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“It’s not a threat.” Ethan appeared from the far end of the hallway, his face grim. “It’s a fact. You don’t belong here, and Trace doesn’t need your brand of bullshit waiting for him when he comes out of there.”

“I’m not—”

“Would you all just quit it?” Coach cut in and put it all to rest. “You guys are mad about what happened on the field, and you’re taking it out on the closest person you can find. For all you know, she could actually care about the guy, like the rest of you.”

“It’s true,” I muttered, but no one paid attention.

Because the doors to the med bay had swung open.

Tara stepped out first, her clipboard clutched to her chest. She looked professional and unnervingly calm. Behind her, Trace emerged, and my heart nearly stopped.

He was pale, his jersey pulled down to his waist to accommodate a heavy wrap of white athletic tape that bound his right shoulder. He looked as if he’d been hit by a freight train, his movements stiff and agonizingly slow.

“He’s okay,” Tara began, her voice smooth and practiced. I hung on every syllable, searching her face as she glanced at her notes. “We’re looking at a standard acromial impact. There’s some inflammation, and he’s going to be stiff for a few days, but the structural integrity seems manageable. We’ll keep him on a regimen of ice and some light anti-inflammatories.”

I gaped at her, then moved my gaze to Trace. He stared at the floor, his jaw locked so tight the muscles in his neck were corded like steel cables. Every time he took a breath, his right side hitched. He didn’t look manageable. He looked like he was held together by nothing but tape and stubbornness. I couldn’t make the math work. It was Tara’s clinical, relaxed tone versus the broken man standing in front of me.

“He should be able to finish out the rotation,” she continued, her voice drifting into a noncommittal drone about pain management and game-time decisions.

My brain spiraled, all thought drowned out by a screeching siren that refused to let up. What the fuck was she talking about? How could she expect us to believe he was okay?

I was about to speak up, to ask her how she could possibly justify that assessment, when the shadow in the doorway rippled behind them, and a third figure stepped out of the medical bay.

Frank Delaney.

He smoothed the lapels of his charcoal suit, looking entirely too smug for a man standing in a hallway that smelled of sweat and liniment. The air in the hallway dropped by several degrees, and it all clicked into place with a sickening thud in my gut.

He’d been in there. He’d been part of the assessment.

Tara’s words were very likely a script and had nothing to do with the truth of Trace’s condition. The realization burned through me. This wasn’t a medical recovery. It was a shady negotiation.

“The next game?” Coach asked, and Tara nodded briskly.

“He’ll be fine to play.”

I stared at Trace. His eyes were glazed, breathing shallow, and every time he moved even a fraction of an inch, the skin around his jaw turned white. He looked like he was one sharp inhale away from collapsing.

“Fine?” I asked, my voice trembling with rising fury. I stepped toward her, ignoring the way the players shifted around me. “Tara, look me in the eye and say that again.”

“Dakota—” Coach tried to tug my arm, but I shook out of his grip.

“He can barely stand, let alone take another hit from a three-hundred-pound linebacker,” I went on. “Look at him. Are you blind?”

Tara’s expression hardened into a mask of cold indifference. “I don’t work for you, and I sure as hell don’t work for the school paper. I’m the head trainer, and I’ve made my assessment.”

“Your assessment was bought,” I hissed, my gaze flicking to Delaney.

We were seconds away from a full-blown standoff when Frank stepped forward, his hand raised in a placating gesture that made my skin crawl.

“Now, now,” he said, his voice smooth as silk. “Let’s all just take a breath. All this excitement isn’t good for the press, and it’s certainly not good for our star here. The medical professional has spoken. Trace is fine, he’s cleared, and that’s all that matters for the Highlanders.”

He reached out, his hand landing on Trace’s taped shoulder in a gesture that was supposed to look fatherly. He gave it a firm, solid pat.

For a split second, the brave face Trace wore crumbled. His eyes squeezed shut, and he sucked in a breath between his teeth as he instinctively leaned away from the touch. It was a grimace of pure agony, a flash of the truth behind Tara’s manufactured veil of lies.

Then he swallowed hard and forced his eyes back open. He looked straight at me, but he wasn’t seeing me. He was seeing the scoreboard.

“I’m good,” Trace rasped, his voice sounding like it had been scraped over glass. He straightened his spine, the effort clearly costing him everything he had left. “I’m good to play, Coach.”