Page 262 of Wild Card 13

I felt the old instinct wake in me. It was the clean, violentfantasy of crossing the room so fast Victor’s smirk disappeared before he knew he was in danger. It was the memory of boards shaking under hits. Of gloves dropping. Of my body solving what my mouth might make worse. It was a bright white flare behind my ribs that wanted movement, impact, the satisfaction of making one stupid man understand that some lines had teeth.

I stayed still.

Victor saw he had the room and mistook attention for permission. That was the thing about bitter men. “What?” he said, spreading one hand. “We’re all thinking it. All this good-boy routine forMs. Thomas.” His eyes flicked down my body, then back up with a grin that made something cold and filthy slide through the room. “Tell her if she’s that into housebreaking players, I can kneel too.”

For one second, the world narrowed to nothing.

No showers.

No music.

No damp gear.

No aching shoulder.

No season dying slowly around us.

Just Victor Petrov sitting in our room, saying Lucy’s name like a hand on her skin. Dragging her into a shape that fit his resentment because he could not stand that I had something he wanted, even if he did not understand what it was.

My fingers curled once against my biceps.

I looked at Victor. “Petrov,” I said, and my voice came out quiet enough that the room had to lean toward it. “You don’t get to make Ms. Thomas dirty because you’re mad at me.”

The silence afterward was absolute. Not the normal locker-room hush before someone chirped the tension away. It dropped into the middle of the room, heavy enough that even the pipes behind the showers seemed to go silent.

Victor’s face changed. “I was joking.”

No one laughed.

I kept my eyes on him. My pulse hammered so hard I could feel it in the healing bruise along my ribs. Old me still wanted to move. Old me wanted to say more. To make sure Victor understood. To make the room understand. To turn my anger into something bigenough that no one could miss it. But big would have made it about me.

So I stayed where I was.

Cam stood with the kind of captain energy that did not need volume to function. He was not as terrifying as Alois. Not as loud as Coach. But the room shifted when he decided something was done. “That wasn’t a joke,” Cam said.

Victor’s jaw tightened. “Come on.”

“No.” Cam’s voice stayed level. “You’re done.”

Victor scoffed, but it came out thin. “Done with what?”

“This conversation,” Cam snarled. “This room for tonight. And maybe more, depending on how stupid you want to be in the next thirty seconds.”

A small muscle jumped in Victor’s cheek.

Harry leaned back against his stall, arms crossed, all traces of show gone from his face. “I’d choose quiet.”

“Good advice,” Oliver said.

Zee, for once, said nothing.

Marco looked at Victor with open disgust now. That probably landed harder than anything else. Marco could forgive stupidity. He enjoyed it recreationally. But cruelty bored him once it stopped being useful for entertainment.

Victor pushed to his feet. “You’re all acting like I said something serious.”

“You did,” Cam said.

Alois had not moved. He sat in front of his stall with his elbows on his knees, tie still loose, hands linked in front of him. His gaze stayed on Victor with the flat patience of a man watching someone bury himself and deciding the ground was doing fine work without assistance.