Page 221 of The Fall
“Keep your head up. Don’t engage.”
“You know he won’t stand by if?—”
“That’s why I’m telling you.” Hayes’s voice drops even lower. “Because someone needs to be thinking clearly tomorrow night, and it won’t be Blair.”
Wrongness crawls across my skin as soon as I take the ice for warm-ups. It’s that same sick-stomach drop from when you’re a kid and you know the bully’s waiting around the corner.
There he is. Number 77. His eyes find me immediately, like he’s been waiting for me.
He’s taller than I remember, broader through the shoulders. 6’4”, 230, fists the size of sledgehammers and a face that’s been rearranged a few times.
I stretch at center ice, trying to keep my breathing steady while Zolotarev circles like a shark scenting blood. Our eyes lock across the rink, and he smirks, tapping his temple with his glove.
I’ve faced dirty players before. I’ve been targeted, checked, and trash-talked, but this is different. He wants to hurt me, yes, but more than that, he wants to use me to hurt Blair.
I focus on my edges, cutting slow arcs into the ice to bleed off the charge building in me. Zolotarev is playing mind games, taking long, lazy loops that bring him too close, forcing me to adjust. Every move I make is being measured for how deep it’ll cut into Blair.
We file into the locker room, and our pre-game energy shifts from anticipation to something heavier. Coach runs through our game plan one last time in the room. The words are background noise; my focus is gone.
Blair sits across from me, taping his stick. Tonight, his jaw is set too hard, eyes seeing something—someone—else. The rest of the room hums around us. I keep my head down, retie my laces for the third time, searching for steadiness. Zolotarev’s shadow is too close.
Blair finishes his tape job and sets his stick against the bench. He reaches over to squeeze my shoulder.
His hand trembles against my shoulder pad through the layers of my gear.
“Blair.”
His eyes snap to mine, and for a second, his rage gives way to what’s underneath: fear. Fear of what he might do, fear of losing control in a way that can’t be taken back.
Hayes catches my eye from across the room.
“Hey.” I cover Blair’s hand with mine. “Look at me.”
He does, and God, he’s barely holding it together. This close, I can see the war he’s fighting with himself, trying to be the captain this team needs while everything in him wants to tear Zolotarev apart.
“We play our game,” I tell him, low enough that only he can hear. “Not his.”
The locker room door bangs open. “Two minutes!”
Blair’s hand slides off my shoulder, but I catch his wrist before he pulls away completely. “Promise you won’t let him bait you into something stupid.”
His eyes go dark. “I can’t.”
“Blair—”
“I can’t promise that. Not when it comes to you.”
The arena is roaring, 20,000 of our fans sensing blood in the water. We take our positions at center ice; my eyes stay locked on the referee. Behind me, Blair’s blade bites deep into the ice.
The puck drops.
Everything explodes into motion.
The first period is elbows and slashes, Zolotarev shadowing me shift after shift. He’s not subtle about it; every time I touch the puck, he’s there with a cross-check to the kidneys, a stick between my skates, his breath hot in my ear.
“Your captain’s got a soft spot for you, doesn’t he?” he hisses during a particularly vicious board battle. “Since he’s picking up Vancouver’s trash.”
My next shift, he’s there again, elbows high in the corners, taking little shots after every whistle.
