Chapter 17
Stan
Silence had a weight. I knew that now.
It wasn't just the absence of noise. It was a physical pressure, like water at the bottom of the ocean. It pressed against my eardrums, filled my lungs, and crushed the air out of my chest until every breath was a conscious effort.
It had been four days since I ended it. Four days since I drove away from the dorms with her scream echoing in my rearview mirror.
Four days of winning.
We had beaten Minnesota on Tuesday. Shutout.
We had beaten Michigan State on Thursday. 5-1.
I had three goals and four assists in two games. The scouts were drooling. My phone was blowing up with messages from agents, from Wolfowitz, from my father.
You're back, son.
This is the Butcher we missed.
Detroit is asking for a meeting.
I deleted them all without reading past the first line.
I sat in my 8:00 AM History lecture, staring at the back of the head of the student in front of me. I didn't hear a word the professor said. The projector screen was a blur of dates and battles that meant nothing.
My hand drifted to the empty seat beside me.
Rachel used to sit there. She didn't take History, but she would sneak in sometimes just to sit with me. She would pass me notes with doodles of wolves wearing hockey helmets. She would sneak her hand under the table and squeeze my knee when I got restless.
Now, the seat was empty. Just a cold, plastic chair.
I looked at it, and for a second, I hallucinated. I saw her there. I saw the messy bun, the oversized sweater, the way she chewed on her pen cap. I smelled the vanilla.
I blinked, and she was gone.
A wave of nausea rolled through me. I gripped the edge of the desk, my knuckles turning white.
"Mr. Kowalski?"
The professor's voice cut through the fog.
"Yeah?" I grunted, not looking up.
"Are you with us? I asked about the Treaty of Versailles."
"It was a mistake," I said flatly. "It ended the war, but it guaranteed the next one. It punished the loser so hard they had no choice but to fight back."
The room went quiet. The professor blinked.
"That's... actually a very astute observation. Well done."
I didn't care. It wasn't history. It was autobiography.
I had signed my own treaty. I had ended the war with my father, with the Pack. But I had punished Rachel so hard... and now she was fighting back.
I had watched her video. A hundred times.
To the person who tried to destroy me... you missed.
She was magnificent. She was terrifying.
And she was gone.
Life without her was a series of mechanical inputs and outputs.
Input: Alarm rings at 5 AM.
Output: Wake up. Do not think about her warmth.
Input: Gym.
Output: Lift heavy things until muscles fail. Do not think about her hands massaging the soreness away.
Input: Eat.
Output: Swallow tasteless protein. Do not think about pancakes or Voodoo donuts.
I was a ghost haunting my own life.
Rizzo tried. God bless him, he tried.
"Hey man," he said on Wednesday, cornering me in the locker room. "You wanna grab tacos? There's a new place downtown."
"Not hungry," I said, lacing my skates.
"You haven't eaten with the team in three days," Rizzo said, his voice low. "The guys are worried. You look like... you look like you're dying, Stan."
"I'm fine," I snapped. "I'm playing great. Leave me alone."
"You're playing like a psychopath," Rizzo corrected. "You almost took Johnson's head off in practice yesterday. You're not checking people, you're trying to erase them."
I stood up, towering over him. "Maybe they shouldn't be in my way."
Rizzo didn't back down. He looked at me with sad, Delta eyes.
"She's fighting the expulsion hearing, you know," he said softly. "On Monday. It's open to the public."
My heart stuttered.
"I know," I rasped.
"Are you going?"
"No."
"Stan..."
"If I go," I whispered, "I'll break. And if I break... she loses everything. This is the only way she survives, Riz. She has to hate me. She has to be the victim."
Rizzo shook his head. "You think you're being a martyr. But you're just being a coward."
I shoved past him and walked out to the ice.
The cold air hit my face. Usually, it cleared my head. Today, it just felt like another layer of numbness.
I skated. I did drills. I punished my body.
But every time I looked at the glassed-in office above the rink, I expected to see her standing there.
She wasn't there.
