Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“We get back at him by lighting up the scoreboard,” he says. “Tie it. Then we win it in overtime.”
The simplicity of it is refreshing. I take a breath, deep enough to hurt, and my visor fogs for half a second before it clears.
“Yeah,” I say, though my blood is still boiling. “Yeah. Fine.”
Tanner’s mouth twitches. “Good. Because you’re about to win this draw.”
The ref skates in, lines up at the dot. He’s the only calm person in the building. The noise swells again—fans chanting, stomping, screaming—an avalanche pressing down on the ice.
I set my stick, knees bent, shoulders loose the way I’ve always been since taking face-offs as a little kid. The Wolves’ center squares up across from me, eyes hard, expression carved from stone. My world narrows to the dot, the puck, the next second.
The ref drops it and time snaps back into motion.
My stick chops down. I win it clean—feel the little impact as the puck skitters backward—and our defenseman snaps it to Tanner, who receives it on his forehand. He makes a move, a quick shift of weight that sells one direction and takes another. A Wolves’ defender bites, and Tanner is past him in one smooth cut, hips square, edges sharp.
The crowd explodes—anticipation, not celebration yet, but that rising howl that says go, go, go.
I take off.
I’m already hustling to the far post, head up, scanning lanes, legs burning. I can feel the clock without looking at it, like it’s a pulse behind my eyes.
Twenty.
Nineteen.
Eighteen.
I yell, loud enough to cut through the roar. “Tanner!”
And I tap my stick on the ice—once, twice—hard. A beacon. Actually, a demand.
Tanner sees me. I can tell by the way his shoulders lift, by the way his head turns a fraction. But the passing lane isn’t there yet. The Wolves have bodies stacked in the slot, sticks down, trying to suffocate anything that breathes.
So Tanner shows why he has a reputation for high hockey IQ.
He skates a little higher, toward the blue line, drifting up and out like he’s going to pull back and reset. It’s subtle, but it drags defenders with him. Their formation stretches. Their heads turn.
And in that stretch—
I’m alone.
Wide open at the far post, no stick on me, nobody sealing me off. Just empty ice and the net sitting there yawning at me. It’s the prettiest sight in hockey for a forward.
I angle my blade, ready. Knees bent. Hands soft. All I have to do is breathe and finish. The clock is bleeding out.
Five.
Four.
Tanner’s eyes catch mine once more. He’s got it now—the seam, the opening, the one line of daylight in a forest of legs.
He rips the pass.
A laser.
It leaves his stick flat and true, a bullet sliding across the ice right to me. Right to my blade. Right to the moment that either makes you a hero or haunts you.
Two seconds.
I lean in, already tasting it—hearing the eruption, envisioning the red light, feeling the team crash into me at the glass—
And then the puck hits a bad patch, snow buildup in the goalie’s crease.
A skip.
A tiny, stupid hop off the ice, like the rink itself decides it wants to ruin my life.
It jumps over my blade.
Over.
My.
Fuckin’.
Blade.
For a fraction of a second my hands still move like I’m going to catch it anyway. The puck sails past, harmless, sliding behind the net.
The buzzer screams and the horn blares.
The arena sound drops into this stunned, disbelieving roar—half outrage, half grief. I don’t think anyone processes what just happened.
I stare at the net.
At the empty space where the puck should’ve been.
Then I tilt my head back, looking up at the rafters. Is there an explanation written in the steel beams?
You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me.
I take one slow breath, and it feels like I’m swallowing fire. And then—right on cue—number 15 from the Wolves skates by.
He doesn’t even look at the puck. He doesn’t even look at the clock. He looks at me as he swings his stick hard.
It catches me in the back of the legs, right behind the knee pad—deep, mean pain that makes my muscles jerk. My skates scrape, and for a second I almost go down.
He leans in as he passes, voice low and ugly.
“Way to finish,” he sneers. “Fuckin’ pussy.”
The refs don’t see the whack.
They never see it. They see the puck, they see the clock, they see the obvious. They don’t see the cheap-shot shit that happens in the shadows—behind legs and bodies, behind the story they’ve already decided they’re watching.
My legs throb where his stick caught me. The pain is biting and hot, and it stacks right on top of the miss, right on top of the buzzer and the split second where the prettiest sight in hockey turned into an empty net and a skipped puck.
The crowd is still roaring, but now it’s a different kind of noise—rage mixed with disappointment, accented by disbelief. I can feel it vibrating through the boards and every instinct in my body tells me to go after that fucker and make him pay for that chop. I consider it. I watch as he celebrates with his teammates and I know if I go over there… if I retaliate, the benches will clear. It will be a free-for-all.