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HOCKEY STICKS, CROWDS CHEERING, fast bodies, and ice—when I'm here, everything else fades away. The noise in my head calms like still water. Funny how the pure chaos of a hockey game makes me feel at peace, but I'm exactly where I'm needed.
With the puck at my stick, I duck and swerve around the opposing team with ease. Four years as a pro player has built me a reputation, and everyone knows I'm the fastest when the stakes are the highest. Ten seconds to go—I've got this. Guys dive in to steal the puck, but I slap my stick on the other side to protect it. The sound of our skates are loud—the cheering's way louder—but I keep my focus tight.
Stick on the ice. Eye on the puck. Shoot, score, win.
I focus on each micro-goal, and when I do that, my body can move on autopilot to deal with everything else—like avoiding the other players who swarm after me like a pack of cheetahs.
I'm not the only one with something to lose—every guy on this rink has his own story, and has sacrificed more than any of us could ever know to get here. In a way, that makes us all brothers: my team and theirs. But I'm wearing black, green, and purple—the colours of our side, the Godfrey Northern Lights—and that's how I know the guy charging at my left, wearing white and red, doesn't give a shit what I've sacrificed to get here.
He just wants to win.
I don't blame him. I do too.
Gordon Whitney is the best player on the other team, and he's wanted my blood since the match started. He's just slightly slower than me, but as I'm darting toward the other team's net, I realize Gordon's not trying to chase me this time—he's trying to cut me off.
Another player is right in front of me, blocking me from the edge of the rink.
A nanosecond to decide. I need to duck through, but then—
SLAM.
Intense pressure, like being hit by a truck. And pain. A snap. For a second, I think my stick broke, but then I can't stand and I'm staring into the blinding abyss of the lights above the area, freefalling. My head bashes against a hard surface and rattles around in my helmet.
Deafening pain.
A loud whistle. An ear-splitting BEEP. People shout around me, but I can't make out their words. There are Pop Rocks in my skull as I try to hold myself up with my elbows, looking out at the crowd of fans beyond the penalty box, taking in dozens of worried eyes that make me feel a freak 'cause people aren't supposed to look at me like that, not anymore.
Their faces blur into puddles of oil, but among them, in the front row, one girl becomes clear.
Brown hair, bangs cut across her forehead, paint-splatter freckles across her cheeks. An oversized flannel shirt that swallows her small frame. She crosses her arms and pouts at me, shaking her head in disapproval.
Lucy?
"Wexler! Get up!"
Something strong and sturdy wraps around my arms and lifts me up. I look out in the crowd for the brown-haired girl. Now she has a center parting, pale white skin, and ten years in age.
It's not her.
It's not her at all.
Duh, idiot.
My feet slip out as faces appear around me. They crowd me, suffocate me, and then everything is black.
