Chapter 18
And I can’t stop watching it.
I’ve watched it six times already.
I rewind again—just the last two minutes. I know I shouldn’t. I know it won’t change a damn thing. But I can’t stop. It’s like I need to memorize every mistake, every twitch, every shift burned into my body until it hurts.
The audio’s off now. Doesn’t matter. I know every word.
I’m in full sweats—the hoodie Damian left me, socks way too big—and my curls are still wet from the shower I took three hours ago, thinking maybe if I scrubbed hard enough, I could wash off the shame boiling under my skin.
It didn’t work.
The only thing I’ve eaten today is a half-dead banana and a protein bar I didn’t even taste.
The news is playing in the background on low volume from Damian’s office, through the open door.
Something about playoff pressure. Something about underdog rookies and series momentum and home advantage.
I don’t listen to the whole thing. I catch pieces.
Enough to want to put my head through the wall.
Damian’s not home.
He’s with Coach. Probably with the others too—Cole, Viktor, Mats, Shane.
The vets. The ones who’ve been here before.
Who’ve lost and come back and figured out how not to break in half.
They’re probably planning lines or watching tape or stabbing their sticks into the locker room floor to summon the ghost of Wayne Gretzky or whatever insane ritual they think’ll fix this.
And I’m here, alone, staring at my own failure in HD
Every time I watch that last shift, I flinch. The moment plays over and over in my head, brutal and slow. The way I turned a second too late. The way I misread the play. The sound of the horn. And worst of all, Damian’s face when the buzzer hit. Not angry. Not disappointed.
Worse.
He looked tired.
I pull my knees up, curl tighter into the hoodie, his hoodie, and press my forehead to them like it’ll somehow make the thoughts stop. Like I can hide inside the fabric, inside the warmth, inside something that still smells like him and pretend it’ll all be fine.
But I don’t know how to come back from this—not if I fuck it up again, not if I keep giving him reasons to bench me, not if I’m the one who costs him the Cup. And I can feel it, deep in my chest. The fear. The pressure coils around my spine, constant and ruthless, tightening with every breath.
And then there’s the voice, the one that won’t shut up, won’t back the fuck down.
What if you’re not enough? What if they win the next game because you weren’t good enough to stop them?
What if you lose him? The questions dig in like blades, each one sharper than the last, and I can’t outrun them, can’t drown them, not even with the weight of his hoodie hanging heavy across my shoulders.
So I grab the remote and I rewind the tape again. Two minutes left. Hawks up one. Reapers chasing. I’m on the ice. I’m skating too wide. I’m out of position. The pass slips right by me. That goal never should’ve happened.
Never.
I press pause, and the screen freezes mid-motion, the puck hanging in the air. It floats there, frozen mid-air right before it destroys everything. The image is too clear, too cruel. I stare at it until my eyes burn.
I swallow hard, throat tight and dry, and whisper, “Not again.”
The sound of my own voice barely registers. It’s swallowed by the low hum of Damian’s office down the hall—background noise I’ve been tuning out for the past hour. Newscaster chatter, static from a television left on, the gentle, clinical buzz of something normal happening outside this room.
Then—brEAKING NEWS.
My head lifts.
The words slice through the noise. A newscaster’s voice cuts in—calm, rehearsed, unbearably slow.
Another clip plays, muffled by distance and a doorway I didn’t bother closing.
I can’t see the screen. I don’t need to because the words hit anyway.
“—the Ravensburg Reapers’ team bus has been involved in a crash—”
My blood turns to ice.
“—reports say the vehicle flipped—”
No.
No.
“—three players lightly injured—”
Please, God.
“—one critical—”
My ears explode with ringing. A high, shrill screech, drowning everything out.
The room tilts violently to the left, or maybe I do.
I can’t tell. The TV in front of me fades to a blur of grey and light, a glitching frame I can’t focus on.
My heartbeat slams into my ribs, each pulse a fist trying to punch its way out of my chest.
I can’t hear. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
Everything narrows. Everything condenses to a single, sharp point of horror echoing over and over inside my skull.
Critical. Bus.
The reporter keeps going. Her voice is steady, professional, slow, like she isn’t ripping my life apart syllable by syllable. “—the accident occurred just outside city limits—”
No. No, no—
“—the bus caught fire—”
Flames.
I’m not here anymore—I’m twelve again. Rain hits the windshield. Tires screech. The car tilts, unnatural and wrong, spinning toward the tree. Burning rubber floods my nose. Sirens wail in the distance. And beside me, there’s nothing. Just my brother’s empty seat.
