Steal My Heart (Victor Blade)

Chapter 55

Tuesday. 5 days before the game.

I anxiously scanned the hallway of the school, desperately wanting to spot his usual gift of navy blue hair. One hand holding some books, the other touching the necklace he'd gotten me for Christmas, I didn't dare take my eyes off, scared that I'd miss him.

After leaving the voicemail, I fell asleep again, waiting for Victor to come back. But when I woke up at 6:45 this morning, he still wasn't there.

If Victor didn't show up to school, I'd know for sure that he was in trouble. And if he did... well we'd need to have a long talk on how not to give my heart attacks.

My heart was pounding in my chest as I kept inspecting the students passing by. He had to be here. Right?

I finally felt like breathing again when I spotted his amber eyes at the opposite side of the hallway. I basically ran up to him.

"Victor!" I happily exclaimed, waiting for a hug. But I didn't get it.

I looked at my boyfriend closely. He looked different; his face was covered in cuts and blisters, and he looked like he hadn't slept the whole night. I knew the look in his eyes all too well; the one he had when he played for the Fifth Sector.

"Victor, what's the matter?" I suddenly asked very worried about him.

"Nothing, I'm fine." He said looking for someone. "Have you seen Arion?" He replied.

"What?" I exclaimed, starting to get angry. He disappeared for the whole night, making me worried sick, and he looked for Arion?

"I need to speak to him. About something urgent." He replied still unbothered, and I could feel he was hiding something from me.

"Victor, what's happening? You disappear, and now you look like a madman." I tried to get to him, but I could tell he wasn't listening. He was too focused on whatever was going on in his head.

"Look, I've got to go. I need to find Arion. If you see him, tell him I'm looking for him." He said looking at me straight in the eyes and ignoring everything I'd just said before trying to skitter away.

I instinctively grabbed his arm to stop him. "Aren't you going to tell me what's going on?" I asked, my eyes wide in confusion. What the hell was going on with him?

He looked at me, eyebrows furrowed in determination, eyes as cold as ever. "I can't Avril, I'm really sorry." He pulled me closer, planting a quick kiss on my forehead, and then ran away.

I stayed still, dumbfounded, as I watched him leave my sight.

What the hell had just happened?

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I arrived to practice stressed and irritated. I'd been thinking the whole day about Victor and whatever he was planning, and it had ruined my whole mood.

First, he bailed on me and disappeared for the whole night, making me worry like hell. Then it turns out he's fine, but doesn't even have the dignity to explain what's going on and apologise, and looks for Arion instead?

Arion wasn't the one worrying last night, I was!

"Hey, Avril, have you seen Victor and Arion?" Lucian asked me jollily as I reached the soccer field . "They haven't shown up to practice, and nobody knows where they are."

Of course they're not here. Assholes. "How should I know? None of them tell me stuff anyways." I scoffed annoyed as I walked to my position in front of the cage.

Everybody stared at me confused. I was always in a very happy mood, nobody had ever seen me mad.

"Are you sure you're alright?" JP asked cautiously from behind me.

"Fine." I hissed as I got ready to receive the ball.

By the end of practice, my anger still hadn't vanished. Victor and Arion had never shown up, and nobody could reach them. I'd categorically refused to call Victor. No way I was going to make a fool of myself some more while he clearly didn't care.

I reached my bed at the end of the day exhausted and annoyed. I hated not knowing what was going on. Clearly, something was happening, but what? And why did Victor have to be such an asshole about it?

"Urghh!" I screamed in my pillow, putting down the book Riccardo had gotten for me for Christmas, a biography about Axel Blaze, the fire bomber.

It was 9PM, and I was just trying to enjoy my book. But of course, because of my dumb, idiotic boyfriend, I couldn't.

I sighed, pulling my hair into a messy bun and grabbing the book. I looked at the necklace sadly, shaking my head. No, I couldn't let him ruin my book too. Truthfully, it was very interesting. I simply wasn't in the right mood to read it.

I'd grown up with my brothers pretty much adoring Axel Blaze, having posters of him in their room and more. I hadn't really gotten into soccer until I'd moved to Hokkaido two years ago.

"You could never be a soccer player! You're a girl! Girls aren't strong and fast as boys! Go back to your dolls!" One of Colton's friends had told me, and that had made me furious.

After that, I'd secretly trained to learn soccer and beat the sexist idiot, taking his place on the team. It seemed dumb that the only reason I was playing soccer was to prove a point, but it wasn't to me; you learn something from every experience, and that one had taught me to love soccer.

Either way, I'd always preferred Shawn's approach to soccer: defend and score. This way, you could play pretty much any position on field, and could always back up other people.

I sighed, turning another page, with a recent picture of Axel Blaze, right before his disappearance. Truthfully, nobody knew exactly where he'd gone. He'd taken a sabbatical year and vanished into thin hair.

I stared closely at the last picture taken by the press. Axel Blaze was wearing his platinum white hair down, not held in his usual ponytail. His hazel eyes seemed covered with a dark veil. He looked... familiar?

I stopped to think. Where had I seen that face before? I was sure I knew him from somewhere, I must have seen him recently. But where?

I turned back to previous pages. In most shots, his face was neutral. It was very hard to get a smiling picture of him, he was known as the "stoic player". I finally reached page 75, where a photographer had miraculously managed to get a picture of him smirking.

My eyes widened as I saw the smirk as I dropped the book on the floor. It was that smirk.

I furiously ran to my desk, turning on my computer and typing like crazy as I looked up two pictures. One was a picture of Axel and the other... was a picture of the Great Emperor.

As I entered the pictures into the program, I prayed to god that I was wrong, that it was simply a resemblance and nothing more. But the smirk... deep down, I had the terrible feeling I was right.

I clicked enter, waiting for the program to analyse both faces and superimpose the pictures. In a matter of seconds, I would know whether my greatest fear was real or not.

The program dinged.

I quickly looked to the screen.

My face fell as the program read "100% match", the two pictures superimposed perfectly. It was him.

I violently closed the laptop on my desk, staring emptily at the window in front of it. So that was it then. The Great Emperor, the horrible Alex Zabel... was none other than Axel Blaze, someone who'd once played with all my previous coaches, and who'd loved soccer.

My eyes teared up as I remembered Colton, the threats, and everything the Fifth Sector had put me through. All because of that man who'd given up his love for soccer.

I needed to teach him a lesson. I needed him to know how much I'd suffered, and everything I'd lost because of him. But how?

An idea suddenly striking, I wiped my tears and ran to my closet. Wearing my uniform, I grabbed the first soccer ball I found, my phone and the book, and left my house.

You'll see what I'm made of, Axel Blaze.