

She’d tossed me a lifeline. “I’ve got so many formal dresses and nowhere to wear them.

You can do me a favor and borrow something.

My favorite girls never get to leave the house since the most glam thing I get asked out for around here is a hockey game or a coffee. ”

I nodded, relieved that lunch was nearly over. I wanted to go back to my classroom and try to figure out what the hell I’d do if someone from my past showed up in Hade Harbor. Not if. When.

“I’ve got to prepare some stuff for class,” I rushed out, needing to be alone to get a grip on my spiraling anxiety. I pushed up and grabbed my tray. My lunch was largely untouched.

My friends blinked at me, clearly surprised by my sudden departure.

I gave them a wave, threw away my food, and scurried back to the music department.

My classroom was quiet and peaceful. Sunlight fell in dust-speckled beams through the high windows that ringed the room, casting a glow on the polished wood of the instruments lining the walls. I walked slowly down the stairs.

The fear that had plagued me since I’d walked into the classroom and seen Marcus was back, and thicker than ever.

It was the fear of losing all of this, when I’d only just grasped it.

A real life. A proper job. Playing music again.

I sank down in my desk chair and put my hands on the table in front of me, clenching them a few times.

I couldn’t go back to the woman I’d been when I was living in California, and I couldn’t go back to being afraid every day… I was out of money and energy and fucking hope.

I sat there in the afternoon light, dust motes floating aimlessly in the air, relating to them more than I should. I didn’t want to blow from place to place anymore. I wanted to belong somewhere.

The door at the top of the room opened, and my heart clenched hard.

Was it him? A big guy came through, but it wasn’t Marcus.

Disappointment that I tried to deny hit me.

The class filled up, so I took my notes out and got ready to teach, my mind desperate for a diversion.

For the one man I’d come to depend on to see me, the real me, even when I was doing everything I could to hide it.

By the time the lesson was due to start, the whole class was seated, except one.

“Has anyone seen Marcus?” I asked as I took roll call.

Heads shook. He was a no-show. Concern and disappointment tasted bitter in my throat as I started the lesson.

I’m not disappointed because I want to see him, I told myself sternly while I taught. No, not at all. I’ve been trying to put a stop to his obsession with messing with me, and if he’s finally accepted that, I should be happy.

Right, of course. I was worried about whatever had happened last night to shake him so much. It was normal concern that a teacher would have for her student. That was all.

God, I was such a fucking liar.

Once classes were done for the day, the afternoon was bright and warm. I took the opportunity to explore the sprawling campus a little more. It really was picture-perfect. I thought I was wandering aimlessly, until a large, sleek building came into sight.

The ice rink, home of the Hellions hockey team.

I was walking up the stairs and pushing through the glass doors before I could stop myself. Ignoring the voices in my head that pointed out how dumb I was being, not to mention hypocritical, I entered the stands of the rink itself. A whistle blew as soon as I stepped onto the rubber-lined stairs.

“Run it again!”

I followed the aisle along a row of seats, a good ways up and out of the eyeline of the players, or so I hoped. The team was warming up before practice.

I scanned over them until my attention stuck on a tall, imposing figure near the goals.

Marcus was stretching, rotating his shoulders, and working his hip flexors.

He hadn’t seen me. He was focused on practice, and his mask, worn for the goalie’s safety any time they were on the ice, limited his view of the seats, unless he were to specifically look my way.

He moved into drills, moving in a W-like formation, sliding across the ice with perfect control.

His body was a well-oiled machine. He stopped exactly where he was supposed to, halting his tremendous bursts of speed in an instant.

He was impressive to watch and would have been even if I didn’t know anything about hockey or how technically demanding the drills were.

He and one of his friends, the biggest one, Beckett Anderson, segued into puck-handling drills, where Marcus would leave the crease, stopping the puck behind the net and then passing it slickly to Anderson.

Coach Williams skated between the different drills going on, stopping by Marcus and Beckett, demonstrating a certain way of holding the stick to help the motion of stopping the puck and twisting it in a different direction.

Marcus’ head bobbed up and down in a nod. His mask hid his face from my prying, curious eyes.

I wish I could see his face. Everything today would feel better if I could see his face.

What the fuck? I caught myself halfway through the thought. A terrible, sliding feeling of inevitability filled me. Marcus’ words from the other night hit me like a slap across the face—honest and uncomfortably true.

“You’re hiding behind the rules and moral outrage because then you don’t have to admit that you love this, just like I do.”

He was right. I was hiding. Marcus was the first person I’d let my guard down with, even an inch, in years, and that was terrifying.

Him being a student? Yeah, a complication, but not an insurmountable one. Him being younger than me? We were both adults. Him having the power to hurt me, use me up, and discard me when he got bored? Now that was truly something to fear. That wasn’t something I imagined I’d get over quickly.

Coach Williams blew the whistle and beckoned the players to the middle of the ice. Marcus skated over. The tension in his shoulders told me he wasn’t tired. No, he seemed wired.

He stood at the edge of the group and glanced around the rink, his mask stopping as it came level with me.

I felt his gaze hit me. I knew he’d seen me by the extra tension that had him straightening up.