Kai glances at him too. That’s how I know it’s serious — Kai rarely gives a shit about anything that isn’t bleeding. He watches Julian skate a full lap with that calculating, unreadable look, then skates over to me at the crease.
“He’s not high,” Kai says.
“No shit.”
“And he’s not in withdrawal.”
I shoot another glance at Julian, who is staring at the far wall like it owes him money. “So what the fuck is he?”
Kai shrugs, but there’s a flicker of something in his eyes — curiosity, maybe irritation. “Whatever it is, it’s not chemical.”
Great. Fantastic.
Because if it’s not chemical, then Julian did something dumb. Or remembered something dumb. Or is thinking about something dumb. And there’s nothing harder to fix on this ice than a player’s head being somewhere it shouldn’t be.
Especially his.
We run another drill. The pace speeds up. Passes get sharper, shots harder, the whole team pushing toward game intensity. A puck gets chipped high toward Julian’s side, and he doesn’t even track it. It hits the ice next to him with a sharp crack and he doesn’t twitch. Luca actually stops skating, eyebrows pulling together because even he knows something’s wrong.
Julian skates right past him without a word.
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, past irritation, past annoyance — this is dangerous. If he plays like this tonight, he’s going to get his skull split open. If he checksout during a game, I won’t be able to protect him. If he drifts off mid-play, there’s no fucking guarantee he gets back up.
And if that happens, Leonardo won’t give a shit that Julian Reaver used to be NHL royalty. He’ll just tally up another corpse.
I step out of the crease.
Julian’s along the half-wall now, doing passing drills automatically, not looking at the puck, not looking at the player he’s exchanging with, not looking anywhere. He’s skating like he’s dreaming with his eyes open.
I skate straight toward him until I’m close enough to grab him, and I do — a fist in the front of his jersey, dragging him out of the drill so fast Finn yelps behind us when he almost collides with Bishop.
Julian barely reacts. His head tips back a little, eyes finding mine slowly, like it takes effort to focus. That’s what makes my jaw clench. He looks at me like he’s waking up underwater.
“Where the fuck are you?” I snap.
His eyes flicker. Just once. Then the lights go out again.
“Don’t do that,” I warn, tightening my grip until the fabric creaks. “Don’t disappear on me.”
Nothing. Not a flinch. Not a spark. Not even that irritated little eyebrow raise he gives me when he’s deciding whether to fight or smart-mouth. His face is blank.
That’s when the heat hits the back of my neck — a slow, poisonous burn. “Reaver,” I say, dragging him closer until I can feel his breath on my jaw, “look at me.”
He does. Barely. There’s a flicker of recognition — not much, not enough — but it’s more than before. The problem is… it dies immediately.
I don’t know what set him off. I don’t know what memory or nightmare or thought hollowed him out. But I do know one thing: He cannot skate like this. Not in practice. Not in a game. Not in front of Leonardo. Not if he wants to live.
I bring my mouth closer to his ear, voice a low growl meant only for him. “I’m not asking again,” I say. “Wake the fuck up.”
His eyelashes tremble, his jaw shifts. A second of life. A second of presence. A second of something that’s actually Julian—And then it vanishes again.
I feel the snap inside myself when it happens. A quiet, vicious thing. Because whatever stole his fire, whatever ripped the fight out of him, whatever dragged him out of his own fucking body… I will rip its throat out when I find it.
But right now I have a ghost wearing Julian’s skin, and I’m not letting that slide.
Finn calls it first — slapping his stick against the boards and yelling, “We’re done here! Go hit a wall, stretch, bleed, whatever gets your dick hard — this was dogshit!”
No one argues.
