52. Jax
JAX
The locker room is chaos, the way it always is after a game. Except this time, I’m not engaging in the banter, arguing over where we should go for drinks, and making fun of the rookies.
Running the towel through my wet hair, I glance quickly at the others. I’m in the lead in our undisclosed race, but not by much. Snatching my shirt from the bench, I wave over my shoulder at them as I stalk toward the door. “Later, fuckers.”
I’m out of the room before the words have even left my mouth, jogging down the corridor in my eagerness to check on Dylan.
To make sure she’s okay. I know she said she was.
The hit didn’t look as bad on replay as it felt in real time.
But I still need to see her with my own eyes.
Hold her. Kiss her. Wrap her in bubble wrap if I have to.
Especially after seeing Lucas in the stands tonight.
What the hell was he doing here? Why tonight ?
His presence alone was enough to crawl beneath my skin, but the timing of it—showing up the night Dylan gets knocked out—was too much of a damn coincidence.
I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not during the second half of the game. Not while I was throwing punches at the guy who hit her.
And sure, I felt his skin split under my knuckles. But even that wasn’t enough.
Because every time I passed Lucas on the ice, he was smirking. Grinning. Laughing with his buddies like he hadn’t just witnessed the most important person in my life being carried off the ice.
Like it was all a game.
And it only made the fury burn hotter.
I’m nearly at the door to the treatment room when I hear it. Yelling. Muffled, but unmistakable.
My pace quickens.
My heart slams against my ribs as I break into a sprint.
The door has been flung open, the voices louder now within. Familiar.
On the threshold, I falter, paralyzed by the sight before me.
Coach has Kyle pinned to the wall, forearm pressed to his throat, while Kyle thrashes and spits venom.
“She took everything!” he yells.
My brow furrows, my body so tense it could snap.
Time slows down as my gaze swivels to the tub. That’s when I see her. Lying face-down. Floating.
Something inside me breaks. Shatters.
“No,” I choke. I launch myself across the room. Water splashes everywhere as I jump into the tub, hauling her out with trembling arms.
She’s limp.
Too still.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Thundering footsteps sound behind me, the already open door slamming into the wall as the guys flood in. Pandemonium ensues. Griffin takes one look at Dylan, unconscious and dripping wet in my arms and barrels toward Kyle, roaring, “You fucking bastard!”
I don’t have time to watch whatever violence he invokes.
Panicked and working on autopilot, I set Dylan on the ground.
Water seeps into my T-shirt and soaks my knees.
The last thing I notice before I lean over to pinch her nose and blow air into her mouth is Ethan, frozen in the middle of the room, his face white as a ghost.
“W-what do we do?” Finn asks in a trembling voice as he drops to the floor on Dylan’s other side. His hands shaking as they hover over her still form.
“Support her head,” I tell him as I move to do chest compressions. My own hands shake as I press against her sternum, once, twice, again. “C’mon, Menace,” I murmur, beg, then plead, “Breathe for me.”
Her skin is pale, lips tinged blue.
“Come back to us,” Finn whispers, leaning in to push her hair away from her face. “Please.” He presses a kiss to her temple, voice rougher, more demanding when he practically orders, “Don’t you dare leave us.”
“Why isn’t she breathing?” Griffin shouts, stomping over.
Violence rolls off of him. I don’t dare look up from Dylan’s lifeless form, but I can see him pacing in my periphery.
“If she dies—” His voice breaks over the word, and something inside me withers.
No, she can’t fucking die. I push down harder on her sternum.
“—I’m going to fucking kill you with my bare hands. ”
He’s already marching back across the room toward Kyle. Ethan must have finally snapped himself out of his shock to intervene, as the next thing I hear is him barking at Griffin, “Sit your ass over there and call an ambulance. Now.”
I lose track of what happens next as Dylan shudders beneath me. She makes a choking, gasping, spluttering sound .
“Quick, get her on her side.” Together, Finn and I roll her. She jerks, water spewing from her lips and onto the tiled floor.
“That’s it,” I soothe, while Finn pushes her hair out of her face. Relief crashes through me, raw and sharp, as I rub circles on her back. “Get it all out.”
Finn practically sags in relief, the two of us sharing a look that says more than words ever could about how fucking close we just came to losing her. To losing the only woman headstrong enough to manage the four of us. How we never want to be in this situation again.
Once Dylan seems to have gotten the water out of her lungs, I shift to cradle her, holding her head in my lap as she gulps in air, each breath ragged and desperate.
“I got you,” I whisper, stroking her soaked hair. “You’re okay. You’re okay.”
She trembles, tears streaming silently.
A drop of water lands on her cheek, and I realize I’m crying too.
I don’t even try to hide it as I curl forward, bringing my head as close to hers as I can and simply breathing in the feel of her in my arms. Hearing her ragged breath. Alive. She’s alive.
She shivers, and that’s when I notice the goosebumps. “Get her a blanket,” I order Finn, who scrambles to obey as quickly as possible.
He’s back a second later with several large towels, which he drapes over her, tucking her in and murmuring to her all the while.
“Ambulance is on its way,” Griffin states, voice hollow yet calm now for the first time since he entered the room. “Security too.”
Lifting my head to meet his gaze, I find him staring unblinkingly at Dylan. Griffin is always shut down. He’s a blank slate. Emotionless. But right now, he’s bleeding out. He’s…ravaged. Ju st like the rest of us. The pain blazing in those cold eyes of his mirrors my own. Mirrors Finn’s. Ethan’s.
We may seem like a motley crew, having not much beyond hockey keeping us together, but in this, we are united. In loving Dylan, we are allied. She makes us brothers.
She makes us a family .
Two arena security officers barrel into the room. I don’t know what Griffin said to them, but they take less than a second to survey the scene before moving straight toward where Coach and Ethan have Kyle pinned to the wall.
“He was trying to drown her when I found him,” Coach explains, voice deathly calm. He’s nearly always shouting at us, so to hear him so even-keeled is…scary as fuck.
“She’s a bitch,” Kyle spits, eyes wild as the officers manhandle him toward the door. “Stole everything. I had it all before she came!”
What. The. Fuck.
The guy has truly lost his ever-loving mind.
Security drags him out the door, his ranting echoing down the corridor, but none of us are listening to a word of it.
With him gone, all eyes fall on Dylan. Her eyelids have fallen shut, but her heavy breathing lets me know she’s still awake, or semi-conscious at least. Ethan’s at her side in a second. His finger skims her stark white cheek, and her eyelids flutter before she peels them open.
“Thorn.”
His voice is destroyed. Broken in ways I never thought our strong captain could be.
She looks up at him through slitted lids, and when he slides his hand into her limp one, she musters the strength to return his squeeze before he gently lifts it to his lips, pressing a kiss to the backs of her fingers.
“I’ll go check on the ambulance,” Coach says, face pinched as he looks down at Dylan. “Make sure they know where to go.”
With that, he’s gone, leaving us alone in the suddenly deafeningly quiet room.
No one speaks. We barely dare to breathe, the four of us sitting in a shrine around Dylan.
Her head is in my lap while Ethan clutches her hand in his.
Finn’s hand rests over her clavicle, like he needs the reassurance of her rising chest to know she’s alive, and Griffin has a death grip on her calf beneath the layers of towels.
We sit frozen in the aftermath, not yet ready to process what almost happened. The rage, the guilt, the terror—it’ll come later. For now, there’s just her breathing, and us, clinging to that breath like a lifeline.