Power Play (Colorado Dragons #6)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Bianca

I sat in the stands pretending to do my calculus homework while my father ran the team through conditioning drills.

I kept my eyes low enough that my father would think I was concentrating on the page, but I was watching the new rookie, Marcus Grant, instead.

We’d been sneaking around together since he came to the team at the beginning of the season.

At twenty-three, he showed great promise to become an amazing defensive player, and as long as my father didn’t find out about us, he’d be able to stay here.

I dropped my eyes back to my textbook as my father turned around, yelling at someone behind me, and that was when I heard it.

Not the pop, but the screams coming from a player out on the ice.

I tore my eyes from my textbook and sat there in horror.

Marcus lay on the ice, screaming in pain as I watched the team’s athletic trainer take his time jogging across the ice to him.

I sat there with my heart in my throat as I watched the trainer say something to one member of the medical team.

I could tell from his calm demeanor he’d seen an injury like this before.

He examined the leg, waved for a stretcher, and then sent poor Marcus to the hospital with nothing more than a pat on the shoulder.

My father went back to running the team’s conditioning skills immediately after the ice cleared, acting as if nothing had occurred.

As days passed, I couldn’t get Marcus out of my mind. I’d asked my father twice if he’d heard anything, but he said nothing. One afternoon, I skipped my classes and went to the hospital, but Marcus refused to see me. He also refused to answer my texts, and my father was as tight-lipped as ever.

I finally heard about his injury from one of the other players one night during practice, and that night I became consumed with knowing more.

The next few weeks, I spent my time researching and reading medical journals I found online and in the library.

I’d even snuck into the athletic trainer’s office at the Lair and took one of his books.

I learned everything I could about his injury, then about load management and recovery, and about the difference between being ready to play and being healthy enough to survive playing after a severe injury.

I did all of this with the hope I’d be able to help him with his recovery when he was ready to see me.

His surgery seemed to take forever, and once that was finished and he’d started rehabilitation, there were so many critical windows missed it would only take longer to get him back out on the ice.

A few weeks later, I was in the arena, once again pretending to do my homework, when one of the other players passed me a note from Marcus.

He wanted to see me and asked that I come by later that night.

After my father was in bed, I quietly snuck out of the house and went to see him.

We spent the night together, first talking about his rehabilitation plan, and then he took my virginity.

The next morning, he devastated me when he told me he no longer wanted to see me. I stood there in tears as he told me to find someone else, someone who had a promising career ahead of them. Hurt filled me, followed by anger, and as I left his place that morning, I was determined to help him.

Only now, he avoided me at all costs, changing his rehabilitation times to when I was in school and not answering his phone. It took months before he returned to the ice. One look at him told me he wasn’t really ready to come back, but he pushed forward.

During his first game after his injury I watched in horror as he re-ruptured his Achilles.

The sound he made during that game, I don’t think I will ever forget.

Something happened to me after seeing that happen, witnessing a promising player have his career die because someone had checked a bunch of boxes to rush him back, instead of seeing the person who hadn’t been ready to return.

Later that summer, I enrolled in university, and that fall I added kinesiology to my application.

I already knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the Colorado Dragons athletic trainer.

My father assumed it was so I could stay close to him and to hockey, but I never really told him the true reasoning behind my choice.

I was determined to change things in this industry because I’d learned that sometimes the greatest harm came from the people who were supposed to protect you, and I wanted to change that.