10. The Surface
CHAPTER TEN
the surface
The first thing I notice is the beeping.
Beep. Beep. Beep. A metronome of life. Sterile.
Artificial. It tries to replace the wind's rhythm, but it fails.
Then the smell. Antiseptic. Sharp, chemical fumes that burn my nose.
It smells like a lie. I open my eyes. White ceiling.
White walls. Chrome rails. Hospital. I try to sit up.
Pain explodes in my hip, my hand, my wrist.
"Easy, Mr. Vale." A nurse. She looks kind. Bored. She has no idea what happens in the dark. "You've been asleep for two days."
Two days.
"Clara?" I rasp. My voice sounds like gravel.
"Ms. Devine is in surgery. Reconstructive work on her shoulder. She’s stable."
Stable. A hockey term. I look at my hand.
It’s bandaged—clean white gauze. The black stitches are gone and replaced by neat blue medical sutures.
They erased her work. They erased the pact.
I feel a sudden, violent flash of anger.
That was mine. The days bleed into a grey haze.
Pain management. Sleep. Meals that taste like wet cardboard. I am a ghost haunting a machine.
The nurses talk in hushed tones when they enter my room. I hear snippets. "Miracle," they say. "Tragedy." They don't know the difference.
On the fourth day, they made me walk.
The physio is a large man named Davis. He smells of peppermint and patience. He stands by the bed, holding a walker.
"Just to the chair, Rowan. Three steps."
I swing my legs over the side. My hip screams—a high, sharp note of protest. My muscles have atrophied. I am weak.
"I don't need the walker," I growl.
"You need it."
I grab the rails. My stitched hand, now wrapped in white, throbs. I push.
The pain is blinding. It shoots up my legs, explodes in my spine. I gasp, my vision greying out. I almost fall. Davis catches me.
"Easy. Breathe through it."
"I am... breathing," I wheeze.
I take a step. My leg shakes like a leaf in a gale—another step. I feel pathetic. A few days ago, I was fighting wolves. I was dragging a woman up a ladder. Now I can't walk three feet to a plastic chair. I sit, collapsing into the seat. Sweat pours down my face.
"Good," Davis says. "Tomorrow, we do four steps."
I look at the window. It’s snowing outside. Peaceful. White. I hate it.
"Where is she?" I ask.
"Ms. Devine?" Davis checks my chart. "She’s in the west wing. Recovery is slow. The infection was deep."
"I need to see her."
"Not yet, son. You can barely stand. Focus on the work."
The work. Survival is a job. Rehab is a job.
I grind my teeth. "Fine. Let's go again."
Davis blinks. "We just finished."
"Again. Back to the bed. Then back to the chair."
"Rowan, your hip..."
"It’s my hip. I say we go again." I push myself up. The pain returns, a familiar friend. Welcome back, it says. Did you miss me? A week later. I’m in a wheelchair.
—the physio room. The air smells of latex and despair.
I’m waiting for my session. A girl sits on the bench next to me.
She’s young. Starkly pretty. Dark hair, eyes like calm water.
She’s massaging a stump where her left leg should be.
A prosthetic leg—sleek, black carbon fiber—leans against the wall.
It looks like a piece of art. Or a weapon.
"You're Rowan," she says.
I look at her. "Yeah."
"The avalanche guy."
"I guess."
"I'm Roe." She offers a hand.
I take it. Her grip is strong. Hockey strong. Or maybe just survivor strong. There’s a callus on her thumb.
"I read about you," she says. "They say you kept that girl alive with a pocket knife and a lighter. They say you cauterized an artery with a piece of scrap metal."
"Newspapers like heroes."
"I don’t think you’re a hero," she says, tilting her head.
I stiffen.
"A freak collision during the championships," she says.
"The blade of a skate found the gap in my padding and didn't stop until it hit the bone. It didn't just sever the nerves; it severed the girl I used to be." She taps the carbon fiber.
"They say I’m a victim of the sport. I say the ice finally claimed its tribute. It took my balance so I could learn how to hunt."
She looks me in the eye. Her gaze is unnervingly direct, stripping away the hospital’s sterile veneer.
"The ice took something from you, didn’t it? A tribute."
I touch my chest. The hollow where my heart used to be. "It took everything."
"No," she corrects.
"It took the weak parts. The human parts." She leans in, lowering her voice.
"I saw the photos from the crash site. The way you broke that bench. The way you moved. That wasn’t adrenaline, Rowan. That was something else. Evolution."
"What do you want?" I rasp.
She reaches into her bag. Pulls out a business card—black matte. Gold lettering. A gladiator helmet stamped into the corner, crossed swords behind it. She flips it to me.
I catch it. Cold against my palm. Heavier than it looks.
LA Gladiators. Director of Player Development. Roe Callahan.
"Callahan," I say.
"My uncle runs the team." She smiles. It’s not a nice smile. It’s sharp, dangerous. "He’s been looking for an enforcer with a particular kind of edge. The kind you can’t teach. The kind you survive into."
"I’m not playing hockey right now," I say. "I can barely walk to that chair."
"I know. That’s why I’m here now. So by the time you can walk, you already know where you’re going." She stands, picks up her prosthetic, and clicks it into place. She moves with a fluid grace that shouldn’t be possible. "Think about it, Enforcer."
She leaves, the carbon fiber leg clicking softly on the linoleum.
Click. Click. Click like a countdown. Clara comes in before I can pocket the card, she’s in a sling.
She looks… polished, not like the girl in the shack.
She’s wearing makeup to hide the bruises, a veneer of normalcy that feels fragile.
But her eyes—underneath the mascara, they are still the eyes of the girl who stitched my hand.
"Rowan."
She touches my face. Her fingers are warm.
"Who was that?"
I look at the card in my hand. "Someone from the Gladiators."
Clara goes still. Something moves across her face—something she’s been holding back. She sits down next to me and folds her good hand in her lap.
"I have something to tell you," she says. "I’ve been working on it since the hospital. Since before I could lift my arm above my waist."
"Clara."
"I got a job offer." She meets my eyes. "PR director for the LA Gladiators. I called in every contact I had from three years of managing the old team’s press. I knew someone who knew someone who knew Marcus Callahan." A pause. "I got you a tryout, Rowan."
The room is very quiet.
"You got me a tryout."
"Full contract if you make the roster. Which you will." She looks at my hands. The bandages. The ruined knuckles.
"I told Callahan what you did on that mountain. Not the survival story the papers printed. The real version. He didn’t say a word for thirty seconds. Then he said, and here her voice drops to an imitation of something low and iron-sure,
“Get him on the ice.”
I look at the Gladiators card. Then at her.
"You did this while you were in a sling."
"I fix things. That’s my job." The ghost of a smile. "You’re the Enforcer. Remember? You’re the one who hurts to save. I just made a few phone calls."
I look at the frost forming on the window. A gladiator’s silhouette in the ice crystals—or maybe I’m just tired.
"Yeah," I say. "I remember."