Page 137 of The Fall
When the stripes finally wedge between us, I’m panting, my helmet is askew, and my heart is high in my throat. I’m roaring; I don’t know what I’m saying, but I know what I want—I want to hit him again.
“Skate it off, champ,” one of the linesmen barks at me. He has the collar of my jersey in his fist. “Cool down in the box.”
I shake the linesman off. I’m not trying to make it ten—or a game—but I’m still red-hot. My adrenaline is screaming.
Blair’s not on the ice.
Hayes skates to the bin, grinning around his mouthguard with my stick, gloves, and helmet all collected. The fuck is he happy about?
“Is he okay?” I bark.
“Calle’s okay, hotshot. He’s in the room, and he walked off on his own.”
I breathe. I look Hayes in the eyes. “He’s okay?”
“He’s okay.”
“You saw the hit?”
“Yeah, I saw it, and I saw you, too. You good?”
I breathe out hard, blink twice. My tunnel vision recedes; my heart thunders, an ocean roar in my ears.
“Yeah,” I tell Hayes. “I’m good.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
Hayes’s grin widens. “Didn’t know you had that in you. You absolutely fucking annihilated that dude.”
“Get in there before they add another two,” Hayes says, nudging me toward the box with the butt end of his stick.
The penalty box door swings open and I drop onto the bench. My right hand throbs, my knuckles split and swelling already. I flex my hand. Nothing broken, but tomorrow’s going to hurt like hell. “You’re sure Blair’s okay?”
“I’m sure. They’re checking him out, but he’s good.” Hayes passes my stick through the opening. “He was chirping at the trainer about missing his next shift.”
A smile threatens, but doesn’t form. That sounds like Blair.
The crowd’s still buzzing, half of them on their feet. Some kid in a Calle jersey pounds on the glass behind me. The scoreboard replays the hit in slow motion, and my stomach turns watching Blair’s head snap forward again.
Then they show me. Gloves dropping. That first swing connecting. The way I drove him down, my fist coming up red. Jesus.
Hayes taps his stick against the boards. “Thirteen’s getting five and a game. Boarding major.”
My breathing starts to slow, but the fury is still there. I have seven minutes in this box while Blair’s getting his brain checked. I’m lucky I’m not thrown out, but the refs are allowing a little yard justice tonight.
Blair’s going to be okay. He’s off the ice. He walked off on his own.
Seven minutes feels like seven hours. The game moves around me—passes, checks, the crowd rising and falling witheach rush—but all I see is Blair’s body folding wrong, that terrible angle of his neck, how his fingers dragged across ice like he was trying to hold onto consciousness.
The penalty clock ticks down: 5:42... 5:41... 5:40...
My adrenaline won’t quit; it keeps flooding through me in waves, making my hands shake, making me want to climb over these boards and find number thirteen in his dressing room, make sure he understands exactly what happens when someone goes after Blair.
A whistle blows. Face-off in our zone. Nolan loses the draw, and the puck slides back to their point man. He winds up, but the shot rings off the post next to Axel.
3:17... 3:16... 3:15...
Hayes skates past the box on a line change and taps the glass with his stick.
1:48... 1:47... 1:46...
