Chapter 139: A Single Portion

Micah’s POV

I pushed open the door to Room 304 in the Media Arts building. The place was completely packed with students from the media department. There were regular student journalists, campus photographers, and even the secret staffers who spent their time digging up dirt on university administration.

The room was noisy. I quickly kept my head down, clutching the single thermal food bag tightly against my side, and moved toward the back row. I just wanted to grab an empty chair, sit quietly, and wait for the meeting to start without anyone noticing me.

Before I could even pull out a chair, a voice called out over the chatter.

"Micah Miller?"

I froze, turning my head. A tall girl wearing high heels and a fitted blazer was standing near the front podium, lifting an eyebrow at me.

I stood up straight, nodding quickly. "Yes, that’s me."

She looked familiar. I had seen her hanging around the office before... she was the senior editor Raven had been secretly flirting with.

"Raven said to come to her office the second you arrive," the girl said, tilting her chin toward the frosted glass door. "She’s waiting for you."

"Oh... Sure," I answered.

The moment I stepped away from the chairs, I felt dozens of eyes snap directly onto me. Whispers immediately broke out among the students sitting nearby. I ignored them, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor as I walked through the side door and made my way to Raven’s office.

I knocked twice and pushed the door open.

The entire office looked like a war zone of black and white. Tall stacks of printed paper, campus maps, and police reports were piled up across every single table and filing cabinet. And sitting right behind the heavy wooden desk was Raven.

She was dressed entirely in black from head to toe, wearing a dark sweater and black trousers. The heavy dark circles bruised under her eyes made her skin look sickeningly pale, and her hair was tied up in a messy knot. She looked completely hollowed out.

"Oh my God," I muttered before I could stop myself, sliding into the leather chair opposite her. "You look like hell, Raven."

"I am hell," Raven answered flatly, not even bothering to smile.

Her voice was raw, scratched up from lack of sleep and endless shouting over the phone. She had spent the last seven days tearing this city apart with Phoenix, tracking down every single lead, and finding absolutely nothing. Phoenix looked like a walking corpse, and Raven was right behind him.

"I called you in here because I need you to take this," Raven said, cutting straight to the point. She reached down beside her desk, pulled up a heavy black camera bag, and shoved it roughly across the polished wood toward me.

The heavy bag slid to a stop right in front of my hands.

"What’s this?" I asked, looking down at the zipper.

"High-end telephoto camera, four extra batteries, and two high-speed memory cards," Raven explained, rubbing her temples with both hands. "You’re assigned to the rinkside photo deck for the varsity hockey game tomorrow evening. You take clearer, faster action shots than anyone else in our freshman team, and you already know how Noah and Damon move on the ice since they are your... You know."

She slid a laminated press pass on a red lanyard across the table next to the bag.

"Keep the badge around your neck," she added. "When the game ends, upload the raw image files and send them straight to my department email. Don’t edit anything. Just send the raw files."

I looked down at the heavy camera bag, feeling a sickening knot of guilt tighten in my stomach.

Raven was working herself to the bone. Phoenix was losing his mind. And all of this was happening because my adoptive father, Bernard Miller, had abducted Sunny and locked her in some underground cell for Plan Mayor.

I hated sitting here knowing the truth. I hated keeping my mouth shut.

"Raven..." I said softly, looking up into her bloodshot eyes. "Don’t lose hope. I’m sure Sunny is fine. I’m sure she’s safe somewhere, and... and they will find her soon. I promise you."

Raven stopped rubbing her temples. She stared at me across the desk, her expression completely numb.

"Thank you, Micah," she said, her voice dropping into a dry, bitter whisper. She ran her trembling fingers through her hair, letting out a heavy breath. "I appreciate you saying that. Really, I do. But I’ve been hearing that exact same sentence from everyone for an entire week. Seven days. Seven days, Micah. A teenage girl doesn’t just vanish into thin air in the middle of a crowded city unless professional monsters took her."

My chest seized up. I parted my lips, desperate to say something that could actually comfort her, desperate to tell her that Noah was planning something to tear Father down.

The words died in my throat. I couldn’t say a single thing without putting everyone’s lives in danger.

Besides, even I didn’t fully know what Noah was planning. And the closer we got to tomorrow’s championship match, the worse my gut felt. A sense of dread had been creeping over me all day. Something terrible was going to happen tomorrow. I could feel it in my bones.

"You can go now," Raven said, pushing her chair back and standing up. She grabbed a thick stack of briefing sheets from the corner of her desk. "Use that ID badge for your private access pass tomorrow. I have to go speak to the rest of the department in the main room."

"Okay," I said, standing up quickly. "Take care of yourself, Raven. Please try to sleep."

"Sleep is for when this nightmare is over," she muttered, opening the door and walking out into the hallway.

I slung the heavy strap of the camera bag over my right shoulder, picked up the single thermal food bag with my left hand, and followed her out of the office.

The moment I stepped back into the central corridor of the Media Arts building, the atmosphere felt completely different.

The crowd had shifted. Groups of students were gathered in tight circles by the lockers, whispering to one another. The second my sneakers squeaked against the floor, dozens of heads snapped around.

