Chapter 207

Chapter 207
Elora

But gradually, something shifted. I stopped relying on my eyes and started listening—to the whisper of my blades cutting through ice, to the rush of wind past my ears, to the subtle vibrations traveling up through my legs with each movement. I could feel the rink's boundaries without seeing them, sense when I was approaching the boards by the change in air pressure.

More importantly, something else changed. The darkness stopped feeling like an enemy. And the grief, the shame over my scarred back—it all faded into the background, drowned out by the pure sensation of movement.

By the time Marina returned and flipped the lights back on, I was executing a combination spin I'd been struggling with for weeks.

She stared at me, genuine surprise flickering across her usually stoic face. "That was the cleanest execution of that move you've ever done."

I was too stunned to respond, my chest heaving, sweat freezing on my skin.

"Coach," I said suddenly, the words tumbling out before I could second-guess them. "There's something else."

Marina raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"I don't know how to explain it exactly, but..." I paused, trying to capture the feeling that had bloomed inside me during those hours in the dark. "It's not just my skating that's different. It's me. I feel—" The word came out almost like a discovery, tinged with wonder and confusion. "I'm not afraid anymore. Not of the dark. Not of... anything, really. And I don't understand why."

Marina's expression shifted. Not quite a smile, but something close—a softening around her eyes, a satisfaction that went deeper than pride in a student's progress.

"So you finally understand," she said quietly.

I blinked, confused. "Understand what?"

"That wasn't really about skating in the dark, Elora." She held my gaze, her voice dropping to something more personal than I'd ever heard from her.

"Life will throw darkness at you. Real darkness, metaphorical darkness—it doesn't matter which. What matters is what you do when it comes." A pause. "I don't train my skaters to run from it. I train them to face it. Adapt to it. Master it."

Her hand rested briefly on my shoulder.

"Embrace the darkness, Elora. Don't ever let it make you small."

---

The memory snapped back into place like a puzzle piece I'd been missing.

Embrace the darkness.

Whether it was the literal blackness pressing in around me now, or Sienna—a girl who'd spent three years shrouding her own life in shadows, trying to destroy herself within them—the principle was the same.

The panic didn't disappear—not entirely. But it transformed into something colder, more precise. Something I recognized from those endless hours on the ice, learning to navigate by feel alone. My mind sharpened, hyperaware, every sense suddenly dialed to maximum clarity.

I wasn't going to run from this darkness.

I was going to make it mine.

My senses began returning, one by one, like muscles remembering an old routine. That feeling from the rink—skating blind, relying on nothing but sound and instinct—flooded back through me.

Sienna's footsteps were still approaching, slow and confident. The slight drag of her left foot, favoring her right. The faint rustle of stolen scrubs that were a size too large. The almost imperceptible sound of liquid dripping from the syringe in her right hand, held at a forty-five-degree angle.

She was three meters away. Two and a half. Two.

I could map her entire approach in my mind—not through sight, but through sound, through the subtle shifts in air pressure, through the vibrations traveling through the floor. She thought she was the predator here, stalking through her natural habitat.

She had no idea she'd just walked into mine.

I straightened slowly, deliberately, and let the metal clipboard fall from my hands. It clattered against the floor with a sharp, ringing sound that echoed through the ward.

"Sienna," I said, my voice steady now, carrying a sharp edge of mockery. "Still standing there? What's wrong—scared of a girl who can't even see you coming?

The footsteps faltered. Just for a second.

"You're moving too slow," I continued, letting a hint of mockery creep into my tone. "Come on. Don't drag this out. End it already."

Silence. Then—

"What the fuck are you playing at?"