My lungs seize. My hands shake so violently I drop the remote. It hits the floor with a crack that sounds exactly like snapping bone.
“—emergency responders on site—”
I stumble to my feet, vision tunneling as sweat breaks down my spine, my throat closing tight. My heart pounds too fast, too hard, like it’s going to burst out of my chest.
Not again. Not again. PLEASE not again.
The thought slams into me over and over until it isn’t even language anymore, just raw, frantic sound tearing through my skull. I don’t remember grabbing Damian’s keys. One blink and they’re in my fist, cutting into my palm. Another blink and I’m running down the hall.
I slam into the hallway wall so hard my shoulder bounces, but I barely feel it. My feet slip, trip, catch, and keep going, because the ringing in my ears is deafening now, swallowing every noise, every coherent thought except the single truth beating itself bloody inside my head:
Someone’s dying. Someone I love. Someone on that bus.
The air won’t come. I choke on a sob so sharp it feels like glass in my lungs. “Please… please no…” The words scrape out of me.
I sprint. Down the hall. Down the stairs. Out into the night air that doesn’t even feel real against my skin. It’s too cold, too thin. My chest is heaving, lungs already burning, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
The second I hit the parking lot, my eyes lock onto Damian’s car. I don’t hesitate. I bolt toward it, every step jagged and unsteady, my entire body moving on nothing but panic and muscle memory. My hands shake as I yank the door open. I’m not thinking. I’m not even here.
Terror wraps around my throat. Not just fear—primal terror. The kind I haven’t felt since I was a kid. The kind that eats everything else.
The engine roars to life under my trembling hands, and the tires scream as I whip around the corner, sharp and too fast, nearly losing control before I wrench the wheel back.
I don’t check the lights. Don’t signal. Don’t care.
I’m gone. Damian’s car eats the road, like it can feel me bleeding through the steering wheel and into the engine.
The night blurs around me. Trees, signs, passing cars. All of it a smear of color and noise until—red. Red lights. Then blue. Then the sharp whine of sirens somewhere ahead, rising over the engine, over my heartbeat.
And then I see it.
The bus.
It’s flipped on its side, a giant, hulking carcass torn open at the seams. Flames are already climbing through the windows. The metal is twisted, and shattered glass glitters across the pavement.
The Reapers logo is barely visible, blackened and scorched, half-melted off the side.
My hands slip on the wheel.
No.
No, no, no—
I slam the brakes so hard I nearly snap the steering wheel in half. The car jerks to a stop, tires screaming. I’m out before the engine dies, door swinging wide, knees buckling the second my feet hit the ground.
Because I see them.
Mats, sitting on the curb, arms wrapped around his ribs, blood in his mouth. Shane—fuck, Shane’s got one leg propped on a bag of ice, foot turned the wrong way. Cole’s standing—barely—shirt soaked, blood running down one side of his face. Our driver is shaking.
And Viktor—Viktor is screaming. Not words, not anything that sounds human, just pure rage ripping out of him in raw, violent bursts. He’s shouting at the EMTs, at the stretcher, at the smoking wreckage, his voice hoarse and unhinged like he’s ready to fight God Himself if it means getting answers.
But—no Damian.
I look again. Harder. My eyes drag across every face, every helmet, every medic, frantic and unfocused as panic tightens around my throat.
“Where is he—where is he—” I gasp, spinning, searching the chaos like there’s oxygen hidden somewhere inside it.
And then I see the gurney—the one they haven’t moved, still positioned beside the bus, inside the emergency perimeter, untouched and unmanned.
There’s no movement, no figure lying on it.
A single boot hangs off the edge. Damian’s boot.
Half-melted, fabric warped and burned, so familiar it guts me on sight.
And the fire, the flames are still eating the bus, crawling up the metal like hungry hands. I can’t see him through the smoke or the heat shimmer, can’t see anything inside—
But I know.
He’s on that bus. He’s on the bus and he’s going to die. He’s going to die and I’m standing here useless, breathing air he can’t.
I scream. I don’t even realize it’s me at first. The sound tears out of my chest like it belongs to something else, some wounded animal, some feral thing that had its world ripped out of its hands.
Then I run. I sprint toward the fire like it’s my only way back to him. I don’t see anything else. Don’t hear anyone. There’s no sound. No wind. No pain. There's only fire and that boot and that bus. And him.