Rule One: Never Ever Get Attached

The championship game was supposed to be the greatest night of Jace Hunter's life. Northwood Academy had waited three years for this moment, and the entire arena was shaking with anticipation as thousands of students filled the stands, waving purple banners and screaming the team's name while the scoreboard displayed the final seconds of the game.

Twelve seconds remained.

Jace tightened his grip around his hockey stick and stared at the goal ahead, knowing Northwood was tied with Westbridge and that one final goal would give them the championship. Scouts from several professional teams sat near the rink, watching every move he made, and his coach had reminded him all week that this game could determine his future. Jace had dreamed about this moment for years, and now he pushed forward, guiding the puck across the ice as he slipped past one defender, then another, his teammates shouting from behind him while the noise faded and his attention narrowed toward the goal.

Five seconds.

Jace raised his stick, and then he saw her.

A girl stood near the entrance of the arena, not wearing a Northwood jersey and not cheering with the crowd, standing quietly in a pale sweater and watching the game with an expression that seemed almost uncertain. Jace stopped breathing, and the puck slipped away from his stick. A Westbridge player immediately stole it, but Jace barely noticed, his eyes remaining fixed on the girl, because there was something about her face, something impossible.

His heart slammed against his chest. It could not be her, he thought, yet he knew that face. He had seen it three years ago on the worst night of his life, had seen those eyes filled with fear, had heard her voice calling for help before she disappeared, and everyone had believed she was dead. Yet she was standing there, alive.

Jace dropped his stick. His teammates shouted his name, and the referee blew the whistle, but he heard none of it as he climbed over the boards and started walking toward the entrance, the crowd gradually falling silent around him.

The girl noticed him approaching, her eyebrows drawing together as she looked at him with obvious confusion, and Jace stopped only a few feet away from her, unable to understand how the past he had spent three years trying to bury could suddenly be standing in front of him. She studied his face.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Do I know you?"

The question struck him harder than any hit he had ever taken on the ice, because she truly did not recognize him. Jace looked at her face again, searching for anything that could prove he was mistaken, but he was not mistaken. It was her, the girl he had watched disappear, the girl he had believed was dead. For three years, Jace had carried the weight of that night believing he would never see her again, and now his voice came out barely above a whisper.

"You are supposed to be dead."

Ava stared at him as though he had just spoken another language. "What?"

Jace could not answer, his mind trapped between the arena and another place, another night, another version of the girl standing before him. Three years ago, she had been younger, frightened, and crying beside Caleb Rhodes, and he remembered the rain, the broken headlights, and most of all the silence after the ambulance disappeared into the darkness, a silence he had spent three years believing meant she was gone. Now she was looking at him, alive.

"Who are you?" Ava asked, and the question pulled him back into the present.

Jace looked around the arena, where hundreds of faces were turned toward them. His teammates stood near the rink, his coach was shouting angrily, and the scoreboard still showed the championship hanging in the balance, though he should have returned to the game. Instead, he remained where he was.

"You really do not remember me?"

Ava frowned. "Should I?"

Something cold settled in his chest, because she was not pretending, and there was no recognition in her eyes. Jace stepped closer, lowering his voice. "What is your name?"

"Ava."

His stomach tightened. "Ava what?"

"Rhodes."

Everything inside him went still. Rhodes. Caleb Rhodes, his former teammate, his best friend, the boy whose disappearance had changed everything. Jace stared at Ava as memories came rushing back, Caleb laughing in the locker room, Caleb promising that nothing could separate them, Caleb grabbing his shoulder on that final night and begging him to protect his sister.

His sister.

Jace looked at Ava again. "You are Caleb's sister."

Ava's expression changed. "You knew my brother?"

Jace nodded slowly. "I knew him."

The words sounded wrong, past tense, final.

Ava stepped closer. "Then you can tell me what happened to him."

Jace's jaw tightened as, around them, the crowd started whispering again.

"Where is he?" Ava asked.

Jace looked toward the rink, where the championship game had continued without him. Northwood was losing possession, and his coach was furious, though none of it mattered anymore.

"You should not be here," he said.

Ava's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Because whoever made Caleb disappear may know you are here."

For the first time, fear flickered across her face, and then her phone vibrated. Ava pulled it from her pocket and looked down at one new message, her expression changing instantly, and Jace noticed immediately.

"What is it?"

Ava did not answer. She stared at the screen, her fingers tightening around the phone as though whatever she had just seen had frozen her in place.

Jace stepped closer. "Ava?"

Still nothing. He glanced toward her phone, but she quickly lowered it. "Who sent it?" he asked.

Ava finally looked up, and there was something different in her eyes now, fear, confusion, and something that made Jace's stomach twist. She opened her mouth, but no words came.

Jace stared at her, waiting for an answer, and Ava looked back at the screen just as her phone vibrated again.