Chapter 1
Atlas
The New York Phantoms are swarming our zone, desperate to break the tie late in the second. Their winger barrels down the boards, puck on his stick like he’s about to be the hero of the night.
Not on my watch.
I lower my shoulder and slam into him, sending him sprawling against the glass. The puck pops free, and I dig it out with my stick blade, adrenaline humming as the crowd explodes in disbelief. The angry boos from the Phantom fans calling for a penalty bounce off me.
“Middle!” my right-winger, North Paquette, shouts from the side, already taking off.
I grin, teeth bared behind my mouthguard, and fire the puck up the boards. It glides right to him, clean as a wrapped gift. He catches it, cuts hard toward the slot, then whips it across to our center, Foster McInnis. He snaps it back to me as I trail the play, wide open and not a soul around.
One-timer. Low and hard.
The puck hammers into the net before the goalie can blink.
The goal horn blares and the red light burns bright. The hometown arena falls silent and I pump my fist in victory at the shocked quiet. My line mates converge on me in a rush, all blades and helmets and gloves slapping against me.
North is first, smashing his helmet into mine so hard I see stars. “That’s the Karolak cannon, baby!” he hollers, grinning like a madman. “Goalie’s gonna be seeing pucks in his nightmares tonight.”
Foster is right behind him, stick cracking against my ass. “Hell, even you couldn’t miss that one, K. My pass was so perfect, Stevie Wonder could’ve buried it.”
I bark out a laugh, cocky and loud. “The assist was almost as perfect as the goal.”
He grins back at me. “Almost.”
Camden, one of my defensemen, skates up and grabs me in a bear hug, nearly lifting me off my skates. “That was a beauty, my man!”
“Beauty?” I shoot back, grinning wide enough to split my face. “Nah, that was art. Somebody frame it.”
They howl with laughter, shoving at me, sticks banging against shin pads as we pile together before the ref herds us toward the bench.
I soak it in, arms up, strutting a little as I skate the line of fist bumps from my teammates.
A proud nod from Coach West. A handful of Titans’ fans scattered in the lower bowl are on their feet, pounding the glass for me, but the rest of the spectators are either dead silent or booing their lungs out. Perfect.
But even as I revel in absolute joy, my chest aches.
Because all I can think about is Gray.
He’s been crowding my head all game, every shift. I keep telling myself to stay locked in, to focus on the puck, the bodies flying at me, the scoreboard, but he’s there anyway, taking up a good chunk of my brain power. If I expected peace of mind after my last visit with him, I was so very wrong.
The way his hand felt like paper when I held it in Chicago three weeks ago. The dullness in his eyes. I pull hard on my memory and try to remember the sound of his laugh, which I’ve heard over and over again since we were five, and yet I feel like it’s already fading from my memory.
“You keep scoring like that and we’ll start expecting it all the time,” Coach West says as I approach the bench.
I smile as I toss my leg over the short wall but my heart’s not into giving a snappy reply, so I merely lift my chin. Coach doesn’t notice. The boys don’t notice. They see the same old Atlas, loud and loose. And that’s how I want it.
By the time the third period winds down, we’re up 4–1. The Phantoms look defeated, their playoff hopes dangling by a thread while ours just locked in. The final buzzer sounds and we’ve clinched the top seed in the division.
The boys pour over the boards, mobbing Kace in net. I leap into the pile, shouting nonsense, spraying sweat and grins everywhere. This is what we fight for—top of the standings, eyes on the championship Cup.
And still… my stomach knots with dread.
?
The air smells of a hard-fought victory. Champagne materializes from somewhere being drunk and sprayed in equal measure to celebrate our first major milestone toward winning the championship.
First seed in our division has been on the horizon and now it’s in the bag. The Titans freight train continues to roll on.
“Welcome to the big show, Elliot!” Stone crows, shaking our backup goalie like he’s a wet dog. Our primary goalie, Drake McGinn, has been battling a groin injury, and Kace’s done an incredible job filling the net in his absence.
Kace sputters and grins, raising his arms like he just won the Cup. “Hell yeah!”
The room erupts with laughter and I’m right there in the middle of it. I snap Kace with my towel when he walks by and bark out jokes loud enough to get Lucky choking on his beer. I force myself to be the Atlas they expect so I don’t get swallowed in the despair that’s waiting with grasping fingers.
I’m peeling tape off my shin guards when Boone lumbers over, grinning like a fool, his jersey plastered to him.
“Yo, Atlas,” he says, dropping onto the bench beside me. “You keep padding your stats and you’ll take my position on the first line.”
I snort, reaching for a towel. “I hardly think that’s going to happen.”
Boone is an incredible player and there’s a reason he’s on the first line as a right-winger. “Good,” he says with a wink. “I don’t need you stealing my spotlight. I’ve worked too hard on my hair flow for the cameras.”
I can’t help laughing, a balm against the weight pressing at the back of my mind.
But even while I’m grinning, even while I’m pretending to enjoy every second of this, my thoughts keep drifting to the call I had this morning with Maddie.
Her voice wasn’t the normal brisk, no-nonsense tone I’ve become accustomed to when she obliges me with updates. It was small, frayed at the edges. Gray isn’t conscious anymore.
That’s all she said, but I could hear the crack underneath it, like she was barely holding it together. She didn’t have to spell it out—I knew what that meant. Gray’s slipping, and all that’s left now is waiting.
Since my visit to Chicago three weeks back, he’s gone downhill fast. Maddie’s been steady with updates—texts, calls, sometimes photos that cut like knives. I don’t pretend she does it for me, but rather for Gray. I’m sure he asked the same thing of her that he asked of me. Be nice.
Now every time my phone buzzes, my stomach drops, bracing for the call that I know is coming. The one that will tell me it’s over.
The room roars with continued celebration, but all I can think is how quiet it must be in Gray’s condo right now, how still he must be if he’s lost consciousness.
Maddie has shared some of the medical details and I know he’s getting enough morphine to keep the pain at bay.
I can even envision Maddie sitting beside his bed counting every breath, waiting for the last one.
I shove the thought down and crank up the volume of my own act, tossing towels, teasing Penn about his nonexistent receding hairline, but it does manage to send him running for the mirror.
Anything to keep the mask in place, but when I catch my reflection in the glass of my cubby, the grin looks hollow.
For a second, I don’t even recognize the guy staring back—the mask is all anyone sees, but underneath I’m already bracing for the call that’ll break me.
Because no matter how much I celebrate tonight, I know what’s waiting for me tomorrow or the next day or maybe even the day after that.
I know the next call I get from Maddie won’t be another update.
It’ll be the one that changes everything.