Today, her skis were fine and she was still currently sitting in seventh after my run. Not for long though, I thought as I watched Fitzgerald pull out the folder we’d given him, showing her the evidence of her tampering.
It was odd; I should have felt angry—probably even enraged that she’d tried to, at the very least, injure me. Instead, I just felt sorry for her. Instead, I saw what Kyle had seen that very night—the look of a woman who would always blame me for her failures no matter what I did or didn’t do.
When she began pointing at me and yelling, I turned my head away, there was no reason to waste my time on that kind of hate.
“She’s lying! She framed me!”
I could hear as her voice rose even above the announcer and the crowds. I would’ve walked away but I knew that Kyle and Danny were coming here and I didn’t want to miss them.
“D-don’t you see what she’s trying to do? She’s trying to kick me out of the competition again, just like five years ago.”
I couldn’t stop my eyes from rolling at how ridiculous she sounded. Glancing back, I saw the security officer had put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Fitzgerald had since stopped trying to talk to her and was handing the folder over to the police officer.
But as soon as Kyle’s face appeared from the crowd over to my right, I ceased to pay any attention to what was happening to Andrea. She’d never been my concern, and she wasn’t about to start now.
With a flash of his pass at the patrol who was guarding the entrance to this restricted area, Danny and Kyle began to make their way over to me. I knew my trainer was ecstatic for me, but the only smile I could focus on was Kyle’s as my insides began to melt all over again.
I dug my poles into the snow again, noticing how Danny hung back to give Kyle and me this moment together. I was about to drop my skis so my arms were free for him when a loud screech jarred my ears.
“You won’t get away with this, you cunt!”
I turned just as Andrea broke away from the man’s hold and adrenaline burst through my veins. She was coming for me, but I could take her.
Then my heart stopped when I realized she wasn’t coming for me.
She was going for Kyle.
She thought the gold—my career was what was most important to me. Now, she knew better. Now, she knew how to hurt me.
My eyes widened in horror as the glint of the pocketknife she’d used to damage my skis appeared in front of her as she sprinted toward Kyle.
Everything happened in slow motion. My heart pounded like a train trying to gain steam, slow and heavy beats as my eyes slid back to Kyle who was completely unaware of anyone else but me.
My skis hit the ground, snow flying up like dust around them.
I ran toward him but my ski boots were not made for speed like this.
“Kyle!” I screamed. “Behind you!”
He began to turn just as she got to him, her knife sinking into the back of his arm instead of through his back. He let out a roar as shock and pain clashed on his face as he looked down at her and then at me.
She’d hurt him.
She’d hurt my Prince Charming.
Nobody fucking hurts my Prince Charming.
In that moment, everything stopped being slow.
With a strangled yell, her crazed eyes noticed me a split second after she thought she’d won. Ducking down, I drove my shoulder into her stomach with all my weight, clasping my arms around the backs of her knees, I took her down with every ounce of precision with which I’d trained.
I felt her chest cave underneath my weight as she hit the ground, her head smacking on snow that wasn’t forgiving at the speed with which she hit it.
There was commotion and screaming all around us, but it was like music set to a battle scene—and I kept fighting.
The second she was pinned down by the hard corner of my shoulder, I swung my legs to the side and sprawled across her chest, putting myself completely in control of her arms just as she began to struggle against me.
With my head so close to hers, I could see the animosity that had eaten away at her insides like acid.
“You took everything… I hate you.” Her bitter words spat in my face.
Putting all my weight on her, I swore, “I took nothing from you, you bitch. And it’s not me you hate, it’s yourself.”
With that, I swung one leg over her hips, her hands still trying to land a punch but failing. My arms slid to grip the collar of her jacket and pulled it tight. The red of her face became more saturated until her eyes shut and she drifted to sleep.
It would have been easy to keep going and kill her, but she wasn’t worth the effort.
Panting, I pushed myself to my feet and turned frantically toward Kyle. He was sitting a few feet from us, the knife on the ground next to him turning the snow from white to red with his blood. Each gasping breath I took was filled with the cold, metallic scent, sliding deep into my lungs and pooling like poisonous mercury. My stomach turned and I fought back the urge to throw up.
“Kyle…” I gasped his name as my feet carried me the few necessary steps toward him before I fell to my knees next to him and the tears began to fall.
A warm hand cupped my cheek as he rasped tightly, “I’m fine, Princess. Just a flesh wound.”
For some reason that only made me cry harder as I gripped his hand to my face like I wanted his palm print tattooed on my cheek.
“He’ll be just fine, Jac.” It was then I noticed that Danny was crouching behind him, holding a piece of fabric against to his back to keep pressure on the wound.
“I thought she—” I choked, unable to finish my sentence.
“Hey,” he whispered with a tilted smile. “I know, sweetheart. I know. You know what else I know? Not only am I okay, but you fucking saved me, Princess.” He let out a hoarse, pained laugh.
I bit my lip and glanced over my shoulder, blinking through the tears to see that Tyler was holding Andrea with her hands behind her back as the police rushed over to us, her face distorted with anger as her brain still recovered from the oxygen deprivation of my choke.
