Chapter 2 #2
His mouth curved. “I thought we might head over to the game.”
Everything in Micah froze. Then exploded. “The game?” she repeated, her voice climbing before she caught it, her hands already moving like she needed somewhere to put the energy. “You mean—the game? Like the Riveters, Frosthawks?”
Ezra chuckled softly. “That would be the one.”
Micah turned to me, gripping my arm so hard it bordered on painful. “Bea. Bea. We are not saying no to this.”
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I managed, though my pulse had already picked up, something unfamiliar threading through it. Excitement.
The city shifted as we moved.
Chicago at night didn’t soften—it sharpened. Steel and glass and movement, headlights streaking, sidewalks alive in a way that felt purposeful instead of chaotic. And as the car turned, as the buildings opened just enough—I saw it.
The Foundry.
It didn’t glow like other arenas I’d passed before. It loomed. Dark steel bones. Industrial lines. Light cutting through it in sharp, deliberate bands instead of welcoming warmth. It looked less like a place for entertainment and more like a place where something was built. Forged. Or broken.
Micah made a sound beside me—half laugh, half disbelief. “That building,” she whispered.
The arena hit all at once.
Sound. Light. Motion.
The Foundry didn’t buzz—it hummed. Low, constant, like machinery in motion. The lighting sat darker than I expected, shadows clinging to the rafters, the ice glowing almost unnaturally bright at the center of it all.
Micah inhaled like she’d just stepped into something sacred. “Oh my God.” Her entire posture shifted, her body aligning with the space like it had been built for it. She wasn’t just excited—she was home.
Ezra guided the three of us through with ease, past lines and crowds and checkpoints that parted without question, the path opening in a way that made it clear this wasn’t a normal experience.
But he didn’t make it feel like a spectacle. He made it feel… natural. Like this was just part of his world—and he wanted to share it.
The closer we got, the louder it became—not just volume, but texture. Metal on metal. Pucks cracking against boards. The sharp slice of skates carving ice.
And then—The ice itself came into full view. Bright. Vast. Controlled chaos waiting to happen. Players were already on for warmups. Chicago moved like a system. Structured. Heavy. Every pass deliberate, every movement connected, like pieces of something larger locking into place.
But the other side—Minnesota didn’t feel like that. They burned. Not literally—but close enough. Their colors cut through the dim arena—deep, ember red against charcoal black, sharp and striking against the white of the ice.
Their movement wasn’t just structure. It was force. Fast. Aggressive. Edges biting harder, shots snapping sharper, bodies moving like they were daring something—anything—to get in their way.
One player in particular—I didn’t know his name yet. But I felt him. Even from here. There was something different about the way he moved. Less wasted motion. More intention. Like everything he did had weight behind it. Like when he stepped onto the ice—it mattered.
My fingers tightened slightly at my sides.
“What are you thinking?” Ezra’s voice came quietly beside me.
I didn’t look away. “They’re… different,” I mumbled slowly. “Chicago feels controlled.”
“And Minnesota?” he prompted.
My pulse kicked. “Like they’re about to start a fire.”
Something in Ezra’s expression shifted—subtle, but there. Approval.
Our seats overlooked the ice from a perfect angle, close enough to feel the impact of movement, high enough to take in the entire structure of the game.
Micah didn’t sit. She hovered at the edge, eyes locked on the ice as the teams moved through drills, her focus sharp, tracking everything.
“Watch the transitions,” she murmured, more to herself than to us. “They’re fast. They don’t give space.”
I glanced at her, then back to the ice, trying to follow what she was seeing. Trying to understand. Because this—this was different from anything I’d expected.
Faster.
Cleaner.
More precise.
The game started, and the shift was immediate. Everything snapped into place.
Micah leaned in, her voice low but steady as she broke things down in real time, not overwhelming, not explaining—just… guiding. “They don’t waste movement,” she added quietly. “Everything’s intentional.”
I nodded, even as my attention pulled elsewhere—drawn to the way the players moved, the way the energy built and shifted and collided.
And then—It broke.
The fight erupted so fast it took a second for my brain to catch up.
Gloves dropped. Bodies slammed. The sound shifted from structured noise to something raw, chaotic, the crowd surging in response.
My breath caught as one player drove the other back, fists connecting with a force that felt too real, too close, the rhythm of it brutal and unrelenting.
And then I saw him. Müller. Number 91. There was no hesitation in him. No second-guessing. Just precision and force, his movements controlled in a way that made it worse, not better.
He didn’t start it. But he finished it.
The final hit landed with a sickening clarity, the other player going down hard enough that the shift in the crowd was abrupt—cheers twisting into something sharper, more uncertain.
Silence fractured the space for half a second.
Then movement rushed in. Medical staff. Officials. Bodies closing in. The stretcher.
My stomach dropped.
“That—” My voice faltered, my eyes still locked on the ice as the player was lifted, unmoving. “That’s—does that happen?”
Micah didn’t answer right away.
Which told me everything.
Ezra was already on his feet. His expression had shifted completely, the warmth gone, replaced by something focused, controlled, and deeply serious.
“I need to go,” he told Lo quickly, already moving. “I’ll meet you after.”
There was no hesitation. No question. Just action.
And something in my chest tightened again—but not from fear. From understanding. Because this wasn’t just a game to him. This was responsibility.
The arena felt different on the way out. Quieter. Heavier.
I walked beside Micah in silence for a few steps before the words finally pushed through. “I’m sorry.”
She glanced at me, brows pulling together. “For what?”
“For every time you asked me to come to one of these,” I admitted, shaking my head slightly. “For every time I said no like it wasn’t worth it.”
Micah studied me for a second longer, then her expression softened, something warm and knowing settling in. “Now you get it,” she murmured.
I looked back toward the ice, even though we were already too far away to see it clearly.
Yeah.
Now I got it.
And I didn’t know what to do with that yet.
Or with the image of him—Müller—still burned into my mind. Controlled. Dangerous. Magnetic in a way that made no sense. And worse—in a way I didn’t trust.