Chapter 9 - Karter #2
By the time the puck dropped for the first round of the tournament later that night, the arena was a different beast. The harsh arena lights flared, and the steady, deafening roar of the local crowd vibrated right through the plexiglass.
We hit the third period, and every breath I took burned.
It was a welcome relief. The sheer physical exhaustion of playing at a high speed was the only reliable way I had to block out my chaotic headspace.
I was playing well; skating fluidly, reading the defensive gaps, and threading the needle to set up two primary assists.
The lactic ache in my legs felt earned, offering a brief, quiet proof that I was finally working for my spot on the ice instead of just coasting on the Johnston name.
I sat on the bench waiting for my next shift, as I squirted a stream of cold water into my mouth. Down at the far end of the bench, Aleksey sat motionless, his eyes fixed on the ice.
I hadn’t looked at him once since the puck dropped. I didn’t need to. I was acutely aware of where he was at all times. It took a ridiculous amount of mental discipline to keep my eyes locked strictly on the ice, forcing my brain to process offensive strategies rather than drifting back to the bus.
Next to me, Matt bounced his knee with restless energy. He then leaned over and tapped my shin guard with the shaft of his stick.
“They’re getting frustrated,” Matt yelled over the deafening noise of the arena. “That big defenseman, number six? He keeps taking late runs at you. Keep your head up out there.”
“I see him,” I said, wiping my mouth with the back of my glove. “He’s too slow to actually land anything.”
“Just be careful, man,” Matt warned, his usual friendly vibe slipping under the high-pressure reality of the tournament. “Don’t try to play his game. We need you out here, not in the box.”
Hopping over the boards for my next shift threw me right back into the fast pace of the game. I tracked a loose puck sliding deep into the corner of the rink, speeding up to reach it first. The long, scraping strides of Number Six followed right on my heels.
“Not so fast, hotshot,” the guy muttered.
A sharp warning spiked down my spine. Instead of playing the puck, he went right for my legs. He kicked his skate blade behind my ankles. It was a dirty, dangerous move meant to sweep my feet out from under me, and it worked perfectly.
With my skates gone, my forward momentum launched me into the wall. The hard wooden boards caught my ribs with a brutal, crushing impact. My head snapped backward, cracking loudly against the thick plexiglass.
A blinding flash of white washed out my vision. The hit knocked the wind out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for air that refused to come. I collapsed flat onto the freezing ice, my ears ringing while the metallic taste of blood pooled inside my cheek from a bitten tongue.
The blur cleared a second later. The referee had not even blown the whistle yet.
The fog in my head broke the second a maroon jersey tore past my line of sight.
Before the referees even had a chance to blow the whistle, Aleksey was already there. He shed his gloves on the fly, grabbing number six by the front of his collar and dragging the massive defenseman down to the ice.
Lying there, struggling to draw a breath, I could only watch in dazed shock. Aleksey was always so calculated. He played the enforcer role perfectly, fighting only when it served a purpose and always keeping his scholarship safe.
But this was different. This was pure, unhinged violence.
His bare hands hammered into the guy without a single hesitation, a pounding that did not stop until bright drops of blood sprayed across the chopped white ice.
It took two referees and Perez scrambling over to drag him off.
Blinking away the dark spots at the edges of my vision, I pushed myself up onto my elbows. The arena was deafening. The crowd was on its feet screaming, and Coach Corby was yelling from the bench with a dark red face. But all my focus stayed locked on Aleksey.
“What the hell are you doing, Zotov?” Coach shouted, taking off his cap and rubbing his head. “Get off the ice!”
Fighting through the sharp, stabbing pain in my side, standing up under my own power took everything I had.
The referees dragged Aleksey toward the tunnel for an automatic ejection. He fought their grip, digging his skates into the ice long enough to look over his shoulder.
He looked straight at me.
Blood dripped from his split fingers. His face was stripped of the unbothered look he usually wore. His dark eyes were wide and wild, locking onto mine.
My breath caught, sending a stab of pain through my ribs, but it barely registered as a rush of validation hit me instead.
The moment broke when the team trainer hopped over the boards. He knelt beside me on the freezing ice, shining a small penlight directly into my eyes. The harsh beam made the pounding in my skull flare up instantly.