She was somewhere on campus, fighting a war I had started, wearing my armor, hating my guts.
And I deserved every ounce of it.
Friday Night
The game against Boston University. The Conference Semi-Final.
The arena was sold out. The noise was deafening. The student section was a sea of black and gold.
But there was something else in the crowd tonight.
Signs.
#IStandWithRachel
JUSTICE FOR MILLER
THE PACK IS LYING
I stared at the signs during warmups.
Her video had gone viral. The students—the humans—were rallying. They didn't know about the wolves, not really. They just knew that a student was being bullied by the administration and the wealthy athletic department. They loved an underdog.
And Rachel was the ultimate underdog.
I skated to the blue line. I tried to focus on the puck. But my eyes kept drifting to the signs.
Justice for Miller.
What was justice? Justice would be me walking into that hearing on Monday and telling the truth. Justice would be me admitting I lied to the Dean. Justice would be me burning my own future to save hers.
Focus, the Wolf growled. Hunt.
The game started.
It was a blur of violence. Boston was big, fast, and mean. They knew I was distracted. They came at me hard.
First period. I took a hit in the corner. Ribs bruised. I didn't feel it.
Second period. I scored a goal on a slap shot from the point. The crowd cheered. I didn't celebrate. I just skated to the bench.
"Smile, Cap!" Johnson yelled, slapping my helmet. "We're up by two!"
I couldn't smile. My face felt frozen.
Third period. 2-1 lead. Two minutes left.
Boston pulled their goalie. 6-on-5.
They were pressing. They dumped the puck into our zone.
I retrieved it behind the net. Two forecheckers were coming at me.
I should have passed it. I should have rimmed it around the boards.
But for a split second, I hesitated.
I looked up into the stands. Section 104. Row F.
The seat where we sat the night I told her about the Red Ice incident.
It was empty.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
She's never coming back.
In that second of hesitation, the Boston winger stripped the puck. He centered it. One-timer. Goal.
2-2.
The buzzer sounded. Overtime.
The crowd groaned. Coach Wolfowitz threw a water bottle on the bench.
"What the hell was that, Kowalski?" he screamed, his face purple. "You had the clear! You froze!"
I skated to the bench. I sat down. I put my head between my knees.
"I froze," I whispered.
"Get your head in the game!" Wolfowitz roared. "Overtime. Sudden death. You go out there and you win this, or so help me god..."
Sudden death.
That's what this felt like. A slow, sudden death.
I went back out for overtime.
I didn't want to play. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go to her dorm and beg on my knees.
But I was the Butcher. I had a job.
Three minutes into OT.
The puck came to me at the blue line. I had a lane.
I wound up. I put everything I had—all the rage, all the grief, all the self-hatred—into the shot.
The stick flexed. The puck exploded off the blade.
It flew through traffic. It tipped off a defender's shin pad. It sailed over the goalie's shoulder.
Clang. Bar down.
Goal.
The red light flashed. The siren wailed. The team poured off the bench, tackling me.
"We won! We're going to the Finals!"
Rizzo was hugging me. Johnson was screaming. The crowd was losing its mind.
I stood there in the center of the pile. Confetti canons fired, raining gold paper down on the ice.
Everyone was cheering. Everyone was happy.
I looked up at the rafters.
I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Just a vast, echoing void where my heart used to be.
I had won. I was the hero. The scouts were writing my name in ink.
And I would have traded it all—every goal, every trophy, every dollar—just to have her holding a thermos of coffee waiting for me by the bus.
The locker room was a party. Champagne (non-alcoholic for the cameras) was spraying everywhere. Music was blasting.
I sat in my stall, still in my gear. I hadn't taken my skates off.
"Speech! Speech!" the boys chanted.
I stood up. The room quieted.
"Good win," I said. My voice was raspy. "Rest up. Finals on Friday."
That was it. That was the speech.
I sat back down.
"Okay..." Rizzo muttered. "Party at The Hive!"
The team started to clear out. They knew better than to mess with me when I was in this mood.
