The other team felt us clawing back, and they started throwing hits with weight behind them.
I chased a loose puck near the blue line. Out of the corner of my vision, a dark jersey cut hard toward Karter along the boards. The guy dropped his shoulder and drove him into the glass.
The thud rang over the noise of the crowd.
Everything inside me stopped.
Karter crumpled and hit the ice. He didn’t get up right away. One glove pressed flat against the frozen surface while the other grabbed at the boards as his stick clattered a foot out of reach.
There was less than twenty feet of frozen water between me and the guy who’d just put Karter into the boards. Back home, back in Detroit, I’d already be swinging. That lesson got carved into my bones years before Ridge Cross ever handed me a jersey: you see someone you care about get hit, you make the next guy pay double. No hesitation, just fists, and fuck the consequences.
So, I took one stride toward the opposition player, then stopped.
My own promise cut through the noise in my head. And Karter’s voice:No fighting on the ice.
And behind that promise, everything else lined up in a cold, ugly row.Milwaukee scout in the stands. Automatic suspension for dropping gloves. No final.
One punch and I’d trade everything for ten seconds of satisfaction.
Making up my mind, I closed the distance towards the player who’d smashed into Karter in three hard strides.
The guy never saw me coming.
I drove my shoulder into his chest and followed through until he slammed against the glass hard enough to rattle the stanchion.
He shoved off the boards, caught his balance, and spun around, his stick clattering to the ice. Then he ripped off his gloves, one after the other, and tossed them down at my skates.
“Let’s go, Zotov!” The guy raised his bare fists, gloves already scattered on the ice. “Or are you too scared to throw?”
My old answer to anyone throwing that question at me was coiled tight in my arms.
Drop the gloves. Swing first.
But Karter was back on his skates. His jersey twisted up around his pads, and he watched me from across the ice without a signal. He didn’t give me a head shake or a wave-off. He just stood there, breathing hard, waiting.
I gritted my teeth, rolled my shoulders, then shoved both hands into the air and backed up. A laugh cracked out of me, raw and ugly, aimed straight at the guy’s reddening face.
“Not tonight,” I sneered. “I’ve got a championship to win.”
Enraged by my laughter, he lunged right at me. Two refs swarmed in before he closed half the distance, grabbing his jersey and hauling him toward the penalty box as he kept yelling in my direction.
The third ref skated over to me, arm up, and signaled the penalty:two minutes for roughing.
I didn’t argue. A minor penalty and a bruised shoulder beat the hell out of an ejection.
The box door clanged shut behind me. Inside, the noise of the crowd muffled down to a dull roar.
Two minutes stretched out like ten. Through the glass, I watched our guys kill the clock and push back every rush. Perez blocked a slapshot with his shin pad and limped through the next shift without coming off. Four men against five, and they held the line as if the score was already final.
Then Karter dug the puck out of the corner. Two defenders collapsed on him, sticks hacking at his gloves, but he slid a backhand pass through their skates straight to Elliot, who’d snuck down from the blue line. Elliot didn’t hesitate. He caught the pass on his forehand, pulled the puck around the goalie’soutstretched pad, and tucked it inside the post. Shorthanded. The captain put us ahead while I sat in the box.
The red light flared, and the horn screamed through the arena.
I slammed both palms against the glass. The whole thing rattled. On the ice, the guys mobbed Elliot against the boards, gloves and sticks flying. Perez hobbled into the pile, grabbed Karter by the back of his jersey, and hauled him into the crush.
Elliot’s goal. The golden boy who’d told me an hour ago that he hated my guts, just put us into the final.
The buzzer sounded for real a minute later, and the box door swung open on our 2-1 win.
