Chapter 30 - Hunter
Hunter
I’d been locked in all night. Hands steady, mind sharper than it had been in weeks. The boys were on it too. We’d been skating like we meant it, fighting like it was our last. Maybe it was. If Dallas took this one, the series was theirs.
The air inside the arena had that electric, tight quality it got when everything mattered. Sweat, ice, adrenaline. It all mixed into one living thing. I adjusted my mask, crouched low, eyes following the puck as it cut across the neutral zone. Tucker blocked a shot, sending it flying our way.
I called out, “Left side!” before it even registered that he’d lost control and the puck was ricocheting toward me.
I caught it cleanly in the glove. Whistle. The crowd erupted.
Normal. Routine. I’d done it a thousand times.
I stretched my glove, flexing my hand until the leather squeaked. The crowd was a live wire, blue and white flags snapping behind the glass. You could feel it in the boards, that restless energy, that need. We were tied in the series. Lose this, and we were done.
The ref’s whistle cut the air. I bent low in the crease, stick ready.
The puck dropped, and chaos followed.
Dallas came hard. They always did. The rivalry ran deep, bad blood, old grudges, the kind of history that made every check a little harder, every shift a little meaner. I tracked the puck, watching it snap between sticks like lightning. My head moved on instinct. Angles. Distance. Threat.
A shot. Glove save. Clean. Another. Pad deflection. The crowd roared.
But somewhere between the shifts, something in the air changed.
We were up one. Mason had buried a beauty early in the period, and we’d been holding tight since. Dallas pressed, desperate. I could feel them breathing down my neck.
Then the puck went dead in our zone, whistle blowing for an offside. I straightened, mask up for a breath, scanning the stands the way I sometimes did to reset. Just white noise, people, lights, movement.
And that’s when my gaze snagged. Row three, behind the penalty box. Three faces that didn’t belong here.
My mom. Eli. Noah. Oh, my God, Noah’d gotten so big. Not my little brother anymore.
My whole body forgot how to move. Maybe because my brain short-circuited.
Mom’s hair was shorter than I remembered, neat and soft against her scarf. A different color too. Eli cheered with a homemade poster– Go Hunter! jumped out at me in big, crooked letters. Noah sat beside him, pretending not to care, but his eyes were locked on me.
Me? How did they–?
“Yo, Callahan!” Mason’s voice cut across the ice.
The puck was in motion again.
I snapped back, dropped into stance, stick down. But my pulse was stuttering. My body felt both too light and too heavy. It was too late. Whatever skin I had in the game had been knocked totally out of sync.
Dallas came barreling in. A slapshot from the blue line. I caught it on the blocker, barely. Rebound. Second shot went wide. Mason cleared it, but the sting stayed in my chest.
They were here.
They came.
After seven years of nothing.
I forced my eyes down, locked on the ice. Focus. Play the game. Don’t think.
But thinking was all I could do. Every save, every second, every whistle between plays, I saw them again. My mother’s eyes following me. Eli’s sign catching the light.
And all I could think was why now?
Dallas tied it with nine minutes left. A wrist shot deflected off Tucker’s stick. There was nothing I could’ve done. The crowd groaned like I’d failed them. In a way, I had. I was checked out and nowhere near the form I needed to be.
I crouched lower, jaw tight. My lungs burned with every breath, but I couldn’t shake the unsettling weight in my gut.
Focus, dammit. Just play your game.
Next faceoff. Another rush. They hammered me from every angle. The puck slammed into my chest, my glove, the post. I was barely holding on.
I knew I shouldn’t, but looked up anyway, my gaze finding Holly this time. Big mistake. The pieces melded together in the fog of my brain. It was her. She was the one who brought them here. It was the only explanation.
And that did it. The thin thread I’d been hanging onto snapped.
A shot came screaming in low. I dropped too early, caught it late. It slipped between my pads and kissed the back of the net.
2–1, Dallas.