“Hey.” My eyes turned back to his. “You saved me, Cinderella.”
I laughed, the sound breaking through my tension. Andrea was gone. Kyle was okay. I laughed again, this time a few tears sneaking along for the ride.
“I thought the princess always saved Prince Charming in the fairy tale?” I teased thickly.
He pulled my face closer to his. “You believe in fairy tales now, Jac?”
My inhale caught in my chest.
“I believe in you,” I replied breathlessly. “And to me, that’s close enough.”
His eyes ignited with love and desire and all the feelings that define forever.
“I love you,” he rasped.
A small smile spread over my lips as I brought them to his. “I know.”
“HEY, MAN, YOU ALRIGHT?”
I gave Tyler a half smile as he walked into my hospital room to join the rest of my audience. I was sitting up on top of the bed, fully clothed in my jeans and a tee from the hospital gift shop since the one I came in with was cut off me to inspect my wound.
About three minutes after Jac had effectively subdued my attacker, the paramedics showed up with a stretcher and every camera on the mountain. My legs still worked just fine, but they insisted on carrying me out to the ambulance which really detracted from the focus of the day’s event. That and when they caught the one EMT trying to tell Jac that she couldn’t ride in the ambulance because she wasn’t family.
There was a lot going on, but I’m pretty sure I’d heard my girlfriend tell the paramedic she’d just choked out a woman for stabbing me, and she wouldn’t hesitate to do it again if she wasn’t allowed in the ambulance. Needless to say, a few moments later and Jac was climbing inside the back with me.
‘You worried about me, princess?’
‘Not as long as I’m around.’
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling when
I remembered the exchange. I think someone managed to capture it on camera, too.
They’d wheeled me right back here, hooked me up to a bunch of IVs, and then the doctor came in to take a look at the damage. After a slew of X-rays, scans, and swabs—everything came back clear before Dr. Michaels stitched me back up and put me on antibiotics just to be safe.
My small room was in a corner on the emergency level of the Porter Adventist Hospital and what had just been filled with Jac and me, quickly turned into the happening place on the emergency block.
Chance and Jessa were currently standing in the corner next to Marissa who was sitting by the window; Shawn had just run downstairs to grab a bottle of water from the machine. And Danny was currently trying to figure out how to get the TV to work like there was any need to confirm that Jac had taken the gold.
Seriously, was there anyone left on the fucking mountain?
I was grateful, really, for my crew. But if I was also honest, all I wanted to do right now was be alone with my girl who was sitting confidently by my bedside like she was my bodyguard. It sounded funny but the damn stubborn woman had just saved my life.
The knife Andrea had wasn’t big enough to kill me the way she’d been aiming, but it would’ve done more serious damage if I hadn’t turned. Instead, because of Jac, everything was okay and I was going to be walking away with ten stitches in my right deltoid and a recommendation for no heavy exercise or lifting on that side for a few weeks until everything healed.
“Yeah,” I assured him. “How about you?”
His hair fell in front of his eyes as he nodded. “Was just giving my statement to the police along with Pyle.”
Danny figured out the TV because at that moment, the news came blasting into the room, scenes we’d just lived through flashing over the screen.
‘World Cup competitor, Andrea Jensen, stabbed bystander after being informed she was removed from competition.’
‘There has been no official announcement as to the reason yet, but our sources say that Jensen is being removed for tampering with the skis of the current title holder, Jac Blanchard.’
We all listened in silence to the back and forth between the announcers. It was strange to see myself on TV and just like I was still there, I relived the moments that one cameraman had caught from a distance.
I saw myself walking toward Jac; you could see both of our smiles even from the location of the camera. At first, it wasn’t even obvious what was happening. All of a sudden, Jac’s expression exploded with anger as she yelled to me. My shoulder panged as I watched myself turn right into the knife that Andrea was holding. Muscle memory. My body somewhat blocked hers from the camera at this angle. But I wasn’t watching me. I knew what the hell happened to me: Andrea stabbed me and I fell forward down onto my knees, blood dropping like red rain, melting little pockets into the snow.
I watched Jac.
My princess. My warrior.
My shoulder screamed. I knew there was something happening to my right; I saw Jac fly past me, heading right for my assailant. When I turned, white spots of radiating pain blurred my vision. Next I knew, Danny was crouched next to me telling me not to worry about Jac and that this was going to hurt.
But on the TV, I could see exactly what happened. The camera had zoomed in and I watched every ounce of controlled anger on Jac’s face as she methodically controlled the crazed woman. It was clear from the video, the difference between the two of them: Andrea, frantic and struggling, whereas Jac was calmly going through the motions of keeping her on the ground and restrained; it was clear that one was skilled in self-defense and the other had only rage on her side.
After everything that Andrea had done—and accused her of—Jac’s actions weren’t the ones of revenge, they weren’t the ones that the strong inflict on the weak because they know they can, and they weren’t the ones of a woman who was finally given the opportunity to put her enemy in her place.
No.
They were the actions of a woman who was fighting to save something she loved rather than destroy something she had every right to hate.
In her position, even I didn’t think I could’ve been that strong.
