Page 48 of Play Dirty

I followed his gaze, where the guys had picked up again. They were faster. Cleaner. Not yet good enough, but closer.

“They’re getting it,” I said quietly.

He nodded, grimly, not answering right away. Like he was weighing even heavier thoughts.

“Getting it isn’t the same as keeping it,” he said finally.

My grip tightened slightly on the tablet.

“I know.”

“Do you?” Mercer questioned. He turned to face me, and I didn’t look away.

“Yeah. I do.”

A beat of silence was followed by a long, hard stare. He nodded once; sharply, decisively. Then he shifted his gaze back to the ice.

“Good,” the coach said, his voice calm and collected. “Because tomorrow we find out what they are.”

~ 18 ~

HAVEN

I’d completely underestimated the size of the crowd. The noise. The chaos. The palpable sense that something important was about to happen, as the air became increasingly charged with electricity.

God, I missed it.

“Get ready.”

The Phantoms had been booed since their skates touched the ice, while the Reavers had come out to a chorus of thunderous cheers. They took their first laps with their arms in the air, to the stomp of hundreds of feet against metal.

The puck dropped…

And it all went wrong, immediately.

Shit.

The Phantoms didn’t rush. They didn’t panic. They played with slow, controlled movements that forced the Reavers into tight spaces and bad coverage. One by one they took our options away, until each of their players felt just a half-step ahead of ours.

As a result, everything we did came just a fraction too late.

Ares hit early — too early — and created a scoring chance for the other team. A lane opened. A shot was taken…

Miss.

My fingers closed tightly around my tablet as Sebastian snapped the rebound away with his stick. He reset fast, but the message was clear:

The Phantoms weren’t about to give anything up for free.

“They’re baiting us,” I muttered, leaning into Mercer. “Forcing the collapse.”

The coach barked something that got drowned out by the roar of the crowd. On the other side of the ice, Asher had gone down from a hit.

He got back up quickly, though.

The Reavers fell into an attack pattern; one Mercer had drilled into them so many times they were probably sharing the same nightmare. Grayson adjusted, moving early. He didn’t hold the puck this time, didn’t wait. He flicked it away early before the pressure could close around him, catching Dorian on the weak side.

Shot…