Page 46 of The Last Inch Of Ice
“Rykov, I swear to God, if I have to spend Christmas in this godforsaken place, I will strangle you with tinsel and use your body as a seasonal decoration.”
Kai pulls the hood of his Moncler parka tighter over his hair. The wind is doing its absolute best to rip it away, howling like it has a personal vendetta against expensive outerwear.
The place isn’t just a town. It’s barely a town at all. It’s a geographical afterthought, a handful of buildings dropped in the middle of vast, unforgiving Canadian nowhere.
Millbrook, Ontario. Population: 847, according to the faded sign they passed twenty minutes ago. Now probably 846, because one of those people definitely died of boredom.
This whole charity match debacle was Rykov’s bright idea, born from that disastrous gala where Kai had made the monumentally stupid decision to publicly support it.
He’d done it purely out of spite—wanting to watch the righteous annoyance flicker in Rykov’s dark eyes.
The plan had been simple: drive in, play a game for the kids at a boarding school, drive out. A neat, one-day affair. Maximum good PR, minimum inconvenience.
Except the team owners had only begrudgingly signed off on it, and only after making it abundantly clear this was an “unofficial team activity” with zero PR value in any major market.
Which meant no chartered plane.
Which meant a bus.
A regular, mortal, apparently extremely fallible bus.
Now said bus is making a sound like a dying whale—if whales died slowly and agonizingly on the shoulder of snow-dusted highways.
“The transmission’s completely shot,” Burke announces after a grim-faced consultation with the driver. “And according to the last weather report I got before we lost signal, this isn’t just a dusting anymore. We’re looking at the leading edge of a major system. Could drop a foot of snow in the next six hours.”
A collective groan ripples through the bus, followed by some extremely creative cursing from Miller three rows back.
“So we’re stuck?” Sam asks from the seat behind Kai. “Like, actually stuck?”
“Not stuck,” Burke says, his voice taking on that no-nonsense tone he uses during losing second periods when everyone needs to shut up and focus. “Stranded. Temporarily. There’s a motel about five miles up the road—the driver says it’s the only one for forty miles in any direction. Another bus won’t be able to get through this until tomorrow morning at the earliest, maybe longer depending on the storm.”
He pauses, letting that sink in.
“We walk,” he finishes.
“Walk?” Miller’s voice shoots up an octave. “Inthis?”
As if the universe has a sense of comedic timing, the wind howls and throws a sheet of sleet against the windows hard enough to make everyone flinch.
“Five miles isn’t that far,” Bachman says from the front, ever the voice of calm leadership. “We’ve done worse in conditioning.”
“Yeah, but conditioning doesn’t usually involve potential frostbite,” someone mutters.
Just then, a vehicle appears through the swirling snow—a rusted but formidable-looking pickup truck with a snowplow blade attached to the front. It rumbles to a stop beside their disabled bus like a mechanical savior.
The driver rolls down his window.
“Looks like you fellas are in a bit of a pickle,” he yells over the wind.
Burke climbs down from the bus to negotiate. The conversation involves a lot of gesturing and head-shaking before Burke climbs back up, looking resigned.
“Alright, here’s the situation,” he announces. “This gentleman—his name’s Dale—can take five people and essential gear to the motel right now, before the road becomes completely impassable. The rest will have to wait here for a second trip, which Dale says he can make in about forty-five minutes if the weather holds.”
“And if it doesn’t hold?” someone asks.
Burke’s expression answers that question clearly:Then we’re all fucked.
“Alright,” he says, pointing. “Callahan, Rykov, Sam, Chase, you’re with me. Grab your overnight bags. Let’s move.”
