Page 71 of Your Masked Haunting

I win the draw, dishing the puck back between my legs to Kol. The puck smacks against his stick, and he fires it to Bates, who’s ready to break into the zone in front of me. Their defense isn’t in position well enough to defend him, and the moment the puck reaches him, he barrels into the zone and down the slot. With a quick draw of his stick to his right side, he flicks his wrist and nails it home.

“Fuck yeah!” I scream, following Finny toward the boards and jumping into him. “Attaboy!”

He’s grinning from ear to ear, cheering along with us. But he steals a quick glance up in the stands and blows a kiss. I don’t have to guess who that’s going to—Serena.

Finny leads the high-five line toward the bench, and we all bump gloves with the guys before the next face-off sets up at center ice, a new line skating out as we hop the boards to the bench.

Ledger takes a swig of the water, then gestures to me, and I nod, opening my mouth jokingly. But he doesn’t hesitate, squirting water into my mouth from two feet away, and I stick my tongue out slightly to help catch every drop.

“Goddamn, Cas, what else can that mouth do?” Ledger bursts out laughing.

Crooking my finger, I beckon him closer. “Come find out.”

Ledger smirks, trying to act chill, but he breaks, a laugh tearing through the air. “Nah, you look like a biter.”

I flip him off. “Well, now you’ve lost your chance.”

In reality, there was no way he was putting his sweaty fucking balls anywhere near my face. But that doesn’t mean I can’t play up the part.

Ransom leans closer to me, squishing Ledger and Bates tighter together. “Are you going over there tonight?”

“Over where—to The Schrader House? Yeah. Gotta celebrate with my girl after we finish murdering the Hurricanes.” I smirk, thoughts of what’s to come already pooling to my core. But I have to stop thinking of her, or this cup is going to get painful.

“You know that place is actually haunted, right? I looked into its history a bit more, and it got a little weird,” Ransom informs me, the curious know-it-all he is.

And he has no idea of some of the weird stuff currently happening with the house. But I can’t get into that right now with him.

“Basically, there’s a conspiracy that the Schraders participated in human sacrifices, and those are the spirits that haunt the place.”

I roll my eyes at that. “You need to stay off TikTok and social media because I don’t think they were randomly sacrificing people in the living room.”

Time runs out on our conversation because we need to swap out with the line coming off the ice. Finny takes a passing puck from Emil Barkov as he skates toward the bench, alongside his brother, who switch out with Ledger and Ransom.

Surprisingly, the Hurricanes don’t talk shit much at all. Not sure if that’s a team thing or just a we’re getting beat six to zero attitude. But usually, if a team is that far behind, they instigate like a maniac to rile their players up and to try to tie our guys up in the penalty box.

Kol steals the puck from one of their defensemen and flies down the ice on a breakaway. The only hurdle between him and the net is their goalie. Unfortunately for the goalie, we seem to be able to read him like a wide-open book.

This instance is no different. Kol glides straight down the middle, successfully baiting the goalie to the top of his crease. Kol is fast though, which means the only way you’re stopping him is by being quicker, something this guy definitely isn’t.

Kol embarrasses him with a deke, sending the guy falling to his face on the ice, and as Kol shoots it easily into the net, our fans reach an entire new level of chaos and noise as they cheer us on.

We collide into a huddle of praise for Kol before he leads us toward the bench, the score now seven to zero. This is fucking unheard of in a professional hockey game. Typical scores are under three or four—even then, that’s a higher-scored game. But seven to fucking zero is wild.

Our chance at the shutout ends early in the third period when we go on a penalty kill, and the Hurricanes manage to get one on the board. But it doesn’t matter, not in the end. I get the final goal of the night, and when the clock runs out, we finalize the score of our first home game eight to one.

I’m flying on an absolute high as we head back to the locker room after demolishing our opponent. They played fairly well last year. They’re still on the recovery of a complete overhaul, but, shit, if this is the new dream team, they might want to reconsider overhauling it again.

It doesn’t matter if they do it immediately, and it won’t matter in the end because we’re going to dominate this entire season. This was just the warm-up.

Our arena is the most up-to-date in the league. The place is huge and one hundred percent dedicated to the Sinners team. It’s not rented out for events or concerts. It’s ours. No wonder we’re so possessive. We hate sharing anything.

“Great last shot, Rids.” Coach Rafferty claps my back as I walk past him into the locker room. He continues to hand out earned compliments as we file in, shedding our sweaters and gear.

He gives us a proud speech before leaving us to our own devices, and the first thing I do is run to the shower and clean off, not leaving until I’m sure soap has thoroughly infiltrated every crevice of my body.

My steps are light as a feather as I saunter back over to my cubby and dry off, changing into a matching Sinners sweat set.

Now, finally, it’s time for the part I’ve been waiting for. I check my phone for messages from Mona.