Chapter 22

Avery’s POV

The campus cricket ground brimmed with volatile energy. Cheers erupted from the stands, students waving colorful banners, faces painted with team colors, the savory smell of roasted peanuts carried by the breeze.

The air possessed the electric crackle of fierce competition—alive, relentless, intoxicating. I adjusted my batting gloves, the custom-made bat feeling firm and familiar in my grip.

Sweat trickled down my temple, not from fear, but from the weight of the agonizing moment. My team trailed by seven runs, three balls remaining.

Victory was close—I could taste the metallic tang of it on my tongue. I flexed my shoulders, grounding myself at the crease.

The bowler at the far end—a tall, wiry girl from the rival college—twirled the worn, red ball in her fingers. Her eyes glinted with something sharper and darker than rivalry.

For a fleeting second, I caught a sharp, arrogant smirk curling on her thin lips. Something about that look unsettled me to my core.

Before I allowed myself to think further, my eyes scanned the sidelines, drawn by an inexplicable force. My gaze landed on her.

Professor Ms. Rose. She stood apart from the main crowd, arms crossed over her chest, expression unreadable yet fixed on me.

She did not often involve herself in student events, but she was here, watching my every move. It was as if her presence, her charged silence, articulated a clear warning: Don’t be reckless, Avery.

Do not make a mistake now. My heartbeat spiked—not because of the intimidating bowler—but because of her.

“Focus, Avery,” my teammate muttered from the non-striker’s end, sensing my distraction. I gave a sharp nod, planting my feet into the dry earth.

The bowler charged in, her running pace picking up. I saw the aggressive release, the ball spinning in the air.

It soared higher than I expected, veering toward me faster than usual. I swung the heavy bat, committing to the shot, but at that critical moment—

THUD!

The hard ball smashed into the side of my helmet with a sickening crack. My vision blurred, the world tilting for a suspended heartbeat.

The crowd gasped, terrified shouts rising in a wave of panic and confusion. I stumbled back, breath stolen from my lungs, but I refused to collapse.

Through the loud ringing in my ears, I saw the designated paramedics rushing forward—but they did not move on their own initiative. My eyes flickered sideways, and there was Ms. Rose, standing behind them, speaking to one of the medical personnel, a profound urgency clear in her gestures.

She had told them to come to my aid. I lifted one gloved hand, holding them back.

My chest heaved as I forced the command out. “Not now. I’m fine.”

They hesitated, exchanging nervous glances. Ms. Rose’s brows furrowed, her lips parting as if she would order them otherwise, command them to rush me off the field.

But I shook my head, raising my bat in a definitive gesture. “Seven runs. Three balls,” I muttered, my jaw tightening in resolve. “We’re not done here.”

From the boundary line, Ms. Rose’s voice sliced through the noise, barely audible but aimed at me. “Avery—stop this nonsense!”

I ignored her command. The next ball came fast, but my single-minded determination was faster.

I swung the bat, the wood meeting the leather with a resounding crack. It sailed over the head of the leaping fielders, bouncing once before crossing the boundary line.

Four runs. The crowd exploded in deafening cheers.

My teammate at the non-striker’s end pumped his fist. “Three runs. Two balls,” I repeated to myself, my jaw tightening harder.

The opposing bowler looked rattled, her earlier arrogant smirk slipping away. She adjusted her run-up, a desperate determination flickering in her eyes, but I saw something colder beneath it.

She wanted me out—not just professionally dismissed, but hurt. The penultimate delivery whizzed past my shoulder.

I angled my bat, slicing the ball just enough to send it racing between two tightly placed fielders. My teammate and I sprinted.

One run. Two runs. The crowd roared, a wave of emotion.

“ONE RUN NEEDED! LAST BALL!” someone screamed from the packed stands. Final ball.

The air was thick, suffocating. My head throbbed from the earlier hit, but the adrenaline numbed the pain.

The bowler’s eyes burned into me, daring me to stand tall and defiant. She sprinted forward, her arm arcing back and over.

The ball flew through the air. For one eternal moment, it felt like time had slowed.

I swung—clean, powerful, fueled by every drop of defiance and fury remaining in me.

CRACK!

The ball soared, flying high into the afternoon sky before crashing beyond the boundary rope. A six.

“VICTORY! VICTORY FOR VON CARTER’S TEAM!” The announcer’s voice boomed, drowned out by the joyous cheer of the crowd.

My teammates surged onto the field, lifting their bats high, shouting my name. My chest rose and fell, the exhaustion sinking in, but a triumphant grin tugged at my lips.