The horn blared. The crowd’s roar turned jagged with anger, disbelief, noise. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even hear Grayson shouting from the circle.
My chest ached, sharp and mean.
They came. They finally came and it had to be like this?
I forced myself upright, tapped the post twice, the way I always did. Reset. But my glove was shaking. My heart couldn’t pick a lane. And I was so angry I could’ve snapped my stick in half.
Another drop. Another rush.
Seven minutes on the clock.
Dallas smelled blood. They came faster, sharper. Theo dove to block a one-timer, but it kicked back to their winger. I lunged to cover the short side, he hesitated, then slipped it cross-crease.
I followed a beat late. The puck slid under my pad and tapped the net.
3–2 Dallas.
The horn blared, cruel and bright.
I stayed on my knees, staring at the puck in the back of the net. The cold from the ice bit through my gear. My breath came uneven, hot against the inside of my mask.
They were still there. I could feel their eyes on me. Eli was bouncing, shouting encouragement I couldn’t hear. Mom clapped once, uncertain. Noah leaned back, unreadable.
Every old memory crowded in. Dad’s empty chair at junior games, Mom’s polite texts after losses, Eli’s “sorry we couldn’t make it.”
Now they’d picked this moment to show up.
Dallas reset at center ice. I forced myself upright, twirled my stick, bounced once in the crease. The crowd’s noise was a pounding drum.
Focus.
Puck drop. Dallas again. Their sniper streaked down the right side. I read the angle, squared up, he faked a shot, passed to the slot. My glove twitched left; the puck went right.
Another shot, fast, low.
It hit my pad, popped loose.
My stick slipped.
The rebound flipped upward… and in.
4–2.
The sound was deafening.
I pressed my mask against the post, eyes shut for one second, just to breathe. The cold metal steadied me, barely. My team skated past, slapping my pads, telling me to shake it off. But I could feel it, the momentum shifting, faith cracking.
Tucker tapped my blocker. “We’ll get it back, man. Need you on your feet, though. Come on.”
I nodded, but my throat was tight.
Across the ice, Dallas players were celebrating against the glass right below my family’s section. My family was standing now, awkward in their seats, trying to figure out how to react.
Every instinct in me screamed to look away, to bury the sight, to reset. But I couldn’t stop glancing up. Mom’s eyes met mine. Just for a second.
And something inside me buckled.
For the first time in years, they’d shown up. And instead of proving I didn’t need them, all I could think was don’t let them see you fall apart. My world narrowed to that sound and the red glare of the light spinning behind me.
The bench was dead quiet. Coach had nothing left in him, so Grayson took over. He stood in front of us, helmet under his arm, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His voice cut through the noise of the crowd like a blade.
“We are not losing to Dallas,” he snapped. “Not like this. Not because we forgot who the hell we are. We dig in. Every. Damn. Shift.”
He looked at me last. No words, just that steady, captain’s glare—equal parts trust and challenge.
My lungs were burning, legs shaking, but I nodded.
Dallas had momentum, sure. But we had anger and a point to prove.
Face-off at center. Puck drop. We charged.
Grayson bulldozed their winger off the draw, sending the puck spinning into their zone. Mason was on it instantly, his skates biting deep into the ice, body low. He chipped it around the boards, feeding Grayson at the point. He wound up—shot!
Blocked.
The rebound kicked straight to Dallas’s star forward, already breaking out.
My pulse spiked.
He came in hot, fast as sin. Two strides past Shawn, one deke around Theo, and then he was on me—shoulder dropped, faking right. I bit, just barely.
He went left.
I dove, stretched full length, glove out.
Caught it.
Barely.
The puck stuck to the leather like it knew it belonged there.
The arena erupted. Dallas fans howled, but our bench roared louder.
That save changed something. I felt it ripple down the bench, an invisible current.
We reset. My legs ached, arms trembling, but everything narrowed to the ice, the glide, the sound, the pulse of the puck.
