Chapter 44: Under Construction

Kieran’s POV

If I wanted to prove to Aveline that I wasn’t the monster my last name made me out to be, I had to start with what I could control. And right now, that was the upcoming Crestwood Academy fundraising pep rally.

I had personally pulled strings with the athletic department and student council to ensure our project was tied directly to organising the event’s logistics. More importantly, I made sure her name well, Asher’s name was locked in as my co-organizer. She couldn’t run from me if we were forced to build something together from scratch. I wanted to show her the side of me she hadn’t seen yet. Not the reckless hockey player constantly getting into fights. Not the arrogant Hampton everyone at Crestwood either feared or worshipped. I wanted her to see that my hands could protect, not just destroy.

But right now, the fundraiser prep was a complete mess.

The gymnasium looked like a war zone. Tangled microphone wires stretched across the floors, sponsor banners were half-hanging from the bleachers, and stacks of unopened boxes sat scattered everywhere while students yelled over one another trying to finish everything before the pep rally started. The sound of chairs scraping against the floor mixed with the screech of tape being ripped from dispensers and the constant buzz of stressed voices.

And in the middle of all the chaos was her.

She was carrying a heavy crate of promotional flyers toward the stage, her oversized Crestwood hoodie practically swallowing her small frame. Even exhausted, she still moved fast, keeping herself busy on purpose. Avoiding me on purpose. Every time I walked near her, she found another task to do. Another box to carry. Another excuse to disappear across the gym.

It had been like that ever since she ran out of my house.

She wouldn’t look me in the eye anymore. Wouldn’t stay in the same room with me unless she absolutely had to. Every word she spoke to me sounded cold and professional, like if she allowed even one crack in her voice everything between us would spill out into the open.

Still, I stayed.

Because no matter how angry she was, no matter how terrified she looked whenever I got too close, I couldn’t walk away from her now. Not after knowing the truth.

Her phone started buzzing loudly from the equipment table beside me.

She ignored it.

At first I thought maybe she genuinely didn’t hear it over the noise in the gym, but then it rang again. And again.

Persistent thinking it was Urgent.

Across the room, she shifted another stack of banners into her arms, refusing to even glance toward the table.

I was leaning against it already, absently watching her while Milo argued with two freshmen over where the sponsor signs were supposed to go. Before she could even tell me not to touch it, I reached down, picked up the phone, and slid across the answer bar.

“Hello?” I answered, my rough voice cutting through the static.

Across the gym, she froze instantly.

The stack of banners nearly slipped from her arms as her eyes snapped toward me with sudden, terrifying panic. Her entire body went rigid like every worst fear she had ever carried had just come to life in front of her.

Then a woman’s voice burst through the speaker, breathless and shaking with urgency.

“Aveline, come to the hospital right now,” the voice said frantically. “Asher’s hands moved. Oh my God, Aveline… he moved.”

The line went dead.

But the world around me stopped moving with it.

The shouting students. The noise of chairs scraping the floor. Milo yelling at somebody near the stage. Everything faded into this strange, suffocating silence ringing inside my ears.

I stood completely still, the phone heavy in my hand while my mind tried to process what I had just heard.

Aveline.

The name slammed into my chest harder than any hit I’d ever taken on the ice.

I stared at her from across the gym.

She looked pale now. Completely exposed. Like one phone call had ripped away every wall she had spent months desperately trying to hold together.

And suddenly pieces that never made sense before started crashing together inside my head.

I already knew she was a girl pretending to be Asher. I knew she had hidden herself inside her brother’s identity so perfectly that nobody at Crestwood questioned it.

But now…

Now there was something bigger beneath all of it.

Something painful enough to make her erase herself entirely.

I looked down at the phone in my hand before slowly lifting my eyes back to her again. She wasn’t moving anymore. The banners had slipped slightly from her grip, hanging against the floor while students brushed past her without noticing the way her entire world had just tilted sideways.

My chest tightened painfully as realization hit me. I knew her real name now. I knew she had completely buried herself beneath somebody else’s life. But staring at her terrified face across the gym left me with a deeper confusion twisting violently inside my head.

Why?

Why would a girl willingly destroy herself just to become her brother?

Then she dropped the banners completely and started walking toward me fast, her breathing uneven, her eyes locked only on the phone still clutched in my hand.