We had won. And then—my legs buckled.

The dizziness I had been ignoring surged, my vision flickering like a dying bulb. I ripped off my helmet, gasping for air.

That’s when I felt it—the warm trickle of liquid sliding down the side of my face. Blood.

“Avery! You’re bleeding!” one of my teammates shouted, horror lacing his tone. I blinked, my head spinning.

The world blurred, everything losing focus. But in that strange haze, I saw her—the same opposing bowler who had struck me, standing with her defeated teammates.

Her lips curled into that smug, unrepentant smirk. My suspicion hardened into rock-solid certainty.

“That wasn’t an accident,” I muttered, my chest tightening with cold fury. “That bastard did it on purpose.”

But before I could take a furious step to confront her, my weakened knees gave out. The crowd seemed to tilt, voices turning into distant, garbled echoes.

And then—Ms. Rose was there. Not standing on the sidelines, not shouting orders from a distance.

Right beside me. One moment she was across the field, the next, she was at my side, her hand gripping my arm, the other bracing my collapsing back.

“Avery!” she snapped, voice sharp, immediate, laced with profound worry that slipped through her composed tone. “Why don’t you ever listen to a single instruction? I told you to stop when you were hit like that!”

Her face hovered close to mine, her dark eyes fierce yet trembling at the edges with concern. My vision swayed, but I made out the painful tightness of her jaw, the tremor of her lips as she held her composure.

I managed a weak, crooked smirk. “Professor… you’re… scolding me again, even now.”

“Don’t you dare attempt to joke,” she hissed, her grip tightening as I leaned against her support. “You’re half-conscious and you are bleeding. Do you ever take anything seriously in your life?”

Her final words blurred as a darkness tugged at the edges of my mind. “What the… fuck is happening with me,” I whispered hoarsely, feeling disconnected. “Am I even… human?”

And then, just as I was about to collapse, Ms. Rose caught me in her arms. “Avery, don’t you dare fall on me right here.”

And then, for the second time that day, everything went pitch black.

When my eyes fluttered open, the world was quieter. I was lying on something soft.

In the nurse room on the bed. The sterile antiseptic smell filled my nose.

My head throbbed, a persistent ache, but it was not unbearable pain. Blinking, I turned my head on the pillow.

And there she was, where I expected her to be. Ms. Rose stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded, figure stiff, eyes locked on my face.

She looked every bit the severe professor about to launch into an academic lecture, but her silence was louder than any spoken words. “You’re awake,” she finally said, voice level and controlled but edged with something softer, less professional. “How are you feeling now, Ms. Carter?”

I managed a crooked, defiant grin. “Fine, Professor. But…” I allowed my voice to trail off, watching her reaction.

Her brows furrowed. “But what, Avery?”

“But someone is not fine,” I said cryptically, keeping my eyes fixed on hers.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Avery, I am not worried about your condition,” she retorted, almost too defensively, avoiding my gaze.

I scoffed, tilting my head back on the cot pillow. “I wasn’t talking about you either, Professor.”

My voice dropped, becoming firmer and colder. “I was talking about the one who intentionally hit me with that ball.”

Her eyes flickered, narrowing as suspicion mingled with something deeper in her expression. “Wasn’t it… just accidental, Avery?”

I shook my head, definitively. “No, Professor. It was deliberate. I saw her face. She smirked. She wanted this outcome.”

A significant silence stretched between us, her professional suspicion mingling with a different emotion in her gaze. She said, “Don’t worry. I’ll inform the Dean.”

Then I smirked, meeting her eyes with honesty. “But you know what, Professor? The greatest treatment of all my throbbing pain… is you worrying about me, Ms. Rose.”

Her legendary composure did not falter. Without missing a beat, she leaned closer to the bed, her voice dropping into a dangerous, silken whisper. “Then I guess you’ll have to get well in the next moment, Ms. Carter, won’t you?”

My breath caught in my throat. She tilted nearer, her perfume brushing against me, her lips grazing my ear.

And then—

“I worry about you that much, Avery,” she whispered, each word deliberate, honey-smooth yet laced with steel, “you have no idea, darling.”

The forbidden, intimate word darling melted into me like a conflagration of fire and ice. My heart stuttered, my head spinning again—not from the concussion, but from the power of her closeness.

I swallowed hard, struggling for a coherent response. “You… you shouldn’t say things like that to me, Professor—”

But before I could finish, she straightened, her face schooled back into the familiar, cold professor-like calm. “Alright then. You rest. I have a scheduled class to attend.”

