Page 21 of Slashed Bonds

My head comes up.

Somebody.

“Who?”

“That’s not my information to give away.” Her expression doesn’t move. “Here’s mine. Every program in this country has your file, and every one of them read the word doping and closed it. Mine read the whole thing. We have an opening. We have a head coach who doesn’t care what a five-year-old integrity ruling says as long as you can win us draws.” A beat. “And we have housing, which I’m told is a sticking point.”

“The dog comes.”

“I was told the dog can come with.”

How do they know…then again…she’s been observing me for eleven weeks. Hmph.

I look at the card. Then at her.

Then at the ice, where the lights are cutting out in banks, and the sheet is going gray section by section.

Every single thing they took from me has an address in that building.

The ice. The name. The playoffs.

And behind that, in the dark where I keep it, the rest of it.

Four men in a boardroom. A woman with a gold watch. My mother, listed as unconfirmed. A house on Alder Row that burned so thoroughly nothing could be proved.

Blackridge plays in the same division as Hellsing Ross.

Which means twice a season, I’d get to stand across a faceoff dot from the men who threw me out a window.

“You’d be living with three Alphas,” Ibarra says, watching my face. “Fair warning. Viper House is where the roster puts its problems.”

Three Alphas.

Everything in my body says no. My scent retreats inward, the way it learned to, pulling itself down out of the air where it can’t be read.

And underneath that, in a place that hasn’t spoken up in half a decade, something else entirely says yes.

Not because I’ve healed.

Not because I’ve forgiven anyone.

Because they left me alive.

That was their mistake, and I’ve been waiting five years for somebody to hand me the invoice.

Knox leans against my leg. My calf is screaming. My mouth still tastes like this morning.

I slide the card into my jacket pocket, and out on the empty ice, the last bank of lights goes down.

My phone buzzes in my bag.

Unknown number. 2:13 has come early tonight.

I don’t look at it.

Wanna play?

“Fine,” I tell her. “Let’s fucking play. Sign me up.”