Grayson slammed a shoulder into the boards, took possession, and threaded a pass so clean it could’ve been drawn with a ruler. Mason picked it up, streaked down the left side, and launched a wrist shot that flew over the goalie’s blocker and clanged in off the post.
4–3.
The building shook.
Grayson pointed at me across the ice. “Right there! That’s how it’s done!”
I thumped my stick against the ice once, grinning despite the sweat stinging my eyes.
Momentum had shifted. You could feel it.
Dallas looked rattled, their crisp passes fraying into panic dumps. We pounced on every mistake.
Four minutes left.
They tried another breakout; I left the crease to cut it off, sent the puck rocketing up the boards to Mason. He flicked it to Grayson, who danced through two defenders like they weren’t even there.
“Come on, come on,” I muttered under my breath, tracking him from across the ice.
He wound up and fired. Glove side, top corner.
Goal.
Tie game.
The bench exploded. Tucker slammed his glove into Mason’s helmet. Grayson threw both arms up, the roar of the Surge fans drowning out the announcer completely.
But I wasn’t smiling now. Not yet.
Dallas wasn’t done.
Next shift, they came roaring back, throwing everything at me—cross-crease shots, one-timers, rebounds. My body was pure reflex. I dropped, sprawled, twisted, covered.
Every hit rattled my bones. Every save sent a tremor through the boards.
Then came their breakaway.
Two minutes on the clock.
Their sniper caught a lucky bounce and went screaming down the ice, alone.
I squared up, waited. The crowd was on its feet.
He faked glove, went five-hole.
I dropped. The puck pinged off my pad and shot harmlessly into the corner.
The surge from our bench was instant. “Let’s go, Hunter!” Mason roared.
We transitioned fast. Grayson and Mason lead the rush, the entire team pouring down the ice like a storm.
Fifteen seconds later, Grayson hit Mason with a pass at the blue line. Mason deked, shot, missed wide… no, not missed. It rebounded off the back boards right to Grayson.
He didn’t hesitate.
He flipped it, short-side, top shelf.
Goal.
4–5, Surge.
The sound that erupted from our fans hit like thunder.
I dropped to my knees in the crease, gasping, every muscle trembling with adrenaline. We’d done it.
Now all we had to do was hold.
Dallas pulled their goalie. Six on five. The puck never left our zone. Every second stretched thin.
One-thirty left. One-ten. Forty seconds.
I tracked every pass, every flick of the puck. The air in my mask tasted like heat and fear. My gloves were soaked, legs shaking, but I wasn’t giving this up. Not now. Not with her watching.
A shot came screaming through traffic. I couldn’t see it. It was screened completely. I lunged anyway.
The puck hit my blocker and bounced out.
Rebound. Chaos.
Bodies everywhere. Someone shouted my name.
I threw myself across the crease, sprawled, glove open. Thwack. Caught it again. Held it.
Whistle.
The roar was deafening.
I stayed down, breathing hard, glove still raised in disbelief. Mason was the first to reach me, pounding my helmet. Tucker tackled both of us in a heap.
When the buzzer finally went, the ice became a blur of blue jerseys, helmets flying, sticks tossed aside.
We’d won.
The Surge were going to the finals.
By the time the noise started to fade, I was shaking hands with Dallas players, their stick taps hard and grudging. My heart was still somewhere up in my throat. When I finally skated off, the tunnel lights felt blinding. Every cheer, every camera flash, was a rush straight to the chest.
And then I saw her.
Holly, just past the barrier, hair loose, eyes bright. She was beaming, hands clasped together like she couldn’t hold herself still.
For half a second, the world felt perfect again.
Then reality slammed back in.
My family.
In the stands.
Because of her.
My stomach churned. I was supposed to be flying high with the rest of my guys but I couldn’t get past the betrayal. I trusted her, and she used that against me.
She stepped forward, voice lost in the roar, mouth forming my name.
I didn’t stop.
Didn’t even look.
I just kept walking, pads creaking, jaw locked so tight it ached.