And just like that, with a profound finality, she turned and walked away, her heels clicking against the floor, leaving me stunned on the bed with my heart racing. For the second time that day, I thought, What the hell is happening with me, and more importantly, with her?

The late afternoon sun was bleeding into a bruised, orange sky when I stepped out of the nurse’s room. My head throbbed beneath the bandage, but the dull ache was nothing compared to the cold fury simmering in my chest.

The victorious roar of the crowd had dispersed into hushed murmurs, students milling about in clusters, whispering about the match—the win, my injury, and the scandal brewing on their tongues. But I had one focused thought.

Her. The bowler.

The hateful smirk. That deliberate throw.

My fists clenched, my nails biting into my palms as I scanned the field. And then I saw her, standing alone near the equipment shed, away from her team.

Her arms were folded defensively, as if she owned the entire place, but her eyes flickered sideways every now and then—like she knew I was coming. I did not walk.

I stormed. Each step echoed on the hard ground, my spikes crunching against the gravel.

Students fell silent, their eyes turning wide with apprehension as I passed through their clusters. By the time I reached her isolated position, the air between us was a storm ready to split the sky.

She did not flinch, maintaining her hostile façade. “Oh look who’s back from the dead,” she said, that same infuriating, crooked smirk tugging at her mouth. “Recovered already, Von Carter? Or are you just here to cry foul like a spoiled brat?”

My jaw tightened. I stood inches from her, my shadow cutting across hers. “You think this is a joke?”

“It’s cricket, sweetheart,” she shrugged. “Balls hit heads. An unfortunate occupational hazard, nothing more.”

My vision darkened at the edges. Without another word, my hand shot out like a whip, grabbing the thick fabric of her collar.

She gasped, caught off-guard, her feet shifting backward as I yanked her toward me. Our faces were inches apart, my voice a low, terrifying growl, cold venom curling around every syllable.

“You listen to me,” I hissed, my voice trembling with suppressed violence. “If you ever—and I mean ever—try something that malicious again, you won’t be facing me on a clean cricket pitch. You’ll be facing me somewhere worse. Do you understand me, you little bastard?”

Her aggressive bravado faltered. Her eyes widened in terror, the smug smirk melting away like frost under a torch.

She desperately tried to tug herself free, but my grip tightened. The surrounding students whispered, the tension spreading like wildfire.

“You thought I wouldn’t notice the intent?” I continued, my voice cutting like a blade. “You thought I’d just let this intentional assault go? You wanted me out of the game. You wanted me hurt. Congratulations, you got your wish. Now look me in the eyes and tell me it was an accident, I dare you.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound, no defense, came out. Her lips trembled, the sharpness in her gaze softening into raw, immediate fear.

For one fleeting second, I saw it—the flicker of guilt or shame swimming behind her defiance. I felt my pulse hammering in my temples, my grip still tight on her collar.

I wanted to slam her against the nearest wall. I wanted her to pay for the blood running down my face.

And then—

like a thread of steel cutting through the roaring chaos—

Ms. Rose’s voice echoed in my memory. “You are better than doing this violence, Avery. Don’t ever do that.”

Her remembered words were not even loud, but they rang clearer than the surrounding crowd, clearer than the terrified bowler’s ragged breathing. My jaw clenched until it ached.

My grip on her collar loosened, my fury momentarily checked. But not released.

I leaned in, my breath brushing against the bowler’s ear. “You’re lucky,” I whispered, every word trembling with suppressed, controlled rage. “Lucky that someone important to me believes I’m better than resorting to this level of violence.”

Then, with a forceful shove, I pushed her back. Hard.

She stumbled, her legs tangling as she fell onto the gravel with a gasp. The sound of her palms scraping against the ground was sharp, pitiful.

For a stunned second, she just sat there, dazed, her eyes glistening as if she might break down and cry. I did not stay to watch the humiliation.

I turned on my heel and walked away, my spikes clicking against the earth, the murmurs of the stunned crowd parting around me like water flowing around a rock. The adrenaline roared in my blood, my hands still shaking, but Ms. Rose’s challenging voice kept threading through my mind—pulling me back from the edge.

By the time I reached the outer gates, the cool evening breeze hit my face, steady and welcome, carrying the scent of cut grass and dust. My chest heaved.

My fingers slowly, finally, unclenched. Somewhere behind me, I could still hear the residual whispers.

But ahead of me—there was only silence. I did not know if I had done the correct thing by letting her go.

All I knew, with certainty, was that for the second time that day, I had walked away from the brink of a terrible reaction. And Ms. Rose—whether she knew it or not—had been the sole reason, the only person who had stopped me.