Chapter 46: A cry for help.

The heavy oak doors of the academy closed behind Sana with a definitive, echoing thud.

She stepped out onto the wide stone courtyard, adjusting the strap of her shoulder bag.

The late afternoon air was crisp, carrying the scent of damp pavement and the exhaust fumes of idling vehicles waiting along the curb.

Students milled around the fountain in small, noisy clusters, laughing and comparing test scores.

For the first time in years, Sana did not feel the urgent need to keep her head down and rush toward the subway station.

Winning the regional tournament had shifted something fundamental inside her. She had held her lane, she had fought back against overwhelming pressure, and she had stood on a stage with a team that actually relied on her.

She felt lighter today. Her boots clicked rhythmically against the concrete as she pulled her phone from her pleated skirt pocket.

She opened the team group chat. Elsa had sent three consecutive voice notes complaining about her afternoon lectures, followed by a grainy picture of a textbook she claimed was actively plotting against her. Dane had replied with a series of laughing emojis. Karl had not replied at all.

’I should ask him if he wants to run some duo queues tonight,’ Sana thought, a small, involuntary smile touching the corners of her mouth.

She slipped the phone back into her pocket and looked up toward the iron gates marking the edge of the academy grounds.

The smile vanished from her face instantly.

Standing just beyond the stone pillars, leaning against the wrought iron fence, was a man in a cheap, ill-fitting gray suit. His shoulders were hunched, and his thinning hair caught the fading autumn sunlight.

Sana stopped walking. Her boots scraped harshly against the pavement, completely arresting her forward momentum. The ambient noise of the laughing students and the rumbling car engines seemed to mute itself, replaced by a sudden, deafening ringing in her ears.

It was her father.

He had been waiting outside her academy for her to finish classes.

He turned his head, his dark eyes scanning the crowd of exiting students before snapping directly onto her. A wide, entirely false smile split his weathered face. He pushed himself off the iron fence and began walking toward her, his heavy steps eating up the distance between them.

Sana felt the cold, creeping fingers of panic wrap around her throat. She tried to command her legs to turn around, to run back inside the safety of the academy walls, but her muscles refused to obey.

"Sana," he called out, his raspy voice cutting through the crisp air. "There is my girl. I have been out here freezing for the better part of an hour waiting for your classes to let out."

He stopped just a few feet away from her. Up close, the smell of stale tobacco and cheap alcohol clung heavily to his cheap suit. He looked exactly the same as he had during that miserable meeting at the diner, except today, the desperate, calculating gleam in his eyes was much sharper.

"What are you doing here?" Sana managed to ask, her voice completely stripped of the volume and confidence she had been feeling just moments ago.

"Is that any way to greet your father?" he asked, placing a hand over his chest in a gesture of mock offense. His eyes darted quickly around the affluent academy courtyard, evaluating the expensive uniforms of the students passing by. "I cannot come and check on my own daughter? Especially after her recent achievements?"

Sana crossed her arms tightly over her chest, trying to make herself look smaller. "You made it perfectly clear at the diner that you only cared about selling me off to Mr. Vane. You do not care about my achievements."

Her father let out a short, dismissive laugh, waving his hand in the air to brush away the accusation.

"That diner business was a misunderstanding, Sana. I was just trying to secure a stable future for you. But it turns out, you are much more capable of securing a future than I thought." He took a step closer, entirely ignoring her rigid, defensive posture. "I saw your face on the regional tournament broadcast, Sana. I watched the whole thing."

The air in Sana’s lungs turned completely to ice.

"You were right up there on the big screen, playing in front of thousands of people," her father continued, the false warmth in his voice melting away to reveal raw, unadulterated greed. "And the commentators made sure to mention the massive prize pool your little team walked away with."

’He tracked me down just to take my money,’ she thought, a sickening knot twisting violently in her stomach. ’He saw the broadcast and realized I had cash.’

