My Hockey Alpha

Nina

When I returned home that night, I locked myself in my room and got to work scouring through Justin’s patient files. I stayed up all night poring over the files until the sun came up, but there wasn’t anything in the folder that could outright prove that Edward had given Justin the Mad Wolf serum or that he’s done anything sinister to him. I felt as though I had hit a brick wall; in the same way that the police were no help when I tried to go to them about the stalker, they would certainly be no help now if I showed them a benign patient file. If anything, I would be painted as the bad guy for sneaking into Edward’s house and stealing the files, and alerting the police would probably only make Edward cover his tracks even more.

It was almost as if Edward intentionally set all of this up, knowing fully well that no one would believe me if I tried to turn him in to the police.

I was at a dead end.

The only mention of anything even remotely sinister was a single hand-written note mentioning that Justin was “resistant to treatment” and that “alternative treatment may be necessary.”

Who would believe that anything about that note would be evidence of an evil school counselor?

At some point, I must have fallen asleep at my desk, because I woke up sometime in the afternoon to the sound of someone knocking on my door. I had a pounding headache and drool was pooled up on the papers in front of me.

Groaning, I sat up and wiped the drool off of my mouth with the back of one hand while closing Justin’s file with the other before groggily calling out, “Come in.”

My door creaked open and Jessica poked her head in. She looked around for me, her eyes narrowed, before she finally found me and gave me a confused look. “Jesus,” she said, coming in the rest of the way and walking over to me. “Did you sleep on your desk last night?”

I nodded, nonchalantly shuffling some papers to hide Justin’s file. “Yeah. I forgot I had an assignment due last night.”

in my appearance as I stood and walked

my mouth

you lately, so I wanted to ask if you’d like to come to

be there?”

why it matters,

be a good opportunity to observe them and gather some information… Maybe I could even figure out a way to get Justin so that I could question him, or even just get some pictures of him acting

smile

…

to the cooler to grab some drinks, and as Jessica filled up some red plastic cups with cheap vodka to get the night started, I scanned the party, looking for Justin. He was standing by the fire with Lisa, and they appeared to be talking quietly. Lisa’s eyes flickered over to me and she shot me an angry glare before grabbing Justin by the arm and pulling her away. I pretended that I didn’t notice and

wasn’t acting particularly strange in any way. What if I was too late? Did Edward cover his tracks already? Or, was Justin really never acting strangely at

cabins and out into the woods. He glanced both ways over

This was my chance.

wasn’t sure where he was headed, but he seemed to be walking briskly, like he was deliberately

or

“Justin!” I called.

deliberately into the forest. His body movements were stiff and calculated, like he was a robot who had been programmed to run this very path a million times before. Beneath the moonlight, as the