The eyes on me had easily doubled since I first arrived.

"That’s him..." a guy in a varsity jacket whispered loudly to his friend.

"No way. That tiny kid actually slapped Jennifer Riley?"

"I swear! My roommate saw it right in the courtyard! He hit her so hard she twisted her ankle and fell straight onto her ass!"

"He told her she needed a dick to get Damon Silver’s attention! It’s already all over the campus group chats!"

My entire face flared bright, violent red.

My cheeks burned with so much heat and embarrassment that I literally wished the concrete floor would crack wide open and swallow me whole. I pulled my jacket collar up to my chin, tucked my chin down, and bolted straight toward the double glass doors at the end of the hall.

I pushed through the doors and burst out into the cool evening air, practically jogging down the paved stone paths across the quad.

I needed to get away from the gossip. I needed to get to the rink.

It took me less than five minutes to reach the sports complex.

I walked through the side athlete entrance, swiping my student pass at the turnstile, and stepped into the lower corridor leading to the main rink.

TWEEEEEEET!

A piercing, aggressive whistle blast echoed off the concrete walls, nearly making me jump out of my skin.

"Move those skates! Move, move, move!" Coach’s booming voice roared over the grinding sound of steel cutting through ice. "If you skate that slow tomorrow night, Jenson’s front line will run right through your ribs! On the ice, boys! Get back on the ice!"

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

The coach clapped his gloved hands violently together, as if the deafening whistle hanging from his neck wasn’t already loud enough to shatter everyone’s eardrums.

I stepped up to the edge of the transparent plexiglass barrier near the team bench, clutching my bags against my chest.

The arena was freezing. Apart from Noah and Damon, I didn’t know the other guys on the varsity roster very well. But watching them right now, the entire squad looked exhausted, covered in sweat, their dark practice jerseys damp and heavy.

Noah and Damon were running a two-man offensive drill against four senior defenders.

They looked terrifyingly rough. They moved with a level of savage, aggressive speed that made my chest tighten just watching them. Noah was leading the charge, his sharp blue eyes locked onto the puck, his stick handling so smooth and violent that the defenders couldn’t even get close to him. Beside him, Damon moved like a shadow, anticipating Noah’s passes before Noah even made them.

They weren’t screaming at each other. They weren’t bickering. After seventy-two hours of brutal, around-the-clock training, they were moving like a single unit.

TWEEEEEEET!

The coach blasted his whistle one more time, waving his arms toward the benches.

"Take thirty, boys! Drink your water and get your legs back under you! We’re running power plays at the half!"

Coach didn’t wait for a response. He turned on his heel, muttering curses under his breath, and marched straight toward his private office at the end of the hall, slamming the door shut behind him.

The moment the coach disappeared, a collective, miserable groan tore through the entire team.

"Holy shit, my legs are on fire..." one of the defenders gasped, practically collapsing face-first onto the wooden team bench.

"I can’t feel my shoulders," another guy groaned, ripping off his thick gloves and tossing them across the rubber floor.

While the rest of the players collapsed where they stood, two figures broke away from the group, their skate blades cutting smooth, sharp lines across the ice as they glided straight toward the barrier where I was standing.

Noah stopped first, spraying a light shower of ice shavings against the base of the boards. He unlatched the chin strap of his black helmet, pulled it off, and violently dragged his pale fingers through his soaked, dark hair.

His eyes locked onto mine, his chest heaving with heavy, controlled breaths.

"You’re here," Noah said simply, his voice raspy from barking orders on the ice.

Right beside him, Damon coasted to a halt against the plexiglass. Damon yanked off his helmet, leaned his head forward, and vigorously shook his head back and forth, shaking thick droplets of sweat wildly off his dark hair.

A stray drop of sweat flew directly across the narrow gap, hitting Noah right near his left eye.

Noah’s face instantly darkened into an expression of pure, murderous irritation.

SMACK!

Noah’s gloved hand shot out, slapping Damon brutally hard across the back of his bare head.

"Ow! What the hell?!" Damon hissed, grabbing the back of his neck as his eyes flared with annoyance. "What is your problem, Miller?!"

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Noah snapped, wiping his eyelid with the back of his sleeve. "Grab a towel or something, dude. Stop acting like a wet dog."

"The towels are all the way at the other end of the bench!" Damon argued, rolling his eyes dramatically. He pushed himself off the boards, leaning his forearms over the top of the barrier to look directly down at me.

A wide, charming smirk spread across Damon’s flushed face.

"Forget about this grumpy bastard," Damon purred softly, giving me a slow, deliberate wink. "I want to see what my darling Micah brought for me to eat. I am starving to death."

My heart jumped straight into my throat.

The blood instantly drained out of my face.

I looked down at the space between my hands.

Sitting right there in my grip was a single thermal carrier bag.

Inside was one plate of rice, one portion of chicken, and a single box of pastries.

Noah’s portion was sitting in a broken heap in a campus trash can outside the Media Arts building, smashed into the dirt because Jennifer Riley had kicked it out of my hands.

There was only one meal.

And standing right in front of me were two massive, completely exhausted, starving athletes who had been bleeding on the ice for hours.

Fuck.