Chapter 18
Chapter eighteen
Penalty Kill - Defending while short-handed due to a penalty.
Phoenix
I didn’t realize I was moving until I felt someone grip my arm—firm, grounding. Ignatius. He stepped between me and the glass, blocking my view like he knew I was about to fall through it.
“Phoenix,” he said sharply. “Look at me.”
I tried. My vision kept sliding back to the ice.
To Cole.
To the pile of players kneeling around him, waving frantically for the medical team.
Ignatius’s hand tightened. “We’re going. Now.”
“I—I can’t just leave—”
“You aren’t leaving.” His voice softened just enough to sound human. “You’re going where he’ll be taken.” The words hit hard enough to jolt my legs into motion.
Ignatius pushed open the VIP door and led me into the service corridor that ran behind the stands. The walls shook with the noise of the crowd—half screaming in anger at the hit, half roaring because the Grizzlies were celebrating again. Another goal.
I barely heard it. My head was full of ice cracking and helmets slamming and the terrifying image of Cole not moving. Ignatius didn’t slow as he cut through a staff hallway. “They’ll get him off the ice. You know that, right?”
“He wasn’t moving,” I choked out.
“I saw.”
“He wasn’t—Ignatius, he wasn’t—”
“I know,” he said again, and for once he sounded worried.
We reached the restricted door. Ignatius flashed the same credentials I’d been given earlier—the ones that said I belonged here, that I was someone Cole trusted. The security guard nodded us through.
The hallway leading to the dressing rooms was chaos—staff rushing, radio chatter echoing, trainers jogging past with medical bags. I stumbled a little, but Ignatius kept me upright, practically dragging me the final few feet. He pushed open the Dragons’ dressing room door.
Empty.
Like a bomb had gone off and everyone had evacuated. My stomach plunged. Where were they? Where was Cole?
A trainer burst past us, almost knocking into me. Ignatius caught him by the sleeve.
“Armstrong?” he demanded.
The trainer didn’t even look up, just kept moving. “Already gone.”
It felt like the air dropped out of the room. “Gone where?” I managed.
“Ambulance,” the trainer said. “Left two minutes ago. Head injury. Possible loss of consciousness.”
Possible? Possible? He hadn’t moved. I grabbed the doorframe because my knees gave out. Ignatius caught me again, swearing under his breath.
“Hospital,” the trainer added, already halfway down the hall. “He’s on the way to Mercy General.”
Mercy General.
Cole wasn’t here. He wasn’t lying in the next room getting checked. He wasn’t on the bench with a towel pressed to his head. He’d been taken. Alone. Unconscious. A cold wave rolled up through my chest, sharp and suffocating.
Ignatius steadied me. “We’re going,” he said, no arguments allowed. “Now.”
“But I wasn’t with him—he left without me—Ignatius, he left—”
“Phoenix.” His voice cut through my spiraling panic. “He was unconscious. He didn’t leave you.”
But the words barely reached me. All I could see was Cole lying on the ice. Not moving. Not waking. Not opening those warm, steady eyes.
And all I could think was—
Please. Please be okay.
Mercy General was a blur of white lights, frantic footsteps, and the sharp bite of antiseptic hanging in the air. Ignatius kept a tight grip on my arm as he steered me through the sliding doors, both of us breathless from the run across the parking lot.
“We need the Armstrong intake,” he told the receptionist, voice clipped.
I hovered beside him, numb and shaking, trying—and failing—to breathe normally. Everything inside me still echoed with the sound of Cole hitting the ice.
Before the receptionist could answer, movement caught my eye. A tall, rigid figure stood near the doors to the trauma area, radiating cold authority like a winter storm.
Wells.
Cole’s father looked at me the way someone looked at a stain they wished they hadn’t noticed. His suit was immaculate. His expression unreadable. His eyes—those same sharp Armstrong eyes—held none of Cole’s warmth.
Just ice.
He approached with slow, deliberate steps. “You,” he said to Ignatius, though his gaze never left me. “Why are you here?”
Ignatius didn’t back down. “Cole has friends who care about him.”
Wells allowed himself the faintest flicker of disdain. “Friends,” he repeated, like the word was offensive. He turned to the nearest nurse. “No one enters my son’s room without my authorization. No exceptions.”
The nurse hesitated. “Sir, hospital policy requires—”
“I have full next-of-kin authority,” Wells interrupted, producing a folder of documents as if he’d been waiting for this moment. “These override your policy.”
The nurse faltered, unsure. Wells didn’t care. His attention swung back to me. “You are not welcome here,” he said quietly. “And you will not see him.”
My chest tightened painfully. “I’m not trying to interfere. I just—”
“You have no place in his life,” he said, voice soft but lethal. “Or in his recovery.” He turned without waiting for a response and disappeared through the double doors.
The moment he was gone, Ignatius swore under his breath. “He’s moving too fast.”
“He can’t just—” I started, voice cracking.
“He can,” Ignatius said grimly. “As next of kin, he has legal control. For now.” The last two words hung heavy between us.
Ignatius pulled out his phone immediately. “I’m calling the Council.”
“The…dragon council?” I asked, still shaking.
“They outrank him,” Ignatius said. “If anyone can override his access, it’s them.
” He paced while talking, sharp and controlled, explaining the situation in clipped bursts.
I sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs, gripping the edge so tightly my fingers hurt.
Every second stretched unbearably, each one without news of Cole slicing deeper into my nerves.
Finally Ignatius’s phone buzzed with a reply. He answered sharply—and his expression changed.
Not to relief.
To horror.
“What do you mean he’s not listed as an admitted patient?” Ignatius demanded. “He was brought in by ambulance less than an hour ago!”
My stomach dropped. “Ignatius…?”
He listened another moment, then closed his eyes. “No discharge paperwork…no internal record… You’re saying—”
He broke off and turned toward me fully. “He’s gone.”
I stared at him, the words not sinking in. “Gone where?”
“Wells signed him out,” Ignatius said, fury vibrating through every word. “Before the council could intervene. He pulled Cole out of this hospital and transferred him privately.”
My breath left me in a single, sharp sound. “Transferred? To where?”
Ignatius shook his head. “A private facility. Somewhere with no oversight. Somewhere he controls.”
The realization hit like a physical blow. “He’s going to bind Cole again,” I whispered. Saying it made it real. “That’s why he moved so fast.”
Ignatius didn’t argue. He didn’t have to. His expression said everything. “That was his plan,” he said. “And tonight gave him the excuse he needed.”
I felt dizzy. The room tilted. “The hit… The ambulance… He must’ve been waiting for something like this.”
“He was,” Ignatius said quietly. “Cole unconscious, unable to object… Wells would have seen his opportunity.”
I pressed a hand to my mouth, nauseous. Binding meant locking Cole’s fire away. Caging the most essential part of him. Killing the spark I’d seen in him—bit by bit.
“We have to find him,” I said, voice unsteady but determined. “We can’t let Wells do this.”
Ignatius finally looked at me with something like respect. “Then we move now. And we don’t stop. I know where to start.”
I nodded.
Because Wells Armstrong hadn’t just taken his son.
He’d taken his chance to break him.
And I wasn’t going to let that happen.