"That money belongs to the team," Sana whispered, her heart hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against her ribs. "It is not mine to just hand out."

"Do not lie to me, Sana," he snapped, the polite facade cracking instantly. His face flushed with a sudden, ugly anger. "I know how these tournaments distribute their payouts. You got a cut. A very large cut. And you are going to give it to me."

"No," Sana said. The single word took every ounce of willpower she possessed, her voice trembling dangerously as she said it.

"No?" he repeated, his eyes narrowing into dark, furious slits. "I am not asking for a favor, Sana. I have debts. Massive debts to people who are entirely unwilling to wait for their money. You are going to give me your cut of those winnings to cover what I owe right now."

He took another heavy step forward, entirely closing the physical distance between them.

Sana tried to back away, but her heel caught awkwardly on the uneven paving stones of the courtyard. She stumbled slightly, and before she could regain her balance, her father reached out and grabbed her upper arm with a harsh, bruising grip.

Sana froze completely.

The sudden physical contact sent a jolt of pure, paralyzing terror straight down her spine. The trauma of her childhood, the endless nights of raised voices, shattered plates, and suffocating fear, resurfaced instantly and violently. Her vision tunneled, the edges of the courtyard blurring into a gray haze as her body instinctively shut down in the face of the overwhelming threat.

She wanted to scream for the campus security guards standing near the gates. She wanted to twist her arm out of his grasp and run. Her mind screamed at her to fight back, to use the courage she had learned from standing her ground in the virtual arena, but her physical body simply refused to cooperate.

She was completely frozen, trapped once again as the helpless little girl who could not defend herself.

"You are going to walk with me to the nearest bank teller," her father demanded, his voice dropping into a vicious, menacing cadence right near her ear. "You are going to transfer every single dollar of those winnings into my account. You owe me this much. I gave you life, and now you are going to save mine."

"You are hurting me," Sana gasped, her breath coming in short, panicked wheezes.

"I will do a lot worse than hurt you if you cause a scene right now," he threatened, his grip tightening painfully around her bicep. He glanced around the courtyard, ensuring that the few remaining students were too absorbed in their own conversations to notice the quiet altercation happening near the gates.

Sana squeezed her eyes shut. The smell of his stale tobacco made her stomach churn.

’Breathe,’ she pleaded with herself, desperately trying to channel the absolute, unwavering calm Karl always carried onto the stage. ’Do not let him completely break you. Do something.’

Her right arm was pinned, but her left hand was still free, resting just inches away from the deep pocket of her pleated skirt.

Moving with agonizing slowness to avoid drawing his attention, Sana forced her trembling left hand down into the fabric. Her cold fingertips brushed against the smooth glass screen of her mobile device.

Relying entirely on sheer muscle memory, she pressed her thumb against the side sensor, feeling the device unlock with a subtle, silent vibration. Without looking down, keeping her wide, terrified eyes fixed on her father’s furious face, she swiped her thumb across the screen.

She knew exactly where the team group chat icon was positioned on her home screen. She had opened it a dozen times today alone.

She tapped the screen blindly, her fingers shaking so badly she could barely maintain contact with the glass. She managed to hit a frantic, erratic series of letters on the digital keyboard and immediately pressed the send icon, managing to shoot a desperate distress text into the team group chat.

She did not know if the message was legible. She did not know if anyone was even looking at their phones. She just prayed to whatever higher power existed that her captain would hear the silent call for help.

"Are we understood?" her father growled, giving her arm a rough shake that rattled her teeth. "We are walking to the bank. Now."

Sana kept her hand buried deep in her pocket, clutching the phone like a lifeline, and forced herself to open her eyes.

"I am not giving you anything," she whispered.

Her father raised his free hand, his face twisting into a mask of pure rage.

Before his hand could even begin its downward arc, the deafening, guttural roar of a heavy motorcycle engine shattered the quiet afternoon air, echoing violently off the stone walls of the academy courtyard.