Chapter 18 The Lost but Found Ring
The Lost but Found Ring
Dylan’s POV
We got to the academy together and when we got inside, we noticed that something was wrong because of the way the team members looked unsettled.
Guys were standing in clusters instead of warming up, they were talking but it was more of whispering and their body language seemed like they just finished arguing. Nobody was on the ice.
Calen left them immediately he saw us and walked up to me. He gave me a look that said there was trouble.
“Why is everybody looking troubled?” Liam asked.
“The coach’s wedding ring is missing,” he said, keeping his voice low. “He noticed it last night, apparently it’s been gone since yesterday afternoon. Man’s losing his mind over it.”
I looked across the rink and the couch was standing near the equipment room door with his arms crossed. He seemed to be holding himself together through discipline alone.
“He’s searching everyone… Our bags, lockers. I bet our underwear if possible,” Calen said. “I heard the ring is pure gold and costs over a thousand dollars.”
Liam said nothing beside me. I glanced at him and his face was calm. I had learned that the look on his face meant he was thinking, as he looked at everyone and tried to handle the situation like he always did.
The couch started searching us one after the other. He turned our bags upside down, searched our pockets, opened our lockers and searched them without mercy. Most of the guys were angry when he was going through their things but there was nothing they could do about it.
When he reached Liam’s locker everybody became quiet out of surprise because they never thought he would go as far as suspecting his own favorite captain.
I don’t know what made me look at Cole at that moment. Instinct maybe, or was it the way he had positioned himself slightly behind the group with his arms folded and his back leaned against the wall. He smiled in that moment like he was about to witness the best part. Our eyes met immediately and he smiled while waving his hand slightly.
The coach reached into the back of Liam's locker and to everyone’s shock, he pulled out a ring.
“This is my wedding ring,” The coach said and noise erupted.
Someone laughed, not because they found it funny but because they were happy Liam was in that situation.
“I don’t understand?” Calen asked in shock.
The coach held the ring in his palm and looked at Liam like he had already reached a conclusion about the matter.
“I don’t get it, what’s that doing in my locker?” Liam asked as he rubbed his palm on his head.
“It was in your locker,” the coach said.
“I didn’t put that there, I haven’t seen the ring before in the first place.”
“Liam…” I started.
“Finally, we caught the thief.” Cole said and it carried this satisfaction in it, that told me how much he and his clique had wanted this moment to come.
I pushed forward. “Coach, listen, someone is setting him up, that ring didn’t get into his locker by itself…”
“Petrov.” The coach looked at me. “Stay out of this.”
“Coach, you need to listen to us,” I said, because staying out of it was not something I was capable of doing. “Think about it. Why would he take a ring? If he wanted the ring because he knew it’s worth, why keep it in a place that’s not safe. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
What I said had no backing from anybody because it didn't matter. For Christ’s sake, this is common sense but they weren’t interested. All they cared about was that the ring sitting in the coach’s palm was found in Liam’s locker. Who kept it there doesn’t matter to them.
I felt how much Liam was hurt and I knew his desire to rip them apart was growing stronger. I heard the crack of his jaw and man was obviously releasing his fangs. I looked at his clenched fist and his eyes which had turned red. What shocked me the most was that nobody was moving except me, he had stopped time.
I grabbed his arm.
“Liam stop this,” I said.
“I will crush them into pieces!” He said while he got worse.
“Are you trying to expose yourself? If you kill them, they will find you.” I said and understanding moved through his face. Then the tension in his hands started releasing little by little. Immediately he looked away from the room and at the floor, everything went back to normal like nothing happened.
The guys started talking with cruelty like they were just handed a perfect target. I wanted to say something to every single one of them but I couldn’t because I needed to take Liam out of here. Then, I walked him out.
“I need a little space,” He said.
“Okay, just get some rest at home.” I said. I stopped a cab and he got inside and waved at me.
I went back inside to gather our things and arrange what the coach had scattered. Calen walked up to me and tapped my shoulder.
“Has he gone home?” He asked.
“Yeah.”
“I believe he didn’t do it.” He said.
“I know. We will definitely find the person.” I said.
The coach pulled me aside immediately.
“If Novak doesn’t come to me and apologize by the end of the week,” he said, measuring each word, “I will take him off the team.” He threatened.
When I got to Liam’s house. He was sitting on the couch, a game running on his phone that he wasn’t really playing, his thumb was just moving on the screen without direction. He looked up when I came in.
“What did he say?”
I sat down on the couch opposite him. I was angry, not at him, but at the whole stupid constructed situation, at whoever had put that ring in his locker and stood in the back of the room watching him getting humiliated. Anger was sitting right behind my teeth and I wasn’t managing it as well as I wanted to.
“Dylan.” He called. “What are you thinking about?”
“He wants you to apologize to him,” I said. “That’s what he wants.”
“For something I didn’t do?”
“I know you didn’t do it.”
“Then you should know I’m not apologizing for it.”
I pressed my fingers against my forehead and said nothing for a moment because the conversation I wanted to have about who had planted the ring and why was one I didn’t have enough proof for yet.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
He looked at me for a moment and then went back to the game and I just sat there stewing in frustration I couldn’t direct to anyone.
Suddenly, someone knocked at the door.
“I’ll get it.” I said and stood up.
I opened the door and the hallway was empty. No one was there. Just the corridor light buzzing faintly overhead and a package sitting on the doormat, brown box, no label, or return address.
I picked it up and brought it inside.
Liam placed his phone on the couch and we both looked at the box.
“Who sent that?” He asked.
“Didn’t see anyone when I opened the door.”
We opened it and it was as if all the blood in my veins stopped flowing. It was photographs of us, printed in dozens. Everyone of them showed the two of us in the academy, on the street the day I got drunk and Liam had to take me home. What made me completely lost was the one taken through my apartment window, can someone explain this to me? Someone had been watching us since I arrived at the academy. Could this be from the anti vampire group? Nah! They wouldn’t do something petty.
Every photograph had the same thing around the edges… Dried dark red paint or blood, I couldn’t tell. At the bottom of the package was a single sheet of paper covered in script I recognised immediately as Arabic. I snapped it and sent it to Google Translate and the meaning was ‘The world would soon know.‘