The Ice Hockey Player

Confessions from Hell

Finn stared impassively at the three girls in his kitchen. Jas and Lila remained silent, but both gave a short, shake of their heads. They weren't going to tell him anything. Skye was shaking in her chair and had her head placed in her hands, hiding her face from him. Finn couldn't take his eyes off her and could see the start of dark, brown hair crowning through the pink.

"What's going on, Skye?" Finn asked softly, dropping so his face was level with hers. Tentatively he placed his hand in a comforting manner on her knee and squeezed. He didn't miss the dirty glance Lila and Jas threw each other. He ignored them.

Skye's eyes peeked through her spread fingers.

"It's...complicated," she said softly.

"You can tell me; I won't tell anyone," he said. "You can trust me. I promise."

Skye hesitated. Her eyes bore into his, searching for anything that might suggest he was lying. She could look away. She wouldn't find anything.

"You don't need to know," Lila said when the silence dragged on.

"Yeah, so you can back off now," Jas snapped and gave Finn a hard shove with toppled him over and onto the floor. Jas smirked at him from above and nudged him to the side with a heeled boot.

"Go play on the ice for a while little boy," Lila said nastily "let friends look after Skye."

How he hated these two. Skye could look after herself – and she was on the verge of telling him. But her stupid hell hounds had to get in the way.

Finn left the room though. Let them think they won this round. He stomped his feet and made them softer and softer until they died off completely, giving the appearance he had thumped upstairs.

"I never thought Finn Hammond would get in my bad books," Jas said.

"I know. I can't believe how far he's willing to go," Lila agreed.

It was silent for a few moments. Stand up for me he begged Skye. Tell them I'm not that bad.

He knew it was a lost cause.

"I don't know much longer I can do this. He acts like he cares but I know it's just that – and act. There's too many parallels to...there." Skye's voice sounded hollow again, like she had nothing left inside her. Like she had given up fighting.

"If you break the bet he gets to stay in your life and take you out whenever you want," Jas said thoughtfully. "And we know he'll cash in on it."

"Unless we move," Lila said.

"It could work," Skye said slowly.

"We need to leave anyway; the psycho knows where you are. We leave and he loses you again, Finn leaves you the hell alone and we're all good." Jas said. "It's perfect."

"Besides, it's Finn's fault you were found again. If your photo hadn't been plastered all over the tabloids and he'd left you alone like you'd asked, you would never be in this position," Lila said.

Finn's blood was slowly boiling until a raging inferno had replaced the flow of his blood. They were going to cheat their way out of the bet; by running away.

If only Skye would tell him who the 'psycho' was, the one who kept sending threatening messages and packages. He could keep her safe. He money to hire protection, to get around the clock security guards and private investigators to track this guy down. He would walk to the ends of the earth, cut up a mountain and bring her back a piece of the moon to keep her safe and happy.

"Then let's go. We'll transfer universities again –"

"No," Jas cut Skye off bluntly. "No transferring. No universities. We just need to leave, find a job and start at the bottom and work our way up. That's all we can do."