"They circled like sharks."
Americus's strange silence had left Silver unsettled enough that she'd needed to escape their Gothic tower room before the quiet drove her completely insane. The rink had always been her refuge, the one place where movement made sense and the rules were clear. But walking through Ingalls's curved entrance that afternoon, she realized her sanctuary had become something else entirely.
They circled like sharks.
Her rivals had spotted weakness the way predators could smell blood in water. Word about her fall during unsanctioned practice had spread through the figure skating community faster than gossip at a residential college party. Now they clustered along the boards in small groups, heads together in conversation that stopped abruptly when she passed, only to resume in sharp whispers once they thought she was out of earshot.
