Chapter 9
The scoreboard hung above the ice, a monstrous neon-red tombstone. Each glowing digit felt etched into the air, a declaration of death for the Spartan hopes.
The second intermission had swallowed the arena in a thick, uneasy quiet. This wasn't just any game; it was the Duel in the D, the annual blood feud played on neutral ice in Detroit, and we were being dismembered, piece by agonizing piece.
I was a tightly wound spring in the family section, wedged between a nervous hockey mom whose knuckles were white around a rosary, her lips a silent flutter of prayers, and a scout from the Blackhawks.
The scout’s pen scratched furiously across his notepad, a relentless whisper of judgment.
I didn't need to lean closer to know those scrawled lines weren't filled with praise.
The air in the arena felt thick and corrosive, coating my tongue.
Spartan fans were ghosts, slumped deep in their seats, their faces ashen.
Across the divide, the Wolverine faithful were a howling, rabid tide, their insults a physical force, crashing and echoing off the high rafters, a mocking chorus to our demise.
And down on the ice, Jax Carter was not merely losing; he was unraveling.
I’d never witnessed such a frantic demolition.
Usually, Jax was a glacier of precision, a machine of cold, calculating strikes.
But tonight, he was a raw, exposed nerve ending, flailing.
He collected idiotic penalties, his stick work sloppy, his passes sailing wide.
In the first period, after a wide-open net lay before him, he'd missed, then snapped his stick over the crossbar with a crack that had reverberated through the glass, a sound of splintering wood and rage. Later, in the second, a tangle at center ice had escalated. He’d thrown a wild punch, a blur of dark green glove aimed at a Michigan face, but it had whistled harmlessly through the air, earning him two minutes in the penalty box.
From there, he’d watched, a statue of shame, as Michigan buried their third goal.
His shoulders had sagged, his head hanging low.
His movements were jerky, untethered. His eyes, even from my distance, looked hollow, devoid of their usual predatory focus. He was adrift, and I knew, with a sickening lurch in my gut, exactly why.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It had been a constant companion all game, a phantom thrumming against my thigh, but this one was different. This wasn’t a ghost. This was real. Long. Persistent. The buzz seemed to drill into the bone of my hip.
I pulled it out, angling the screen instinctively away from the scout’s perpetually scribbling pen.
Jax: Now.
One word. No pleasantries. No location. Just a stark, absolute command, carrying the crushing weight of his entire crumbling world. The message felt like a live wire in my palm.
I pushed myself up from the seat, the plastic creaking under my weight. “Excuse me,” I mumbled to the rosary-clutching mom, who barely registered my departure.
I navigated the steep stairs, feeling the invisible pinpricks of a thousand eyes.
I wore street clothes tonight, not a jersey.
Jax had forbidden it. “Street clothes,” he’d decreed that morning, pacing the cramped hotel room like a caged animal, the carpet wearing a path under his restless strides.
“I don’t want you marked today. I need to focus. ”
The irony was a bitter taste in my mouth. That plan had imploded with even greater spectacularity than he had.
I slipped past the ushers at the section entrance, their gazes sliding right over me. I didn't need directions. My feet knew the way, a memory carved into muscle and bone from countless games, countless desperate summons.
I descended into the echoing, concrete bowels of the arena.
The air grew colder, heavier, shedding the frenetic energy of the stands.
The roar of the crowd, once deafening, receded into a distant, dull thumping bass line overhead, like a heartbeat from a different world.
I walked past the cavernous zamboni tunnel, its ice-resurfacing machine gleaming under stark lights, past the media scrum already setting up their tripods and microphones, a vulture flock gathering for the post-game autopsies.
The door to the Spartan locker room area loomed.
Earl, the security guard, a man whose shoulders spanned the width of a small car and whose Christmas tips from Jax were rumored to fund his entire year, saw me coming.
His eyes held a weary understanding. He didn't ask for a pass.
He simply shifted his massive frame, the fabric of his uniform groaning, and pulled the heavy door open.
“He’s tearing the room apart, kid,” Earl muttered, his voice a low rumble. “Good luck.”
I stepped inside.
The main locker room was a silent, sterile expanse.
The team was gone, vanished into the humid steam of the showers or the antiseptic quiet of the trainer’s room, tending to their physical and emotional wounds.
