Chapter 5 - Elias #3
He rams into Shaw’s wingman, clearing space. “Move, Mercer.”
I move.
My blade snags the puck free, my legs tearing across the sheet. Haverton doesn’t wait—they come hard, three men collapsing in, sticks like knives, bodies like walls. The third period is vicious, desperate, every one of them slashing, clawing, hungry for a point on the board.
They don’t have any damn goals.
And they’re willing to kill for one.
I’ve got the puck, blade hot, legs on fire. Shaw’s breathing down my neck, two more Phantoms closing fast, but I’m still moving.
And then—pain.
White-hot, ripping up my arm.
A Phantom defenseman slashes straight across my wrists, stick biting bone through padding. My grip spasms, the puck slips loose, clattering into neutral ice. I curse, loud, raw, the sound tearing out of me as my hands go numb.
The Phantoms pounce.
They’re gone before I can even recover, streaking up ice, Shaw at the helm, his lip still bleeding, his eyes still locked on me like he wants to carve me open. One pass, two, a fake at Shane’s crease—
And it’s in.
The horn screams. The Haverton crowd explodes, glass rattling, hands pounding. 3–1.
My chest seizes, not from pain this time, but fury. Wrists screaming, ribs aching, I slam my stick against the ice hard enough to echo. The Phantoms bench howls, Shaw sneering across the sheet, raising his bloody mouthguard at me like it’s a trophy.
But I’m not looking at him.
I’m looking at Damian.
He’s gliding toward the bench, shoulders heavy, eyes cutting across the ice, straight to me. Not angry. Not surprised. Just that calm, terrifying weight.
The kind that says I told you they’d come for you.
The kind that says get up, Mercer. You’re not done.
And even with my wrists on fire, I want nothing more than to obey.
I slam onto the bench, breath ragged, wrists still burning like someone poured fire straight into my veins. I’m shaking, not from fear, not from the pain—though Christ, it hurts—but because the rage is too loud to sit still.
Before I can even rip the glove off myself, he’s there.
Damian.
He crouches in front of me, huge frame folding like it’s nothing, and takes my wrist in his hands.
He peels the glove off slow, deliberate, ignoring the way I hiss when the air hits raw skin.
His fingers are steady, warm even through the chill, brushing tape and sweat as if my whole body isn’t about to combust from the contact.
And then he pulls the roll of tape from the kit.
White strips tearing in the silence, the crowd’s roar muffled under the roof.
He winds it around my wrist, firm, perfect, not too tight, not too loose.
Every wrap is precise, his knuckles brushing the inside of my arm like he’s branding me.
I can’t stop staring—at his hands, at the scar on his lip, at the calm in his eyes.
Like he isn’t just patching me up.
Like he’s claiming me.
When he finishes, he presses his palm heavy against the tape, one last squeeze. And then his eyes lift to mine.
“Go make them bleed for touching you.”
My lungs collapse. My vision whites out. Every sound—Cole chirping, Mats smirking, the refs screaming, the crowd howling—it all falls away.
All I can hear is that order.
All I can feel is his hand on me.
“Yes, sir,” I rasp.
Because if my captain tells me to bleed them—
I’ll burn Haverton to the ground doing it.
The next whistle blows, and I’m back on the ice.
Damian’s words are ringing through me.
I know exactly who I’m hunting.
The Phantom defenseman who slashed me is circling near their blue line, cocky, waiting for a breakout pass. He doesn’t even glance my way—rookie, he’s thinking, just a kid I already broke. Easy pickings.
He’s wrong.
The puck drops, play whirls, Haverton tries to drive it up ice—but I’m already moving. Legs pumping, stick down, a snarl caught in my throat. I angle in, faster, closer, and then—slam.
My shoulder barrels into him full-force, every ounce of my rage poured into the hit. His body snaps against the boards, glass rattling so hard the whole arena feels it. He crumples to the ice, stick flying, helmet askew, breath knocked clean out of him.
I lean down, panting. “That’s for my wrists, asshole.”
The crowd roars, half furious, half electric. The refs’ whistles screech, Haverton’s bench leaps to its feet, but I don’t care.
Because I did what he told me to do.
And when I skate back toward the bench, blood still howling in my ears, I feel it.
His eyes.
Damian’s watching me like a hawk, his gaze locked on every step I take.
After that hit, the game turns into nothing short of a slaughterhouse.
The Phantoms smell blood—my blood. They’re rabid, every shift a new body gunning for me. Cheap shots, slashes, hooks, blindside hits. They come at me like it’s a feeding frenzy, and I can feel it in every bruise.
But they don’t get to finish the job.
Because every time they close in, a Reaper is there.
Shaw tries to hammer me into the crease? Viktor’s on him in a blink, shoving him off like he weighs nothing.
Another defenseman throws his elbow at my head? Mats ghosts in, stick slapping the puck away before it even reaches me.
One of their grinders digs his stick into my spine after a whistle? Cole actually laughs before slamming him face-first into the glass, mouthing off loud enough for the whole arena to hear.
And Damian—fuck.
Every time I step on the ice, he’s there, shadowing me. He doesn’t need to say a word, doesn’t need to raise a hand half the time. His presence alone is enough to make Haverton hesitate for just a breath. And that’s all I need to keep moving.
The crowd’s a storm, the Phantoms desperate. They claw, they slash, they bleed themselves trying to get past us. But they don’t break us.
They don’t break me.
When the final horn screams, the scoreboard burns 3–1. Reapers. On Phantoms’ ice. Halloween night.
The boos shake the rafters, silver-and-black fans clawing the glass like demons denied their sacrifice. Trash rains from the upper decks, security shouting, chaos spilling even as we raise our sticks.
My wrists throb under the tape, my ribs feel cracked, but none of it matters.
Because we walked into their haunted barn and bled them dry.
Because I didn’t die.
Because Damian Kade is still watching me.
And I’d skate back into their haunted barn tomorrow if it meant his eyes on me.