Chapter 97: The Mirror Image

Kieran’s pov

The ride from the ice rink to the hospital was a fast, scary blur. I remembered flashing white lights and my mother crying. Coach Hale’s words kept repeating in my head. He called me a liability It was a cold reminder that the school only cared about me when I was winning.

The doctors fixed the bone that had poked through my skin. They wrapped my leg in heavy bandages and put a brace on it. They told me I needed to stay in bed for weeks.

Now, I was sitting in the hospital waiting room. My left leg was resting on a plastic chair. My mother was at the front desk filling out medical papers.

Suddenly, Aveline walked up to me. She was still wearing her bulky jacket. Her face was tight with anger. She stood right in front of my chair and looked down at me. She told me straight to my face to get my shit together.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Kieran?" Aveline whispered angrily. She kept her voice low so the nurses wouldn't hear. "I thought supporting you meant keeping you safe. What you are doing is bad for you. You are destroying yourself!"

"Aveline, back off," I said, my voice weak but angry. "I am doing what is best for me. You don't know anything about the pressure I am under."

"I see exactly what is happening," she snapped, stepping closer. "You are doing this because Richard made you believe that a fast recovery makes you tough. You think taking those pills makes you different from him? It just makes you his puppet!"

"Aveline!" I shouted. The anger made my broken ribs hurt terribly. I winced in pain. "Shut up! You don't know anything about my family!"

"Look at yourself!" she yelled back. She did not back down at all. Her eyes were full of fear for my life. "You are the exact same creature as him, Kieran. You think you hate him? But you inherited his stubbornness. You inherited his pride. You are destroying your own body for the exact same reason he built his legacy. Neither of you knows how to exist if the crowd isn't cheering your names!"

I sat there, completely shocked. Her words cut right through me. I wanted to yell back, but deep down, I knew she was right. I was turning into a monster.

"Hey, Asher," my mother’s voice broke the tension. She walked over with the discharge forms.

"Hi, Mrs Hampton," Aveline muttered. She quickly dropped her chin and acted like "Asher" again. "I should go now since Kieran is fine."

The drive back to our mansion was completely silent. I stared out the window. Aveline’s words kept echoing in my head. I realised my father treated me like a financial investment. For years, he only talked about his past glory days as "Number Nine." He completely ignored my real personality and my own goals. I was just a piece of property to him.

The moment I walked into my room, the real war started. Richard was standing in the middle of the room. His expensive suit was perfect, and his hair was slicked back. He already knew what happened on the ice because Coach Hale must have told him I fainted from the stands.

"You embarrassed our name today, Kieran," Richard said. His voice was smooth and dead cold. "Passing out like you are fragile, the drug couldn't help you cause you are plook

The disgust in my chest boiled over. I reached into my pocket and grabbed the glass bottle with the four remaining pills. With all my strength, I threw the drug directly at his face.

The bottle clicked against his cheekbone bounced off his shoulder, and shattered into pieces on the marble floor. The four pills rolled away across the tiles.

"I am done!" I screamed, balancing heavily on my metal crutches. My voice shook the high ceiling. "I am done taking your poison! I am done hiding your secrets! I am promising you right now, Richard I will never be like you! I will let my career die before I let you turn me into a monster!"

Richard did not yell. He did not even flinch. He slowly wiped a speck of dust from his suit jacket where the bottle had hit him. A cold, ugly smile appeared on his lips. He looked like a hunter watching an animal step into a trap.

"You think you are making a choice?" Richard whispered, stepping right into my face. His eyes were dark and obsessed. "You think your little friend 'Asher' can save you when the professional sponsors walk away?"

He walked forward, his expensive shoes crunching over the broken glass on the floor.

"You have no idea how the world works, boy," he whispered. "Let’s see how long your rebellion lasts when the lights go dark."

The next day, the trap snapped shut. Richard did not hit me. Instead, he completely isolated me. He took away my phone, changed the security codes on the house gates, and locked me inside the estate. He called it an "intensive medical recovery."

Later that evening, I heard his smooth, manipulative voice coming from the study. He was talking to my mother, using my health to trick her.

"Amelia, look at him," Richard lied smoothly. "The boy is having a mental breakdown from the stress of the team. The kids at Crestwood are mediocre. They don't understand his greatness. They are putting too much pressure on his mind.

For his own safety, we must cut off the outside world.

He needs his father now."

My mother was completely exhausted from the divorce battle. She looked utterly defeated. She believed his lies and nodded slowly. She had no idea she was handing the keys of my prison directly to my abuser.

With my mother tricked, Richard started using extreme psychological torment to break my spirit. He would walk into my bedroom at three in the morning and turn on the bright lights. He would stand at the bottom of my bed while my leg throbbed with terrible pain because I had no medicine.

"Look at you," Richard would whisper into the quiet room. His face was completely flat. "Sitting in the dark, limping on crutches, completely forgotten by your team.

Coach Hale hasn't called you once, has he? The scouts are already looking at other players. You are becoming a nobody, Kieran. A fragile, broken mistake."

He would stand there until he saw the sweat of pain breaking out on my forehead. He was using the total isolation to make me desperate for a single nod of his approval. He wanted to control me again, and I was locked in the dark with no way out.