"He was right." The words came out before I could stop them. "My temperature was dropping. It happens when I'm stressed. When my dragon thinks there's a threat. Cinder noticed. He tried to help. And everyone dismissed him like he was hysterical."
Kinkaid's jaw tightened. "I saw the footage. Heard the audio." He paused. "He wasn't wrong about the hypothermia. I've been watching your readings for the last few weeks. They concern me because this hasn't happened before."
Ice slid down my spine. "Coach—"
"We'll discuss that separately." His voice brooked no argument. "Right now, I need to know what you want to do about this." He gestured at the tablet. "Because that article is everywhere. And Cinder Adair is about to walk into this building with no idea what's waiting for him. I knew he’d been fired, obviously, and what happened, but Nancy vouched for him. I convinced management to give him a chance." He huffed. “He’s way overqualified for this job and we're lucky to have him. He worked in a pediatric ICU and happened to be in the ER when the girl came in because they had a huge pile-up of about ten cars, so they called everyone in.”
My chest constricted so hard I couldn't breathe for a moment.
He probably didn't know. He was probably on his way here right now, still dealing with being dismissed and ignored and treated like his concerns didn't matter—and he was about to find out that his past had been dragged up again, weaponized again, used to paint him as untrustworthy and dangerous. By the same people who were supposed to be his colleagues.
Travel time had coincided with down time and I hadn't seen him for three too long days, and before that only with other people.
“We can put a positive spin on this,” Kincaid said. “But if he doesn’t know, I don’t want him blindsided.” I lurched to my feet. “When you’re done, we need to talk about your temperature control.”
I knew that. I needed some advice, but I had no idea who to ask. Maybe Max would have some ideas. But I had to get to Cinder first.
I caught him in the parking lot.
His car was a disaster—rusted fender, broken windshield, the kind of vehicle that looked like it might not survive another Colorado winter. He was just stepping out, messenger bag slung over one shoulder, face drawn with the kind of exhaustion that came from not sleeping and pretending you had.
He saw me and stopped.
"Taranis?" His voice was careful. Guarded. Still professional despite everything. "Is something wrong? Did your temperature—"
"Cinder." I stopped a few feet away, close enough to see the shadows under his eyes, far enough that I wouldn't crowd him. "We need to talk. Before you go inside." I'd managed to avoid him for the rest of the road trip, and I knew he'd noticed.
Something flickered across his face—wariness, confusion, the beginning of that defensive wall I'd watched him build and rebuild since the day we met. "If this is about last week, I already know I overstepped. I'll apologize to Coach Kincaid and—"
"It's not about that." I swallowed hard, hating what I was about to do. Hating that I had to be the one to tell him. "There's an article. It came out this morning."
He went very still. "What kind of article?"
I pulled out my phone, already queued to the page, and held it out to him. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to see it before you walked in there."
His hand trembled slightly as he took the phone. I watched his face as he read—watched the color drain from his cheeks, watched his jaw tighten, watched something behind his eyes shatter into pieces so small I wasn't sure they could ever be put back together.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no—"
"Cinder—"
"They used the photos," he whispered. "From the hotel. They used—" He scrolled down, and I saw the exact moment he hit the part about Gavin. About the exposé. About whether he could be trusted. "Oh God."
His knees wobbled.
I caught him before he hit the pavement, my hands closing around his arms, steadying him against the side of his rusted car. He was shaking—full-body tremors that had nothing to do with cold and everything to do with a wound being ripped open for the second time.
"I didn't—" He gasped for air, eyes wild. "I never told him anything to hurt anyone. I was grieving. I was falling apart. I thought he loved me, and I—" A sound escaped him, raw and broken. "They're calling me a liability. They're asking how anyone can trust me."
"They're wrong," I said firmly. "Every word of that article is designed to hurt you, not inform anyone. It's garbage journalism written by people who don't care about truth."
He looked up at me, and the devastation in his expression made my dragon roar with the need to protect, to destroy, to find whoever had written this and make them understand exactly what they'd done.
"Everyone's going to see this," he said, voice barely audible. "Everyone I work with. Everyone on the team. They're going to look at me and think—"
"They're going to think you saved a man's life," I interrupted. "That's what the photos show. That's what happened."
"But the rest of it—"