Page 1 of Penalty Kiss
Chapter 1
The Collision
Cam
Five seconds is an eternity when you’re the last wall before your goalie.
Strong side left. I’m low in my stance, knees burning, stick blade eating the passing lane. They’ve yanked their netminder, six attackers flooding our zone like a tide. White jerseys everywhere. The glass trembles with twenty thousand voices. My lungs taste like metal. My legs feel like lit wire.
“Middle!” my D partner barks.
I ride the top of the crease arc, shoulder-check weak side, then square up on the half-wall carrier selling a fake like he’s on commission. I don’t bite. I stay in his pocket, take away the seam, blade quiet, threat loud.
Three… two…
He bumps low. The net-front pest swims across Levi’s sightline and I box him out with a forearm under the ribs, hear him cuss, hear our bench screaming to eat it. The puck skitters, my inside edge bites, I pin it with a hip and take a cross-check that rings my vertebrae like bells. I grind back. Make it ugly. Make him hate me.
Whistle? Not coming. No savior. We finish it ourselves.
The puck squirts to my toe. Instinct fires. I twist, chip—glass and out—over a desperate glove. The rink detonates. They corral it at center and sling it back blind. I’m already pivoting, chest over knees, chasing the angle.
The slapshot leaves a trail I can almost smell—hot rubber, angry air.
I angle my blade to eat the line.
A shin pad deflects.
The height shifts a heartbeat before impact.
The puck rides up and kisses the shell of my helmet with the tenderness of a hammer.
Flash. A pop of white behind my eyes. Heat spills under my left brow, a thin track warming its way toward my cheek.
Stay on your feet.
I plant, finish the shift because shutouts aren’t wishes—they’re blood and edges and the promise you make the men beside you: not on my watch.
The horn rips free of the rafters. SHUTOUT VICTORY!
Bedlam.
Arms crush me—wingers, centers, my D partner yanking on my sweater. Helmets slam. Gloves pound. I grin back, feral, feeling the hoarse sound rip out of me. Game 6. We kept them at zero and gave ourselves a heartbeat for Game 7.
Copper floods my tongue.
Levi finds me last, eyes bright, mask tossed back, and he hauls me into the kind of hug that says he knew I’d be there, that I’d always be there. I hear his laugh. I see the cameras spit light. I taste the copper again.
I blink hard. The ice tilts three degrees.
I hand a stick to a kid at the glass because muscle memory doesn’t ask permission, and push toward the tunnel. My edges don’t catch right. Lights smear. Someone slaps my helmet and my skull rings a clear note, pure and mean.
The hallway is two sizes too narrow. The lights are aggressive. My knee doesn’t answer the message I send. A trainer says something I can’t parse.
I make it three steps into the tunnel.
The floor slides sideways.
Everything flips to dark.
