“Need a fix before?” he murmurs, voice too soft for anyone else to hear. “Can’t afford you disappearing mid-game tonight, pretty boy.”
I don’t turn to face him. I just let the words sit, cold and sleek down my spine. I could answer. I could mouth off. But my eyes find Rafe instead.
He’s already in the crease. Mask off, pads locked, black tape wound tight around his wrists. The net behind him looks like a fucking altar. And he’s the monster guarding it—quiet, still, inhuman. That jaw clenched. That scar over his brow pale under the lights. He’s not looking at the other team. He’s looking at me.
And I know, suddenly, with bone-deep certainty—I don’t need a fix. I’ve already got one. So I smirk, slow and cocky and probably just a little suicidal, and shake my head without taking my eyes off Rafe.
“Ask me again after,” I say to Kai. “If I survive.”
Kai makes a quiet sound—half laugh, half scoff—and skates off without another word, not even looking back. He knows I’m lying. He knows I’m shaking under the smirk. But he lets it go.
Rafe doesn’t.
We stare at each other from across the ice, me in the circle and him in the net. There’s nothing romantic about it, nothing soft. It feels like a promise carved straight into bone: don’t vanish, don’t break, don’t die before I wreck you myself.
Then a gunshot cracks through the air and the puck drops.
Game fucking on.
The first “period”—if you can even call it that when there are no whistles, no refs, no rules—is chaos without climax. A storm building pressure. Everyone circling each other like sharks who haven’t decided who’s bleeding yet. The ice feels smaller because there are no boards, no walls to ricochet off, nothing to absorb momentum except bodies. It turns every pass into a dare, every stride into a challenge.
I wait for the puck like it’s oxygen. And when it comes I fucking take it. I don’t mean I catch a lucky pass. I mean Istealit off every single bastard who tries to carry it past center. The first guy’s sloppy—telegraphing his stick like someone taught him hockey from YouTube. I strip it with a flick of my blade. He blinks, shocked.
The second guy hesitates with it near neutral zone, and that’s all I need—blade under blade, quick drag, puck gone. I don’t even look at him. I just keep skating.
By the third theft,the crowd isn’t silent anymore. They’re snarling, cheering. Money is being thrown around. Drinks spill. Someone screams my name in Russian. Someone else in Italian. They’re betting on when I die, not if.
I’m faster than all of them. It feels good—too good—to slip through them like a ghost made of blades. Every time I take the puck off someone, rage grows behind me like a hungry creature.
And it snaps.
One of them breaks formation—the captain of the other syndicate, stocky fucker with shoulders like a bull and eyes that promise a slow death. I don’t see him until he’s already committed to the line, cutting across my blindside.
He hits me. Hard. Not a clean check—there are no boards to pin me into—so he just throws himself into my ribs with the force of someone who’s decided I don’t deserve lungs. My skates lose purchase, ice rushes up, and I hit flat on my back hard enough to see stars. The crowd roars. A few people laugh like they just watched someone get shot.
My chest explodes in pain. For a second, all I register is cold and the metallic taste of adrenaline climbing my throat. But then—I get back up like nothing happened.
He wasn’t expecting that.
Neither is the crowd.
The puck’s still loose near my skate. I hook it before the bastard even finishes grinning down at me. I whip around him, cut a sharp edge, and snap the puck straight to Luca streaking down the weak side.
Luca catches it like he wasbornto. He dangles once, twice, slips right between two defenders who didn’t even see him move and then he scores. A laser straight past their goalie’s shoulder.
The crowd detonates—half in fury, half in awe.
Luca screams, “SUCK MY DICK!” at the stands and does a spin that would get him ejected in any civilized league.
I skate past the bastard who leveled me. I don’t bump him. I don’t talk. I don’t give him anything except a slow, deliberate middle finger as I glide by—two fingers if you count the look.
He freezes. Then turns his head toward me.
The look he gives me? It’s not anger. It’s not annoyance. It’s promise. He looks at me like he’s already picking out the flowers for my funeral. Planning where to bury the body. What knife to use. Who getsmy skates.
I smirk at him. Blood on my teeth, breath sharp in my lungs.Come and fucking try.
Because now I’m awake. Now I’m alive. Now I’m burning.
