Chapter 17
Icehawks’ barn.
Finals. Their territory.
Gold is everywhere. Not just on the jerseys—the fans, the glass, even the lighting.
It’s like skating inside a goddamn chalice, gleaming and pretentious, and I hate every second of it.
The air reeks of expensive aftershave and smugness, as if everyone here was born rich and has never been hit in the face with a puck.
Their anthem singer had glitter on his mic. Glitter.
And we’re crashing. Cole missed a one-timer he’d normally bury in his sleep. Mats got bodied at the blue line and spun out like a rookie. Shane’s screaming into his glove between whistles. Tyler looks two seconds from puking on the bench. And Elias?
Elias is sitting on the bench, because I had to pull him.
He was spiraling so hard last period—breath too fast, hands twitching, passes off, eyes everywhere but the puck. He missed a wide-open net, snapped his stick across the boards, and nearly bodychecked our own defenseman.
So I grabbed him, yanked him down and now he’s sitting next to me, helmet still on, curls plastered to his face, mouth open and desperate for air he can’t seem to catch.
I don’t look at him, but I feel him shaking.
“Cap,” Cole pants, sliding onto the bench beside me after another failed shift. “They’ve got us. I don’t know how, but—they fucking have us.”
I nod once.
We’re not getting sloppy. That’s the worst part. We’re playing our game. But they’ve anticipated it. Read it. Countered everything. It’s like fighting a mirror that learned how to hit harder.
Elias twitches beside me. I glance down and see his gloves clenched so tight, the padding strains around his fists.
“Pup,” I say, low and quiet just for him, enough to reach through the noise.
He doesn’t answer. His eyes are locked on the ice, wild and feral, but not focused. It’s not hunger I see—it’s panic.
I lean in closer, my voice cutting sharper now. “Elias.”
His head snaps toward me.
“You’re not broken,” I tell him. “You’re just overheating. Let me cool you down.”
He swallows hard, then gives a single, sharp nod. But I can see it, clear as day, he doesn’t believe it. Not fully. And the clock keeps ticking.
I don’t send him out yet. Not until I see him again. Not until his eyes stop darting like he’s about to pass out or puke or cry. “Look at me,” I say, low and sharp, fingers curling around the back of his neck.
He flinches, but he looks, and for one second—one heartbeat—I see it: him, that fire, that rage, that desperate need to earn me.
“Breathe.”
He does, rough and shaky.
“Again.”
Slower this time, deeper, and his gloves loosen just a bit.
“You’re not losing,” I say. “Not the game. Not me. Not yourself. You’re still in this, pup. But you have to choose to be.”
His jaw ticks. His helmet shifts when he nods.
“Good,” I mutter. “You’re with Cole next shift. Get me that fucking goal.”
He blinks. “With Cole?”
“Yeah.” I lean in closer. “Because that bastard chirps so loud it drowns out everything else, and I need you to stop thinking and start skating.”
And then I stand, grip the boards. “Vance. Mercer. You’re up.”
Cole’s already flying over the wall. Elias stumbles, then moves.
And the second his blades hit the gold, he locks in.
It’s not perfect. His first shift is messy.
The puck wobbles. He overcorrects once. Nearly gets clipped by a Hawk defenseman.
But Cole’s screaming at the top of his lungs, “LEFT, CURLS! CUT LEFT YOU SEXY BASTARD!” and something clicks.
Elias swings wide, cuts sharp, and grabs the puck in a tight turn that makes the boards shudder.
He dodges one Hawk, then another, weaving through gold.
Ahead of him, Cole’s already jabbing at the goalie, a one-man war zone in front of the crease, drawing attention.
Elias doesn’t hesitate. He passes under a stick, threading the puck like silk.
Cole backhands it across without even looking, instinct driving the pass, and Elias catches it on pure reflex, no hesitation, no mercy. He slams it home, top shelf, clean as hell and vicious enough to rattle the glass.
5–3. Seven minutes left on the clock. Still bleeding, but breathing again.
The crowd turns on itself. Hawks fans start screaming, booing, fists in the air like it’ll change the score. But the Reapers’ side? They light up.
And Elias is already bolting for the bench. His eyes are wild—lit with fire, with the kind of dangerous joy that only shows up when he's already bleeding for it. He skates straight for me, full speed, no hesitation.
He slams into the boards, face inches from mine, dripping sweat and panting. “I’m back,” he breathes.
I grab his cage, yank him closer until our foreheads touch, metal to metal. “You never fucking left.”
The puck drops and Cole is gone. Not skating, flying. He rips down the left side, chirping the entire way—“I’M GONNA MAKE OUT WITH THE CUP, BABY! GET READY FOR TONGUE!”
Mats is with him.