“Follow the light, kid,” the trainer said. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
“Three.” Pushing the light away with a gloved hand, I stepped back. “I’m fine.”
“You got hit hard,” the trainer muttered, stepping back. “Walk it off.”
Staying on the ice was objectively stupid when a rhythmic pressure throbbed right behind my eyes. But letting the medical staff pull me meant causing a scene and answering questions I didn’t want to answer, so I just nodded at the trainer and skated back to the face-off circle.
I spent the remainder of the period taking stiff, guarded strides.
We ended up winning the tournament opener. The rest of the team was loud and ecstatic in the locker room afterward, but the final score felt entirely irrelevant to me. Instead, my mind was stuck on the guy who was currently making his way back to his hotel room across town.
Dirty, half-frozen slush soaked straight through the thin cotton of my t-shirt. I shifted my weight on the pavement, trying to find an angle that did not send a spike of agony through my bruised ribs.
To my left, Matt’s teeth were audibly chattering. The rest of the freshman class knelt beside us in the freezing mud, forming a pathetic human path from the entrance of the local bar all the way to a rented fifteen-passenger van idling at the curb.
This was apparently the brilliant Ridge Cross tradition for the first win of the season. We were acting as a literal carpet so the upperclassmen could walk to their ride without dirtying their expensive boots.
Through the frosted glass of the bar windows, I could see the seniors laughing in the heat, knocking back drinks and taking their time.
It had already been twenty minutes, and the biting cold was making my joints lock up. Plus, the massive hit I took on the ice was catching up to me.
The wooden door of the bar swung open, spilling a wave of warm air and the harsh red glare of a neon beer sign out into the snow. Elliot stepped onto the curb. He paused, casually zipping up his jacket, and looked down at where I was kneeling in the dirt.
Elliot stopped at the edge of the curb, his eyes sweeping over our miserable, shivering lineup. His gaze locked onto me, taking in my pale face and the slight, dizzy sway I could not quite control.
“Get up, Karter.”
I kept my knees planted in the freezing mud and forced my best easygoing smile. “I’m fine right here. Just doing my time with the rest of the guys.”
Next to me, Matt let out a shaky, freezing breath. A few guys down the line, Clay was quietly cursing at the snow.
“You look like you are about to pass out,” Elliot said flatly, ignoring my performance. “Stand up.”
“It is a team tradition, El. If I get up, it makes the rest of them look bad.”
“Enough with the theatrics.” Elliot rolled his eyes and dug into his jacket pocket. He tossed a set of keys at my chest, and I caught them with numb, clumsy fingers. “You’re the designated driver tonight. Freshman duty. Go warm up the van.”
The order pulled me out of the mud while the rest of the freshman class stayed on their knees in the slush. Elliot didn’t look at me after he said it. He just jammed his hands in his pockets and stared down the shivering lineup like he was doing a headcount.
I stood up, my frozen joints and painful ribs protesting every movement.
Brushing the wet slush off my ruined jeans, I looked down at Matt.
Guilt twisted in my stomach. I hated using my last name for a free pass.
And bailing on the rest of the freshman class, while they stayed in the mud, felt like a massive betrayal.
“Sorry, man,” I muttered to him.
Matt just gave me a tight, shivering nod, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead so he could endure the rest of the wait.
I walked stiffly toward the dark van, my boots crunching in the slush. Before I could reach the driver’s side door, a tall figure detached from the deep shadows of the brick alleyway.
Aleksey.
He was not restricted to his room after all. He was right here at the bar with the rest of the seniors, holding a plastic cup of cheap draft beer. Snow dusted his broad coat, meaning he had been standing out in the freezing dark for a while instead of celebrating inside.
He had just been watching me.
My heart kicked into a fast rhythm. This was the very first time we had been face to face since the aisle of the bus, let alone since he had beaten a guy mercilessly on the ice for tripping me.
He stepped into the dim pool of the streetlight, and I instinctively glanced over my shoulder. Matt and the other freshmen were still kneeling a few yards away, shivering violently but definitely within earshot.
We were not alone.
Aleksey stopped right in front of me, cutting off my path to the van door.
“Must be nice to have a captain for a brother,” Aleksey said. He kept his rough voice low-pitched so the guys behind us could not hear.
“I didn’t ask for his help,” I muttered back. I kept my face blank, aware of the audience behind my back.