Page 27 of Bend & Break
Colin’s eyes flick from me to Blake, unimpressed as ever. "Are you two planning to contribute to this circus, or just lurk in my entryway?"
"We’re crashing the spare room for the night," I tell him.
"Fine by me," Colin mutters. He may be an asshole, but he’s a laid-back one for the most part. Except for when it comes to his stepsister, but that’s a whole other story.
Speaking of whom, Mayson spots Blake and lights up, weaving through a couple of drunk defenders to throw her arms around her. Blake hugs her back just as tight, relief flashing across her face for the first time all night.
“Sorry,” Blake says, pulling back with a tired smile. “I’m kind of dead on my feet. Turns out conditioning drills and gas leaks don’t really mix.”
Mayson gasps. “Oh my god, are you okay?” She flicks an annoyed glance toward Colin, who’s already hovering like he’s personally guarding her from the rest of the house.
“I’m fine,” Blake says quickly, cutting off the concern before it can build. “Really. The EMTs checked me out and everything. We just can’t stay in the apartment tonight.”
“I’m just glad you’re safe, and if you need to crash, that’s more than fine. Colin’s a fuckwad and wants me glued to his side or locked in my room half the time anyway.” She rolls her eyes.
Colin scowls at both of them, muttering something that sounds like“the last thing you need is backup”before pulling her toward the stairs.
I nudge Blake down the hall, past the open bathroom door where someone’s shaving another guy’s eyebrow for reasons I don’t want to understand.
Colin’s spare room is halfway down, the door cracked just enough for me to push it open. I flip the light on. It’s bigger than most flats I’ve lived in—a queen bed with an upholstered headboard, a sleek dresser that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe, and a folded stack of hotel-quality towels on the chair in the corner. It’s the kind of room meant for guests he’ll never have, spotless and soulless, but right now, it feels like a godsend.
I close the door behind us and twist the lock. Just the two of us. And whatever the hell she’s about to tell me.
She doesn’t sit. Just paces. One, two, three steps across the carpet, arms crossed, mouth tight like she’s physically holding back whatever’s clawing to get out.
My stomach knots. With everything that’s gone on—gas leaks, stalker-level weirdness, her bag being messed with—I don’t know what I’m about to hear, but I know it isn’t small.
I sit on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, and wait, eyes tracking her every move as she winds herself up.
Finally, she stops. Looks at me.
“You can’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it, Mads. Not your coach. Not your teammates. Not Luca.No. One.”
“Blake.” I meet her eyes, and whatever she sees in mine must land, because she finally exhales and drops onto the floor across from me, back against the dresser. She pulls her knees up, arms looped tight around them, bracing herself.
“It started months ago,” she says quietly. “I met this girl online, in a biomechanics forum. She’s in the same program at Briarwood—same classes, same labs, different campus. We bonded over late-night posts about professors who can’t lecture their way out of a paper bag and whose research is bullshit. I didn’t think much of it. Just another stressed-out STEM friend who got the same jokes.”
Her mouth tightens. “One night, I told her about the Rites. You know—how childish the pranks get here. Glitter bombs, protein shake sabotage, the usual ‘Northgate chaos’ brand. I thought she’d laugh.”
I tilt my head. “She didn’t.”
Blake shakes her head. “She told me I was lucky. Because at Briarwood, it’s not just silly little pranks, butrealhazing. The kind of thing that sends people to the hospital. Ends scholarships. Wrecks careers. Broken bones, concussions,players pushed until they collapse, and then told to suck it up or get cut. Remember when their captain collapsed on the field during warmups last season? They spun it as dehydration, but there were so many rumors he’d been run into the ground. The coaches look the other way, and the administration buries it. She said she had proof. Photos, video, even statements from other players. But she didn’t feel safe going public, because too many people are willing to hurt her if she tries.”
Her fingers twist into the fabric of her hoodie. “I couldn’t justnotdo anything. Not after hearing that. So I told her I’d help. If she gave me what she had, I’d find a way to get it out without having it linked to her. Publish it, leak it in some way, whatever it took to get eyes on it. She was terrified, but she agreed. Because it was a forum, we didn’t even get to the point of knowing each other's real names, so there was no way I could throw her under the bus.”
“So she got you the info?” I ask.
She nods. “She didn’t want to send anything online. Said it was too easy to trace. So she left a drive in a drop spot on campus, and I picked it up.” Her voice falters. “I haven’t been able to open it. It was locked behind a password I had to crack, but even after that, I can’t get any of the files to open. And she hasn’t answered me in days, which is concerning as well. But whatever’s on there? It’s bad, Mads. Way worse than just a couple of locker room bruises. She made it sound like careers, maybe even lives, were on the line. And now I can’t shake the feeling that someone else knows she gave it to me. That they’re trying to get it back before I can see what’s on it, maybe even doing something to prevent her from contacting me again in the meantime.”
The room feels too small, the silence between us too taut.
I lean forward, elbows on my knees, trying to anchor myself in the steadiness she clearly doesn’t have. “So you’ve been sitting on this the whole time?”
Blake’s eyes lock on mine, fierce even through the exhaustion. “I couldn’t tell anyone. Not until I knew what exactly it was that I was holding. And not until I knew who I could actually trust with it.”
