one
Elijah
The words hit me like a blade dragged slow across bone, but they don’t cut deep enough to bleed yet. They slide through the air, through Jackson’s mouth, through the phone pressed to his ear, and keep sliding straight through the hollow place where my wife used to live inside my chest.
Someonetookher.
The locker room keeps breathing, keeps moving, keeps pretending the world is still whole. Shoulder pads slam, sticks clatter, tape rips with that familiar sharp sound, and somewhere across the room a guy laughs like this is just another fucking intermission.
My hands hang useless at my sides, fingers curled into nothing, and the wrongness of it burns hotter than any hit I’ve ever taken. These hands were made to hold her, made to wrap around her hips when she climbed into my lap, made to cradle the back of her neck when I kissed her like I was trying to crawl inside her soul.
Jackson’s voice slices back in, low and tight, shoulders locked like he’s bracing for war. He listens, jaw grinding, then steps close enough that I can almost smell the fear rolling off him in waves. He shoves the phone into my palm.
“Christian.”
My fingers crush around it before my mind even registers the name. I lift it to my ear and the world narrows to the sound of his voice, calm, controlled, already three steps ahead of the apocalypse I feel cracking open inside me.
“We’re going to find her.”
Find her. The words echo in the cavity of my ribs, bouncing around like they’re looking for a place to land and finding only rage.
“I need to come home.” My voice is gravel dragged over broken glass. “Right fucking now.”
“You’re in Vegas, Elijah. In the middle of a game. You’re states away.”
“I don’t give a fuck about the game.” The plastic of the phone creaks in my grip. “I will walk off this ice and leave every contract, every camera, every goddamn thing burning behind me.”
Christian’s tone hardens, the way it does when he’s already building the machine that will fix what’s broken. “By the time you finish, I’ll have a plane on the tarmac. I’ll have men moving. You’ll be useless to her until you land.”
Useless.
The word detonates somewhere behind my eyes. My vision tunnels, pulse slamming so hard I taste metal. She’s in Houston. I’m here, trapped under these lights, trapped in this fucking jersey, while some animal has his hands on my wife.
“They took her,” I snarl, the sound ripping out of me raw and animalistic.
“I know.” Christian’s voice never wavers. “And I will fix it. Finish the game.”
Finish the game.
Something inside me snaps clean in half. Not a clean break, a jagged, tearing rip that leaves edges sharp enough to bleed me out from the inside. My free hand slams into the nearest locker without thinking, the metal denting inward with a scream of protest. The impact vibrates up my arm, but it’s not enough. Nowhere near enough. I want to tear the whole room apart, bolt by bolt, until there’s nothing left but rubble and blood.
The line dies.
The locker room noise crashes back in like a tidal wave, louder, sharper, every sound scraping against the exposed nerve that used to be my sanity.
“Bellandi. Harper. Anderson. Get on the fucking ice. Now!”
Coach’s bark means nothing.
“What are we doing?” Jackson asks, his voice cracking as I glance at Zach.
He looks sick, his face white as he stares at me, waiting for an answer.
“We finish playing. Then we get on the plane Christian is organizing and go home to find her.” I say.
My voice sounds distant, like I am floating outside my body as they stare at me for a long moment.
“MOVE! NOW!” Coach yells and I do, but it feels like I am underwater.