Within twenty minutes, the room was empty. Just me and the hum of the air filter.
I started to undress.
Jersey off. Pads off.
I reached for my street clothes hanging in the locker.
And then I saw it.
Tucked into the pocket of my jeans. A small piece of paper.
I frowned. I hadn't put anything there.
I pulled it out.
It was a note. On yellow legal paper. Folded into a tiny square.
My hands shook as I unfolded it.
I recognized the handwriting instantly. The loopy 'g's. The precise slant.
Rachel.
She must have slipped it into my pocket days ago. Before the breakup. Before the end.
I read it.
Stasiu,
I know you're worried about the Denver game. I know you think you have to carry the world. But remember what we talked about? The pack shares the load.
I'm so proud of you. Not because you're the Captain. But because you're the guy who eats donuts with me in a hotel room. You're my clarity.
Win or lose, you're my MVP. (That was cheesy, sorry. I'm a nerd).
Love always,
Your Little Bit.
P.S. I left a surprise in the glove box of your truck. For after the game.
I stared at the note.
Love always.
The words blurred as tears filled my eyes. Hot, stinging tears that I couldn't stop.
A sob ripped out of my throat. It was ugly. Animalistic.
I crumpled the note in my fist and pressed it to my forehead.
"I'm sorry," I wept. "I'm so sorry."
The wall came down. The numbness shattered. The pain rushed in like a tidal wave, drowning me.
I had thrown away "Love Always" for a game. For a lie. For a father who saw me as a breeding stallion and a coach who saw me as a stat line.
I left a surprise in the glove box.
I scrambled up. I didn't finish dressing. I pulled my jeans on over my compression shorts, grabbed my coat, and ran.
I ran out of the arena, barefoot in my boots, sprinting to the parking lot.
I got to my truck. I tore open the passenger door.
I ripped open the glove box.
There, sitting on top of the owner's manual, was a small, plastic wolf figurine. A toy. Like something you'd get in a happy meal.
But she had painted it. She had painted a tiny gold '55' on its side. And she had painted its eyes amber.
And wrapped around the wolf's neck was a ribbon.
Attached to the ribbon was a USB drive.
I stared at it.
A USB drive?
I ran back into the arena. I ran to the video room. It was unlocked.
I shoved the drive into the computer.
A folder popped up. Project: Pack Protection.
I opened it.
It was... research.
Files and files of research.
Legal Precedents for Discrimination Cases.
NCAA Bylaws on Student Privacy.
Medical Journals on Shifter Physiology (Hypothetical).
Draft of a Speech: "Why the Truth Matters."
I clicked on a document titled The Plan.
Goal: Protect Stan from the Council.
Strategy: If the secret comes out, we control the narrative. We frame it as a medical condition. We use the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) to prevent discrimination. We get the student body on our side.
Note: He thinks he has to hide. I need to show him he can stand in the light.
I sat back in the chair, the screen glowing in the dark room.
She hadn't been writing an exposé. She hadn't been selling me out.
She had been building a defense strategy. She had been preparing to fight the Council legally. She had been trying to save me from the shadows.
And I had accused her of treason.
I had broken her heart while she was busy building me a shield.
The self-loathing was absolute. I wanted to crawl out of my own skin.
But underneath the hate, a new feeling sparked.
Hope.
She had a plan. She had always had a plan.
The hearing.
Rizzo said the hearing was Monday. Public.
She was going to use this research. She was going to fight.
But she couldn't win alone. Not against my father's lawyers. Not against the Enforcer's influence.
She needed a witness. She needed the Truth.
She needed the Butcher.
I looked at the clock.
Saturday morning, 1:00 AM.
The hearing was in 56 hours.
I stood up.
I grabbed the USB drive. I grabbed the little painted wolf.
I walked out of the arena.
I wasn't numb anymore. I was burning.
I had 56 hours to figure out how to destroy my father, outsmart an Enforcer, and win back the love of my life.
And I was going to do it.
Or I was going to die trying.