My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 176

Nina

Enzo held my hand until the last moment, only releasing it just moments before the portal closed. I wanted to hold onto him and jump through the portal with him, but I knew that it would never work. And he was right: I needed to stay here. There was still much to do.

“Are you gonna be okay?” the Fullmoon girl, Myra, asked.

I nodded, blinking back my tears. “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Thank you.” I couldn’t bear to have anyone look at me, however, so before anything else was said I quickly turned on my heel and walked away.

A mist had settled on the forest that morning. The air was cold and almost damp, and the sound of the leaves crunching underneath my feet was a comfort. As I painstakingly walked back to campus, I just kept focusing on that sound to keep my mind off of Enzo.

He would be okay. At least, that was what I kept telling myself. But if he wasn’t okay… I didn’t know how I would get to him. I knew that he told Myra not to open any portals for me in case I got any grand ideas, and she was loyal to him as his cousin and as a follower of his father. She wouldn’t budge if I asked; I was sure of it. Therefore, if anything happened and Enzo didn’t come back, I would have no way of finding him. Even Luke was still missing after he saved Enzo from Edward. I didn’t even know if Luke was still alive. For all I knew, he was a pile of dust somewhere. At least his curse would be over, but it still pained me to think about that.

When I finally returned to my apartment, Lori and Jessica were waiting for me. They instantly saw my puffy face and my red eyes, and stopped me before I was able to go and hide in my room.

“We’re not letting you lock yourself in your room and cry in bed all day,” Lori demanded, folding her arms across her chest. “Come on. We’re going to the infirmary.”

My face went pale. “The infirmary?” I asked. Even just the thought of going there made me sick. It reminded me too much of Tiffany.

“Nina, we have to go,” Jessica said, sounding a bit more gentle than her girlfriend. She reached out and rubbed my arm with a sad look in her eyes. “Students are injured. They need their school doctor.”

“Plus, we can’t waste any time looking for that antidote recipe,” Lori added. “Don’t worry. Jessica and I will stay with you.”

I took a deep breath, then nodded reluctantly. Even though the infirmary was the last place I wanted to go right now, they weren’t wrong. There was still much to be done. I had promised Enzo that I would work hard to keep the infirmary running and to create more of the antidote.

“Alright,” I said, trying my best to hide the tremor in my voice. “Let’s go.”

Together, the three of us made our way over to the infirmary in the cold morning air. When we arrived, the main window was still shattered, so the first thing we did was sweep up the broken glass on the inside and outside of the infirmary. After that, we slowly began to make our way around the infirmary and pick up scattered supplies, putting them back in their rightful places.

Lori and Jessica chatted the entire time, even joking a little to make me smile. Jessica played some music on her phone for us to listen to, and after an hour of cleaning, I had to admit that I was feeling a little bit better already.

Around noon, we opened the doors to the public. Lori made a large sign to put outside directing anyone with injuries to come in and have them looked at, and unbelievably, students began filtering in rather quickly. I found myself focusing entirely on the task of tending to students’ injuries, checking their temperatures, and handing out medicine, and eventually realized that it had been a few hours and I had been so busy that I hadn’t even thought about Enzo. Perhaps keeping me busy was really a smart move on Lori and Jessica’s part.

By the time the stream of students slowed to a trickle, and eventually stopped, it was already almost dinnertime.

“You did good today,” Jessica said gently as we finished cleaning up. “You’re a good doctor, you know that?”