Page 79 of Ricochet

It’s puremurder.

His nostrils are flared, eyebrows knotted. There are visible veins in his temples, the bridge of his nose wrinkled in a snarl.

It’s blind animal fury.

“Are you okay?”

I almost don’t catch that either because he barely unclenches his teeth to ask the question.

I force myself to speak. “I’m good.”

That seems to be enough for him because he starts to skate off, his focus zeroed in on the winger who took the shot. I grab onto his arm with my glove and pull him back.

“That wasmyfault, Stone,” I tell him, getting in his face until the cages of our helmets knock together, needing to make sure my words reach him through his rage. “I chose to block the shot. Don’t you fucking dare ruin this game.”

He blinks a few times before the harsh lines and prominent veins in his face finally ease.

I think I might have a fucking superpower.

Maybe one day I’ll see if I can defuse aliteralbomb too.

We skate over to the bench, and our second line goes out for the next play. Meanwhile, one of the medical staff comes over to check on me. I tell him the puck just knocked the wind out of me but that I really am okay. I know it’s nothing worse than maybe a bruised rib, so there’s no way I’m letting them take me out of the game.

By the time our line gets back out onto the ice, we’re down to three minutes left in the second period. We skate out to the circle for the puck drop. Stone has a pretty high success rate for winning face-offs, but this time, the other team is there first.

They pass the puck between their forward line as they bring it over the red line and past the blue into our zone. Our defensemen are there. One of them checks an opposing winger, and the puck slides across the ice. Nate picks it off and carries it on the blade of his stick back across the lines. He passes it to me, and I pass it to Stone.

He takes a shot.

It bounces off the pads of their goalie.

I scoop up the puck and circle around a defenseman, skating along the boards, before passing it over to Nate.

The puck has already left my stick when I feel a hard, heavy body barrel into me from behind. I jolt forward into the boards, and my helmet strikes the glass. I try my best to stay vertical, but I go down onto the ice.

The next thing I know, someone else is being slammed into the boards, falling a few feet in front of me.

It must be the defenseman who just did an illegal check judging by the fact that Stone is already on him. He’s ripping off his helmet and his own gloves. The punch he delivers to the guy’s face has his head bouncing off the ice. Those veins have returned to his temples, throbbing angrily.

“Stone!” I shout as I try to stand.

My body protests, every inch full of a dull, radiating ache. Before I can make it to my feet, guys from both teams are there attempting to pull Stone off the defenseman. He gets another two punches in, and blood is spraying out onto the ice. Nate gets hit and goes down too as more fights start breaking out, forcing the linesmen to skate into the skirmish to put an end to things.

Players are pulled off each other while I’m only focused on Stone. He’s the only one who’s refusing to fucking stop. Even after all the other fights are broken up, he’s still struggling against those trying to rein him in. He’s growling and snarling, swinging his arms at anyone who gets in his way.

It’s not until I’m right beside him, shouting his name again and grabbing onto his arm that his attacks finally start to slow.

Whoever’s eyes find mine don’t belong to Stone. His pupils stretch to the edges of his irises, like a fucking demon has taken over him. The sight nearly has me falling over onto the ice again before he’s there to catch me, grabbing onto me too.

Gloves, helmets, and sticks are strewn about the ice. While they’re being picked up, the refs are handing out penalties. Stone and the defenseman who checked me from behind both receive major penalties, along with a couple other guys for fighting.

On top of his major penalty, Stone also gets one for misconduct, giving him a total of fifteen minutes in the penalty box. Seeing as he’ll be out for most of the third period, I doubt Coach will put him back in for the last five minutes.

As we head down the tunnel toward the locker room for intermission, I avoid looking over at him.

If I allowed my rage to take control of me the way he did, he’d be out for the next several games instead of just the rest of this one. And I’d be getting myself suspended.

I’m not surprised we losttonight.

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