My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 180

Nina

On the night after the dean’s announcement, I realized once more that I wouldn’t be able to sleep. Even just over the course of a couple of nights in Enzo’s warm arms, I already couldn’t sleep without him.

I couldn’t explain what came over me next. Maybe it was the exhaustion. Maybe it was desperation. But as I climbed out of bed for the second night in a row and got dressed, I almost felt like I was in a daze.

I was being drawn somewhere. Where I was being drawn to was a mystery to me, but for some reason I didn’t even question it and simply climbed out of bed without a second thought.

Once I was dressed, I quietly snuck out of my dorm again and made my way down the hallway. My body felt light, like it was a balloon filled with air and some invisible string was pulling me somewhere. I didn’t know where that string was pulling me, and I didn’t care. Somehow, I felt as though Enzo was on the other end of it, pulling me toward him… But I knew that that was a silly idea.

I made my way down the hallway, then down the stairs and out the front door. The campus was as quiet as a graveyard as I made my way across the quad. The dean had held a candlelight vigil earlier that night for the lives lost during the attack, but that had long since ended and everyone went to sleep.

Before the attack, there would almost always be people wandering the campus at any time of night or day. Night owls, partiers, insomniacs… There was always someone. But now, ever since the attack, everyone disappeared into their dorms as soon as the sun went down. The dean did, of course, implement a loose curfew, but I didn’t even think that was necessary. People were too afraid to even really go out during the day unless they absolutely had to. They were too scared.

But I wasn’t scared. Or maybe I was, but I just didn’t know it in my current state of mind, like some sort of zombie. Even as I stepped into the woods and made my way through the dark trees, I didn’t feel much of anything other than that invisible string pulling me into the shadows.

Finally, the string stopped pulling; I knew where I was.

It was the spot where Enzo stepped through the portal. It was almost as if there was some sort of energy here, some residue left over from the portal. Somehow, if I really searched for it, I was certain that I could smell his scent; not his wolf scent, because I had lost my ability to do that since my own wolf disappeared, but the smell of his leather jacket and campfire smoke.

I didn’t even think as I sat down next to the tree that was there and leaned my head back, because for the first time in two days, I felt myself slipping into a serene sleep within moments.

But that serenity didn’t last for long, because soon I began to dream.

Enzo was standing in front of me… Not a puppet, but the real thing. He was looking down at me.

“Enzo,” I called, reaching out for him, reaching up to cup his face.

But he only stared at me with a puzzled expression.

“Who are you?” he asked.