The Dirtiest Play in Hockey

1 - Haven

HAVEN

The house looked like it should’ve been condemned years ago.

I sat in my car, hands gripping the steering wheel, staring at it while the snow piled up on the hood like it was trying to bury me alive.

Lake-effect, they called it.

Back home, snow fell. Up here?

It kicked you in the face.

I checked my GPS again, hoping it would tell me I’d made a wrong turn.

Nope.

This was it.

The North Shore Reavers team house.

Three stories of dark, weather-beaten wood hunched at the center of a dying cul-de-sac; its wraparound porch sagging just enough to make me queasy about walking on it. One of the porch railings had been replaced with a banana-shaped two-by-four. Another missing section hadn’t been replaced at all.

Upstairs, a single light burned in a lone window. Everything else was shadow.

“This is a joke,” I muttered.

It had to be.

Lowering my head, I thought about my expectations. Minor league teams didn’t exactly offer five-star accommodations. But this?

This looked like the kind of place people avoided on purpose.

A gust of wind shoved my car, rocking it just enough to make my stomach tighten. The snow was blowing sideways now. It streaked my windshield, blurring the already dim outline of what was barely a neighborhood. Half the houses on the street were dark. The rest looked like they’d given up trying.

Beyond the sagging fence line, the skeleton of what looked to be an old factory jutted up like a broken tooth against the leaden sky. It’s rusted steel and missing windows assured me the place was silent and empty; devoid of all but whispers from the ghosts of its haunted past.

Perfect.

This was exactly the kind of place a struggling hockey team would call home.

Exactly the kind of place I should’ve turned around and left.

Instead, I reached for the door handle, missed it, and broke out laughing. It should’ve been a sign. I didn’t have the luxury of heeding signs however, so I tried again, and this time I stepped out into the cold.

The icy wind hit me like a slap to the face. Sharp. Immediate. Biting my tender skin right through my coat like it wasn’t even there. My breath was a puff of white smoke that disappeared the second I exhaled.

My rolling suitcase rattled noisily as I pulled it up the broken walkway. Of course, the missing wheel didn’t help. Finally I’d dragged it onto the porch, which started groaning the second I put my weight on it. I made so much noise on the way to the door, I half-expected it to open.

It didn’t.

“Wonderful.”

The front door looked older than the house itself, if something like that were possible. I rapped hard, ignoring the crooked brass knocker that looked frozen solid. The only thing that happened were a few paint chips flaking away, mixing with the snow that fell at my feet.

I tried the handle.

Of course it opened.

Warmth surged over me, the second I pushed inside. Nothing soft or welcoming; just the heavy, stale heat from overworked radiators. The house was thick with the scent of age, and dry rot, and perhaps a little bit of mold. But there was sweat, too. Sweat… and something fried in oil.

The foyer itself wasn’t half bad. Tall, vaulted ceilings.

The kind of height you’d expect in an entryway like this.

Off to the left, a narrow staircase climbed upward at a too-steep angle.

The hardwood floors were original. Worn almost concavely smooth, they proudly displayed every scuff mark from every person who’d ever lived or set foot in the place.

Noise floated in from somewhere deeper in the house. A television. Voices. Laughter.

They were here.

I struggled to close the door against the swirling wind. Once I’d done it, the house felt too still by comparison. I stood there for a moment, drinking the place in. Thinking about my life’s choices. Wondering if it was too late to back out.

No. This was it, at least for now.

Home sweet home.

I was still scanning around when I spotted it. Mounted on the opposite wall, poorly-centered above an abused couch, was the team logo.

I squinted at it hard. It took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing.

A grim reaper. Or… something that was trying very hard to be one.

The figure was hooded, scythe slung casually over one shoulder, but the proportions were off just enough to make it look slightly wrong.

The lines were bold, almost retro, like something copied from an old patch design.

The reaper’s expression — what little of it you could see beneath the hood — wasn’t menacing so much as… smug.

The whole thing was stylish. Almost cartoonish.

“They’re kidding,” I murmured.

They weren’t.

This was the North Shore Reavers. Not Reapers. Reavers.

Because someone, somewhere along the line, had apparently mislabeled Death himself.

I huffed a quiet laugh, shaking my head as I stepped further inside. The sound felt out of place in my own ears.

“This team tanked last season,” I muttered softly, “and couldn’t even spell its own name right.”

“Got something to say about it?”

The voice came from behind me. I whirled.

He stood at the base of the stairs, like he’d been there the whole time. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Built solid in a way that spoke of hard years on the ice, and even harder years off it. He had dark, raven-colored hair, cut short. His expression was unreadable.

Grayson Sinclair.

I recognized him immediately. Not from meeting him — because I hadn’t — but from game footage, from stats, from the hours I’d spent studying the Reavers even before I set foot in this town. Grayson was the team captain. The golden child. The center that everything and everyone else rotated around.

He was also the only player on the team roster who didn’t belong in a house like this.

And he was looking at me like I’d just tracked mud across his most prized carpet.

I straightened my posture, tightening my grip on my suitcase handle.

“Just taking it all in,” I said.

His gaze flitted to the logo, then back to me.

“Do that quietly,” he answered.

Not loudly. Not aggressively.

Worse.

His voice was controlled. Measured. Almost… dismissive.

Then a second voice cut in, from somewhere behind him.

“Who the hell is that?”

Heavy footsteps followed, moving slowly and deliberately. The man who came into view looked like he’d been born to hit things for a living. Which, given the context, he probably had.

Ares Wilder.

The name fit.

He was broad. Solid. Wound up with the kind of coiled aggression that didn’t bother hiding itself. His blue eyes swept over me quickly, assessing me in one pass. They lingered just long enough to make his message clear.

Not impressed.

“Management’s latest toy,” he grunted, flatly.

I felt the words land. Grayson didn’t bother correcting him. He didn’t bother introducing me, either.

“Haven Maxwell,” I announced, forcing myself to keep my voice even. “Performance analyst.”

Ares snorted like a bull.

“Yeah,” he smirked. “We know who you are.”

He said the words so icily the room dropped five degrees. And there was more than just recognition in his eyes. There was blame.

Blame. Of course.

Their old coach. The firing. The timing. It all added up.

They didn’t know me at all. But they knew what they thought I’d done.

Grayson finally moved, stepping past me without another word. His shoulder brushed mine — just deliberately enough to feel, subtle enough to deny — as he headed toward the back of the house.

Ares however, still hadn’t moved.

“Hope you like stairs,” he said, jerking his chin upward. “You’re upstairs.”

“Which room?” I asked.

His resulting smile was anything but friendly.

“Only one left,” he said. “You’ll figure it out.”

He turned and disappeared in the same direction as Grayson, leaving me alone with my giant suitcase. I stood absorbing the house, with its creaking floorboards and the smug, cartoonish reaper watching me from up on the wall.

“Yeah,” I murmured to myself. “This is going to be fantastic.”

I dragged my stuff to the base of the staircase, ready to begin the long, lonely climb.

Then I spun on my heel, and headed straight to the kitchen instead.