A low, furious murmur seeped from the coaches’ office down the hall, a sound like caged beasts.
But another noise, sharper, more violent, pulled me deeper. A loud crash, then the metallic clang of something heavy striking concrete, echoed from the back.
I walked toward the equipment room. The door was ajar, a sliver of dim light escaping into the gloom.
I pushed it open.
The room was a suffocating maze, a nightmare of stacked shelving units overflowing with gear, helmets dangling like severed heads, skates hanging in rows.
The air was a cloying, the place stank of fresh resin, sweat-soaked leather, and the sharp, metallic tang of newly sharpened steel.
It was dim, lit by a single, sickly flickering fluorescent strip that cast long, dancing shadows.
Jax was there.
He stood by the skate sharpening machine, his back to me, a hulking figure in the oppressive half-light.
He was still in full gear—jersey, pads, pants—minus his helmet and gloves.
His Spartan dark green and white jersey was soaked through, plastered to his broad back, dark with sweat.
His shoulders hitched and fell with ragged, furious breaths that tore at the silence.
At his feet, a scattering of stick tape rolls lay like fallen soldiers, alongside a knocked-over, dented bucket of pucks. The concrete floor was littered with discarded gear, bent water bottles, and a snapped composite stick. He had ravaged the place.
“Close the door,” he said, his voice a low snarl that vibrated through the floorboards and up my legs. There was a raw violence in it that prickled the hairs on my arms. He didn’t turn around.
I closed the door. The latch clicked with a sharp, final sound, sealing us inside the chemical-laced darkness.
“Jax,” I started, forcing my voice into a calm, even tone that felt utterly alien. “The game isn’t—”
He spun around.
The speed of his movement was startling.
His face was a mask of pure, unhinged fury.
His eyes were wild, blown wide, like a cornered animal’s, rimmed with an angry red.
Sweat dripped from his dark hair, carving paths down his face like grotesque tears.
A crimson smear, the evidence of a high stick he hadn't bothered to get checked, stained his chin.
“Shut up,” he hissed, the word a razor blade cutting the air.
He stalked toward me, his movements heavy and deliberate.
He was monumental in his pads, unnaturally wide and tall on his skates.
The steel blades crunched against the rubber flooring, granting him another two inches of terrifying height.
He loomed, a monstrous shadow from a slasher film, filling the small space.
“You’re in my head,” he accused, his voice a guttural growl, as he poked a stiff, gloved finger into my chest. The plastic of his glove pressed into my sternum, driving the air from my lungs. “Get out of my fucking head, Tom.”
I stumbled back, my heel catching on a stray hockey glove. My back slammed against a rack of spare jerseys, their slick, cold fabric rustling under the impact. “What are you talking about?” I gasped.
“I can’t focus!” He roared the words, his voice tearing at the dim light.
He slammed his hand against the metal shelving unit next to my head.
The entire rack rattled, a violent tremor shaking helmets and shin guards loose.
“I look up at the stands, and I’m looking for you.
I’m taking a faceoff, and I’m thinking about your mouth.
I’m in the box, and I’m wondering if you’re wearing the plug. ”
He crowded me further, pressing the hard plastic of his shoulder pads against my chest. The icy cold of the plastic contrasted with the heat radiating from his body. My breath hitched.
“You’re a distraction. You’re poison.”
“Then let me go,” I whispered, my voice barely a thread, my heart hammering against my ribs, a frantic trapped bird. “Tell me to leave.”
“I can’t!”
His hands shot out, grabbing the front of my shirt with a desperate, crushing grip. He yanked, hard. The fabric tore with a violent rip, splitting down the middle. Buttons popped, small plastic projectiles pinging off the concrete floor, echoing in the confined space.
“I can’t let you go,” he groaned, his voice cracking, the rage bleeding into a raw, terrible desperation. “I need you. I need to clear the pipes. I need to get this poison out of me before the third period or we’re going to lose the championship.”
He didn't lean in to kiss me. He didn’t ask.
He shoved me backward.
I flew, a weightless moment of terror, before crashing hard into the worktable where the equipment managers repaired helmets. My lower back hit the unforgiving edge with a jolt of searing pain that stole my breath.
“Pants,” he barked, the word a sharp command. “Off. Now.”