The Hawks’ defense starts to collapse on Cole—he wants them to. He lures them. Then, right before the crease, he flips it behind him, no-look, straight into Mats’ stick. Mats slaps it. It rings off the post, and drops in.
5–4.
Gold jerseys look shocked. Our fans detonate. Cole howls and jumps onto Mats like he just proposed.
Elias is screaming behind me on the bench. “ONE MORE! ONE MORE!”
And then it’s my turn. Faceoff. I push off with blood in my mouth and fire burning in my chest. The puck hits the ice, and I muscle past the first Hawk, shoulder cracking hard against his ribs as I rip the puck free.
Viktor’s already there. He flicks it back to me without even looking—some kind of Russian witchcraft—and I spin, shoot, watch it rebound.
Viktor charges in, skates cutting deep, and with one clean strike—5–5.
The sound is indescribable. Shane punches the air. Tyler launches his gloves into the ceiling. Elias grabs Cole by the ears and yells something about godhood.
We’ve done it.
Tied.
With only twenty seconds left on the clock, we get cocky—too confident in our momentum, too aggressive with the play.
We press in hard, trying to squeeze one more shot out of them, and that’s all it takes.
A single misstep. A bad read. One heartbeat too long in the wrong zone.
And just like that, the Hawks intercept.
Their winger—number 81, and I swear to God I’ll remember his number forever—snatches the puck.
He cuts clean through our line, gliding past Tyler with barely a stutter, then skates around Mats.
Every move is fluid. Then, when we think he’s about to fire, he pulls the dirtiest fake I’ve seen all series. Quick, cold, and devastating.
Shane sees it. He reads the play like it’s scripture carved into the ice. His body reacts before his brain does, diving out to block it with everything he’s got.
And still, the puck slips past him.
6–5, Hawks.
Ten seconds left on the clock. No time to answer. No time to recover.
Only that ringing, echoing sound of betrayal as the buzzer cuts through the stadium and the wrong side cheers.
Shane is still sprawled in the crease, motionless, his body twisted in a way that reads more like defeat than pain.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Then, suddenly, violently, he roars.
The sound rips out of him, primal and guttural, echoing across the rink.
He lifts his stick and slams it into the ice with so much force that it snaps clean in half.
The blade goes flying into the boards. The shaft clatters across the crease and spins out like shrapnel.
Tyler flinches hard, Cole swears under his breath, and Viktor doesn’t even blink. Elias just stares—wide-eyed, mouth slightly open, hands gripping the boards like they’re the only thing holding him up, shock written all over his face.
Then he turns.
He doesn’t look at any of us. He storms toward the tunnel in full gear, helmet still on, stick clenched so tight in one fist it looks like he’s going to shatter that too. His skates carve the ice with each step, sharp and furious, every stride louder than the last.
And then the scream comes. “FUCK—!” It tears out of him, echoing off the glass, loud enough that the entire arena hears it, every fan, every ref, every goddamn Hawk.
The crowd falls silent.
Hawks fans gape. Our bench goes stiff. Cole lets out a low whistle while Shane, still on the ice, mutters a quiet, “Shit.”
Elias storms down the tunnel, shoulders squared and trembling, every breath spilling fire as rage coils off him in waves.
And I’m already moving. I drop my gloves on the bench and plant one foot on the boards, ready to chase him down, ready to drag him back from whatever spiral he’s about to sink into—but then—
“Kade.” Coach’s voice slices through the noise.
I freeze and turn toward him. He’s standing at the end of the bench, arms crossed, cigar clamped between his teeth even though it’s unlit. His eyes are steady. Hard. “Let him cool off by himself,” he says, calm but resolute. “You’re not always gonna be there after every loss.”
I bristle. “He’s not—”
“He’s not a rookie anymore,” Coach snaps, sharp enough to cut through the tension still hanging in the air.
His eyes lock on mine like he’s challenging me to argue.
“You made him a center. You gave him that line. You want him to lead?” He jerks his chin toward the tunnel without breaking eye contact. “Then let him learn how to lose.”
I clench my jaw hard enough it aches. No one else speaks. The rest of the bench sits in a tight, waiting silence, like they’re watching a fuse burn down between us. Cole is watching me too, quiet for once, his usual smart-ass grin nowhere in sight.
I glance toward the tunnel. Then I look back at the ice. Elias is gone, but the weight of him—the echo of that scream, that heartbreak—is still lodged in my chest.
And yeah, maybe Coach is right. Maybe Elias needs to be alone right now. Maybe this is part of it. The failure. The fury. Maybe this is what it looks like to become the kind of player who doesn’t break when the game does.
But fuck, I hate it.
I sit back down on the bench, slow and stiff. My hands rest uselessly in my lap as I stare at the ice and wait for my heartbeat to slow.