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?”

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

shivered in the cold. Part of me wanted to turn around and run to him, as though Enzo would be standing there when I turned to face him, but 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 bully me. Either way, I didn’t

without turning around to look at Eli, I began

I shoved it into a plastic trash bag

pillow with my tears. At some point, I thought I heard Lori and 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 gently rubbed my back eventually comforted me, and

…

have been asleep for two, maybe three hours. I couldn’t

woke up, I was not in my bed. In fact, I quickly

shot open. I sat up abruptly, looking around

soon as I got my bearings, I knew where I was.

place where I last saw Enzo stepping through the

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, looking around frantically as though a Crescent,

was silent, aside from the lonesome

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, leaving a light dusting on the crunchy, dry leaves beneath my feet. If I didn’t get home now, I

of dried tears that were already caked on my skin. This wasn’t the first time I had somehow managed to sleepwalk out into the middle of the woods and wake up next to the portal, and somehow I knew 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