Chapter 75: The Technician

GEORGIA

His voice drops the second I say the word sabotage.

The phone rings four times before someone answers.

"Athletics maintenance, Whitfield," a man says, his voice gruff and tired, like he’s already had a long day and it’s barely past noon.

My pulse is already beating hard in my throat. Beneath the brace, my knee aches with every shift of my leg, as if my body knows where this conversation is going before I do. I press my palm flat against the blanket, trying to ground myself in something solid.

"Hi. My name is Georgia Steele. I’m a skater here at Rosethorne. I was competing at the Classic three weeks ago when - "

"The Classic incident," he cuts in.

His tone is clipped. Guarded.

He knows.

"What can I do for you, Miss Steele?"

I press the phone tighter against my ear, my free hand twisting into the blanket beside me. I can hear him breathing on the other end, waiting, and something about the silence makes my throat go dry.

"I saw the equipment review," I tell him. There’s no point easing into it, not when his voice has already changed. "The one you filed after my fall. It mentioned irregular wear on the blade mount. Inconsistent with normal use."

Silence.

It stretches long enough that I pull the phone away and stare at the screen, checking to make sure the call hasn’t dropped. My heart hammers against my ribs while I wait.

It hasn’t.

"That report wasn’t meant for you to see," he finally says, his voice lower now, careful, like he’s choosing each word with the caution of a man walking across thin ice.

"I know. It got forwarded to me by mistake." I swallow, tightening my grip around the phone. "But I read it. Eleven times, actually."

My voice shakes on the last word. I hate that he can probably hear it, hate that three weeks of forced composure are cracking apart in front of a stranger.

"You wrote that the wear was inconsistent with normal use." I take a breath, forcing steadiness into my voice that I don’t feel. "That sounds like sabotage to me."

The word hangs there, heavy and sharp, filling the space between us.

For a moment, neither of us speaks. I can hear the faint buzz of fluorescent lights somewhere on his end, the distant clang of something metal.

Then I hear him inhale, long and slow, like a man bracing himself for something he can’t take back.

"I told them something was wrong with the blade mount," he says quietly. "I flagged it the same day the equipment came in for review."

I sit a little straighter, ignoring the twinge in my knee.

"Wear like that doesn’t happen from normal training use. Not in that location. Not in that short a timeframe. I told them exactly that."

"And?"

The question comes out sharper than I intend, edged with three weeks of suppressed fury.

He exhales through his nose, a sound heavy with something that might be regret.

"They told me I was mistaken."

Something inside my chest tightens, a fist closing around my ribs.

"They told you that?"

"They told me to revise my findings." His voice carries a bitter edge now, frustration that sounds like it has been sitting there for a while, festering. "Said it was inconclusive because of how the equipment was handled after the fall. Chain-of-custody issues. That sort of thing."

I stare at the wall across from my bed, at the crack in the plaster I’ve memorized over the last three weeks.

"I know what I saw, Miss Steele."

His voice drops again, quieter, almost confessional.

"That wasn’t normal wear."

My fingers go cold around the phone.

"Somebody tampered with that mount before you ever stepped on the ice."

My stomach drops.

I knew.

At least, some part of me had known from the second I read that sentence in the report. I had spent the last hour trying to convince myself I was reading too much into it, that irregular wear could mean a dozen innocent things. A dozen excuses I’d built like scaffolding around the truth, just to keep myself upright.

But hearing him say it changes everything.

Someone tampered with my skate.

Someone did this.

My eyes burn. I blink hard and stare at the ceiling until the feeling passes, until I can trust my voice again.

"Who told you to revise it?" I ask.

My voice sounds steadier now, sharper than I expect.

"Who told you to stop asking questions?"

Silence.

Longer this time. I count the seconds in my head, one, two, three, four, my grip tightening on the phone with each passing beat.

I can almost picture him on the other end of the phone, weighing his options, looking toward the door, wondering how much trouble one conversation can cause. Maybe he has a family. Maybe he has a mortgage, a reason to keep his head down and his findings quiet.

"Miss Steele, I really shouldn’t be - "

"Please."

The word cracks, splitting open on my tongue.

I close my eyes.

