My Hockey Alpha

Nina

“Why were you two saying my name so much just now?” Eli asked quietly as he blocked my way to the door.

I furrowed my brow. “We weren’t. What are you talking about?”

Eli shook his head. “I heard you. You kept saying the name ‘Enzo’.”

My eyes widened. His name wasn’t Enzo. It was Eli… Right? For a moment, my heart skipped a beat as I looked up at him, searching his face for some sign that he really was Enzo; but unlike before, his face never shifted or changed. He stayed looking just the same as he was now: an unfamiliar face.

It must have been some sort of sick prank.

“That’s not funny,” I growled. Eli stared at me with wide eyes, but I just pushed past him and through the door, out into the cold night air.

“Wait!” he called, running after me. “I’m serious.”

I scoffed. “Sure you are,” I replied, holding my arms as I walked briskly through the cold night air. “Did Sadie send you? Is this some sort of prank to get more dirt on me?”

I kept walking. “No one sent me,” he said quietly. “You just

I knew that wasn’t the case. All of this was just some sort of nasty prank; either Selena had sent them both to mess with me, or they had simply heard rumors about my relationship with Enzo and wanted to

turning around to look at Eli,

arrived back at home, I ran to my room and ripped off the dress that Eli had given me. Without thinking, I shoved it into a plastic trash bag at the back of my closet, pulled on some pajamas, and promptly threw myself down onto my bed, sobbing

Jessica come home. They must have heard me crying, because my door quietly clicked open, and the next thing I knew someone was rubbing my back gently while I cried. I wanted to tell them everything, but I just couldn’t. I felt too weak and helpless to even speak. But the way my friends sat with me and

…

have been asleep for two, maybe three hours.

thing was for certain: when I woke up, I was not in my bed. In fact, I quickly realized from the feel of the freezing cold biting against the side of my face, that I wasn’t

looking around wildly; I was on the

didn’t recall coming out here, but as soon as I got my bearings, I

where I last saw Enzo stepping

moon was full and bright, but the forest still felt dark and ominous, and I was all alone out here in my pajamas. My hands and my feet were freezing; when I looked down at them, they were bright red from the cold. I quickly shoved my hands into my armpits and shivered,

the forest was silent, aside from the lonesome call of an

it, and part of me wanted to stay, as though Enzo would suddenly come through a portal and hold me in his arms. But I couldn’t stay here — not if I wanted to keep all of my fingers. A light snow had even begun to fall,

it wouldn’t be the last. I would have to tell Jessica and Lori to lock me in my room at night, otherwise I really would freeze to death out here one night. But even then, I couldn’t deny the strange attraction I had to that spot, and wondered if a locked door would even stop me in my sleep. Maybe I would simply wake up in excruciating pain one night after jumping out my window in