Even as Jac tightened her hands around Andrea’s collar, cutting off blood flow to her brain like she’d done in the bar that first night, there was no trace of a desire any more lethal than to subdue the woman whose crazy mind had prompted her to commit violence.
At the same time, I saw Danny tug on the knife in my shoulder and an involuntary cough wrenched from my body as it remembered the shooting pain. It was a cold kind of burn, the kind that lingers even after the stimulus is gone. But with it gone, a new rush of adrenaline kicked in. I watched myself push Danny out of the way as I went for Jac. If Andrea had a knife, I remembered thinking who knew what the fuck else she had up her sleeve; I didn’t want Jac to be the one to find out.
But by the time I turned, my warrior was already straddling the crazy bitch and getting her under control. I sank back onto the snow at the same time Andrea’s head lulled as she passed out from Jac’s hold.
After Jac had knocked Andrea out cold, Tyler restrained her and Jackson had kept the crowd at bay until the police finally cuffed her and took her away.
‘All these years, Jensen has claimed the title of victim. Makes you wonder if we need to rethink the reputation Blanchard was given after the death of Evan Scott.’
I saw Jac’s head fall. She wouldn’t cry here. Truthfully, I didn’t know if she’d ever cry about the media exonerating her but I knew she felt it.
“I gotta say,” Tyler began as his gaze slid from me over to Jac. “Those were some pretty sick moves there, Jac. You were like a snow ninja.”
The whole room chuckled.
“Thanks, I think…” she murmured softly. I loved how she was the best goddamn female skier in the world and she could take compliments on that all day with cool confidence. But this? A compliment for saving my life and my princess replied like she’d done nothing special.
“Seriously, you should have seen her face when you tackled her.” Tyler’s smile grew. “She did not see that fucking coming at all. And then she just looked like a fish out of water. It almost makes me want to laugh thinking about it, you know.” He glanced at me. “Now that you’re safe and all.”
“Thanks, man,” I drawled, my eyes still on Jac. “My girl is badass, that’s for sure.”
“Leia’s got nothing on you,” Marissa added with a smile. “Heck, you didn’t even need a lightsaber to take her down.”
“Would’ve been a lot cooler if I did,” Jac mumbled and I laughed.
Taking a deep breath, I watched as the jokes that were bathed in awe and pride continued to float through the room for the next few minutes. I listened to Jac explain where she learned moves like that. I watched Jessa’s eyes perk up when Jac offered to go to a Jiu Jitsu class with her. Mostly though, I watched Jac. I watched her smile and laugh. I watched the way her cheeks wore the blush of a compliment with pride. She was so fucking beautiful—and so damn happy—when she let people see her… and love her.
“Seriously, thank you guys for coming here. I really appreciate it.” I gave everyone a grateful smile as I reached for Jac’s hand that was resting on the side of the bed—a silent signal that there was nothing more to see here, just a flesh wound.
One by one, I heard their best wishes all over again, got a wink from Chance, until finally it was just Tyler and Jac left.
“Pyle wanted me to tell you that he gave his statement to the police, too, since those photographs were from him. He said to call him if you need anything but that he’s going to be leaving for California next week, so if you need him, need him before then.”
I laughed softly and nodded, “Well, if you see him, tell him thanks and to send me his bill.”
“We’re going to grab a beer and talk California…” he trailed off and I knew that he was too tempted by sun and sand for Aspen to be his permanent home.
“
You leaving, too?” My eyebrows raised at him.
“We’ll see.” He shrugged. “He might have a job for me with a security firm out there. After today, I think that might be something I’d like to do.”
“Glad attempts on my life put your future into focus,” I snickered warmly.
With a smile, he patted my uninjured shoulder and gave Jac a wave before we were finally left in peace.
For only a second.
“Mr. Masters,” Detective Remington from the Aspen police department knocked lightly on the door, waiting for my nod before coming into the room. “You mind if we ask you and Ms. Blanchard a few questions about what happened today?”
“Of course.” I squeezed Jac’s hand tighter seeing the slight chill that went down her spine.
I knew this had to be familiar to her, only last time, it was she who was on the receiving end of the investigation. Even with the photos and the attack, I could still see fear glazing her eyes that somehow Andrea had said something to throw the blame on her.
“I’m sure you both just want to get home after this whole ordeal and I don’t blame you,” he offered empathetically. “I just want to do my job and get this woman behind bars as quickly as we can.”
“Thank you.”
He walked to the edge of the bed and pulled out a small notepad from his pocket, the same kind that Pyle used.
“In your own words, can you tell me what happened over the past few days that prompted you to reach out to Mr. Pyle? And then can you give your statement as to what happened this afternoon with the knife.”
It took about another twenty minutes or so for me to efficiently outline the conversations that I overheard and why, understanding the full extent of Jac’s past with Andrea, I decided it was prudent to have someone else watching the equipment room that evening since I believe the head of the Ski Patrol to be involved.
“Yes. Jeff Ridler. We’ve also taken him into custody for questioning.” He looked up from his notebook at us. “He’s already resigned from his position at the resort.”
The Winter Games Page 169