My Hockey Alpha

Nina

Enzo held my hand until the last moment, only releasing it just moments before the portal closed. I wanted to hold onto him and jump through the portal with him, but I knew that it would never work. And he was right: I needed to stay here. There was still much to do.

“Are you gonna be okay?” the Fullmoon girl, Myra, asked.

I nodded, blinking back my tears. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Thank you.” I couldn’t bear to have anyone look at me, however, so before anything else was said I quickly turned on my heel and walked away.

A mist had settled on the forest that morning. The air was cold and almost damp, and the sound of the leaves crunching underneath my feet was a comfort. As I painstakingly walked back to campus, I just kept focusing on that sound to keep my mind off of Enzo.

He would be okay. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. But if he wasn’t okay… I didn’t know how I would get to him. I knew that he told Myra not to open any portals for me in case I got any grand ideas, and she was loyal to him as his cousin and as a follower of his father. She wouldn’t budge if I asked; I was sure of it. Therefore, if anything happened and Enzo didn’t come back, I would have no way of finding him. Even Luke was still missing after he saved Enzo from Edward. I didn’t even know if Luke was still alive. For all I knew, he was a pile of dust somewhere. At least his curse would be over, but it still pained me to think about that.

When I finally returned to my apartment, Lori and Jessica were waiting for me. They instantly saw my puffy face and my red eyes, and stopped me before I was able to go and hide in my room.

“We’re not letting you lock yourself in your room and cry in bed all day,” Lori demanded, folding her arms across her chest. “Come on. We’re going to the infirmary.”

My face went pale. “The infirmary?” I asked. Even just the thought of going there made me sick. It reminded me too much of Tiffany.

her girlfriend. She reached out and rubbed my arm with a sad look in her eyes. “Students are

any time looking for that antidote recipe,” Lori added. “Don’t worry. Jessica and

they weren’t wrong. There was still much

to hide the tremor in my voice.

infirmary in the cold morning air. When we arrived, the main window was still shattered, so the first thing we did was sweep up the broken glass on the inside and

and Jessica chatted the entire time, even joking a little to make me smile. Jessica played some music on her phone for us to listen

quickly. I found myself focusing entirely on the task of tending to students’ injuries, checking their temperatures, and handing out medicine, and eventually realized that it had been a few hours and I had been so busy that I hadn’t even thought about Enzo. Perhaps keeping me

a

finished cleaning up.

I wrapped my arms around her neck and hugged her tightly. Lori came over too and hugged both of

as I wiped the tears away with

want,” Lori said, gesturing around at the cleaned-up infirmary. “She’s

had been so sudden, so quick. I didn’t think she suffered in those moments, thankfully, but it was such an unnecessary death. Tiffany was the sweetest, kindest, most caring person I ever met; she didn’t deserve to die

was a knock on the door. Lori, Jessica and I all jerked our heads up to see one more injured student standing in the doorway with a sad look

I’m not too

all,” I replied, waving him in. “Are