"Please. Someone hurt me."

My fingers curl into the blanket again, knuckles whitening.

"Someone did this on purpose, and everyone keeps acting like it’s nothing. Like I’m supposed to accept that my knee is destroyed because of bad luck."

My throat closes around the next sentence, but I force it out anyway, past the lump rising there.

"You’re the only person who’s told me the truth so far. I just need to know who’s covering it up."

He exhales slowly, and for a moment I let myself hope.

For one second, I think he’s going to tell me.

Then he speaks, his voice dropping to barely above a whisper.

"Look, this place - " He stops, starts again. "It isn’t like other schools. Things happen here that get handled quietly, and people who ask too many questions about the wrong things tend to find their - "

The line goes dead.

I freeze.

Not a dial tone.

Not the polite click of someone hanging up.

Nothing.

Just silence, thick and total, pressing against my ear.

I pull the phone away from my ear, my hand trembling.

*Call Ended.*

"Hello?" I say anyway, foolishly, as if the words might reach him through sheer will.

My voice sounds stupidly loud in the room.

"Mr. Whitfield?"

Nothing.

Only the low hum of the radiator, indifferent and steady, filling the space where his voice used to be.

I stare at the screen, my thumb hovering over it like it might offer an answer if I wait long enough.

Then I call back.

Immediately.

The phone rings.

And rings.

And rings.

No voicemail. No answer. Just an endless, hollow ringing that seems to stretch longer with each cycle.

Eventually, I end the call myself.

My hand is shaking so badly I nearly drop the phone onto the blanket.

I wait two minutes before trying again, counting the seconds on the clock across the room, willing my pulse to slow.

Same thing.

Ringing into nothing.

I glance toward my bedroom door, then back at the phone, half expecting someone to be standing there when I look up.

"Okay," I whisper.

I don’t know who I’m talking to.

Maybe myself.

Maybe the empty room.

I try a third time, my thumb trembling as it hits the screen.

Still nothing.

My knee throbs from the way I’ve been sitting, too tense to move properly, every muscle locked tight with adrenaline that has nowhere to go. I shift against the pillows and wince, the pain grounding me in a way that almost feels like relief.

This is ridiculous.

There has to be an explanation.

He could have stepped away. Maybe someone called him into another office. Maybe his phone died.

Normal things. Ordinary, boring, forgettable things that happen to people every single day.

I set the phone on the blanket and press both hands over my eyes, trying to block out the room, the silence, the growing certainty curling cold in my stomach.

Breathe.

Just breathe.

I force air into my lungs, slow and deep, until the room stops feeling quite so small, until my heartbeat settles into something closer to normal.

Ten minutes pass, each one longer than the last.

Then I pick up the phone again.

One more time.

I dial the number, my finger steadier now, though my chest still feels tight.

The call connects.

For half a second, relief hits so fast it almost makes me dizzy, a wave of gratitude flooding through me before I even hear his voice.

Then the automated voice speaks.

"The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again."

I don’t move.

The message repeats, flat and mechanical, indifferent to the way my world just tilted sideways.

"The number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please check the number and try your call again."

I lower the phone into my lap, my hands trembling around it.

No.

I stare at it, willing the words to rearrange themselves into something that makes sense.

A number doesn’t just disappear.

Not after three unanswered calls. Not after a conversation like that. Not after a man told me the truth and sounded, for one unguarded moment, afraid.

Disconnected.

Entirely.

My hands start shaking again, worse this time, until I have to set the phone down just to keep from dropping it.

I look toward the closed bedroom door, half convinced I’ll see a shadow shift beneath it.

The room hasn’t changed. The radiator still hums. The same shadows sit in the corners. Nothing is different.

Except it is.

A few minutes ago, I was trying to find out whether someone sabotaged my equipment.

Now the only person who admitted he knew something was wrong can’t be reached at all, as if he’s been erased, scrubbed clean from existence the moment he told me too much.

I set the phone carefully on my nightstand, my fingers lingering on it a second longer than necessary.

The screen goes dark.

I keep staring at my bedroom door, waiting for something, though I couldn’t say what.

And for the first time since the Classic, I don’t feel like I’m imagining things.

I feel watched.