Chapter 28 Chapter 28
The arena roared like the sky cracking open.
He shot forward faster than Cass had ever seen him move. He didn’t even look left or right. He didn’t check positions. He didn’t care. He went straight for the goal like a man possessed.
The goalie dove.
Marvin shot.
And he scored.
The arena shook. Students jumped. Teachers screamed. Even the other team gasped.
Cass felt her stomach drop.
Jace skated to the center silently, jaw clenched, face still unreadable, but she knew. She knew this was different. This wasn’t like losing a point. This was Marvin reclaiming the glory he felt he had been robbed of. And he did it by pulling a dirty move.
The game continued but nothing felt the same. The whole event had shifted. Jace was the best on the ive and it was incredible
The crowd erupted. Screams. Chants. Students climbing over each other. Jacinta squealing Marvin’s name like she’d won a lottery.
Cass felt a strange ache in her chest. Not disappointment in Jace. Never.
Disappointment in the world cheering for the wrong person.
Jace stood alone on the ice for a heartbeat, quiet and still, before skating off without looking at anyone.
Cass wanted to run after him.
Lena grabbed her hand. “Cass… he’ll be fine.”
Cass forced herself to nod. But she didn’t believe it.
She left the arena with a heavy heart while students chanted Marvin’s name like he was a hero.
And she saw something she wished she hadn’t.
Jace walking out the back exit in silence.
Marvin being lifted by his teammates and paraded through the hall.
The twin contrast felt painfully sharp.
Cass went home with a headache she couldn’t shake.
Her mother noticed immediately. “Rough day?”
Cass pressed a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Something like that.”
Her mother placed a comforting hand on her cheek. “You’re stronger than whatever tries to break you.”
It helped. A little.
Cass showered and went to bed early, but she didn’t sleep well. Her thoughts kept circling Jace. His silence. His loss. His shoulders stiff with emotion he never showed.
She drifted off sometime after midnight, exhausted.
But the Woods house wasn’t quiet that night.
Marvin stormed in like a trophy-crowned king, slamming doors, bragging loudly, replaying the game at full volume on the television. He pointed at the screen over and over, calling out every moment he outplayed Jace, even the unfair ones.
Their nanny tried to calm him. It didn’t work.
Jace stood in the doorway behind him, watching with a blank expression that seemed carved in stone. Marvin turned and laughed in his face, mocking, drunk on attention.
“Team hero, huh? Guess you’re not so great after all.”
No reaction. No anger. Just a steady silence that somehow made it worse.
Marvin grew louder. Meaner. Crueler. Pushing buttons like he wanted Jace to snap.
Jace finally walked past him, straight to the stairs.
Marvin shouted after him. “Not going to congratulate me?”
Jace paused on the fourth step. Slowly turned his head.
“Congratulations,” he said quietly. “On cheating your way to a win.”
Marvin threw a bottle at the wall.
Jace didn’t flinch or look back. He went upstairs and closed his door without a word.
The house vibrated with tension long after both brothers retreated to their corners.
And somewhere in her room across town, Cass tossed in her sheets, haunted by the image of those tired eyes on the ice.
Jace had lost today.
But something inside her whispered that this wasn’t the end.
The twins had only walked through the first crack in the storm.
What came after would change everything.