Page 145 of Break The Ice

There’s a code. A set of unwritten rules, and he’s broken all of them. This is war.

I lift again, and Ramirez hits the ice with me.

Crack, crack, crack.

Twenty-two sticks slamming the ice with deadly intent. The entire team is thumping their sticks on the ice, glaring at the man who has betrayed us all.

You can break bones with a puck. You can have your teeth punched out, you can get seriously injured. The damage from a stick can be worse. We’re professionally trained athletes, and we know how to make it hurt.

He turns and smiles at us, saying something that I can’t hear.

Ryann looks up at me. Her face is white, and she looks more scared than I’ve ever seen her, but she looks determined.

“We’re coming for you,” I mouth to her.

She nods slightly, her violet eyes are fierce, her auburn hair is like fire under the lights. She looks like a warrior queen who will be cowed by no one.

He’s not taking her anywhere.

Chapter forty-five

Ryann

Wesley turns us, andI see the whole hockey team in front of me. They are still in their uniforms, no helmets on, but they all have sticks, and those sticks are thumping, thumping into the ice. They are mad. I can feel it in the way they are moving.

I find Wren first, his expression fierce, and then Raider, who doesn’t look good. He’s leaning on his stick and sweating profusely. But he still slams that stick down. Waraski is by his side, and Bruce, Sellars, and a few others I recognise as part of the Demon’s defense.

The sound of the clacking of their sticks hitting the ice echoes around the stadium. I swear, my heart is beating in time. I get shivers and feel awe rise.

This is what my dad loved about the game. Creating a family unit from kids who have nothing. A bond that’s forged on the skates and that lasts forever.

Raider lifts his gaze, fury in every line of his body.

Wren looks decidedly feral as he calls out a nonsense word.

With no clear sign, the team split, and split again, flying across the ice, zigzagging from side to side.

“Stop it!” Wesley shouts. “I know all your moves! Fucking stop it or I’ll-”

He hisses in fury and tightens his hold on me.

Ramirez, the Greene Demons captain, shouts something, and, all of a sudden, everyone stops. With another random word called by Inman, they start to circle, sticks hit ice, the boards, other sticks, still beating in time to that heartbeat. The one that was in my dad and uncle, that’s in Raider and Wren and in me, too.

The love of the game.

The love of hockey.

The heartbeat of the team is the heartbeat booming in my ears.

Kit scrambles onto the ice, slipping and sliding, but he suddenly upends a bucket, and pucks go flying across the ice. They’re swept up instantly by the players, disappearing into the whirling maelstrom of aggression.

“If they come and try to take you, I’ll kill us both,” Wesley whispers in my ear.

Oh, I bet he would!

Well, that’s just depressing. But did he think I was just going to go quietly? He’s nervous, I can see it in the whites of his eyes and the way his voice is pitched slightly higher.

I’m going to wait for the perfect moment, and then I’ll attack.

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