Page 1 of Ice Queen

Prologue - Markus

Six months ago

The roar of the crowd is deafening. The cheers that vibrate through my helmet over our last goal have me rocking back and forth on the bench. It’s cold, it’s loud, and the phantom smell of smoke assaults my senses. “Millie,” I whisper as her face comes to mind, blue lips, chattering teeth, a lone tear. My heart shatters for what feels like the millionth time.

“Samuels, get on the ice!” My coach yells from behind me. My entire line is halfway to the goal, and I’m still here. But I can’t move. My feet are stuck to the floor, rendered useless as our captain, Maverick Reed, hops the boards to take my spot.

I slam my eyes shut, transported back to the wreckage. Not here, not now. Please. There’s a hard smack against my helmet. “Get your shit together,” Coach Stevens says through gritted teeth. A quick glance at the clock tells me I won’t be on the ice again this game. Thirty-two seconds left, and we’re up by one.

I try to take a deep breath, skates tapping against the rubber flooring as the final buzzer rings and the home crowd goes wild. In an instant, the noise morphs from roaring excitement to the grind of the plane's engine, seconds before it plummeted to the ground thirteen years ago. My heart clenches, it’s too hard to breathe, I can’t stay here.

I hop up, pushing through the brief swirl of my vision as I head for the locker room. My chest pad is too tight. I claw at the straps, doing everything I can to get it off, but my fingers fumble. Shoving at my suspenders, I finally get them off my shoulders.

“JODER⁠*!” I yell, tossing my gear in every direction, desperate to get rid of the feeling of being trapped under the weight of it. I’m seconds from manically yelling when the locker room door slams open, bouncing off the cinder block wall behind it, and before I can blink, Reed is in front of me, fisting my undershirt.

“Where’s your head?” He shouts.

I don’t know why he’s mad; we won. Isn’t that enough? Right now, I don’t care that he’s basically my brother. My hands land on his shoulders, pushing back hard enough to make him stumble.

His eyes widen, but he doesn’t come at me again. His jaw clenches at the same time he rips off his helmet and tosses it into his bag on the floor. “Where. Is. Your. Head?” He asks again, punctuating every word like I’m an insolent child.

Heat courses through my veins until my fists are clenched at my sides, a stark contrast to the clammy chill I felt moments before. “Obviously not here, Reed. It was an off night. Cut me some slack.”

His head tilts to the side, a glove falling to the floor before he pushes a hand through his chestnut brown hair. “Seems to be more than just tonight, Samuels.”

His words hit somewhere deep, somewhere I don’t want to acknowledge, mainly because I know he’s right. I haven’t been in it, my head is miles away, drifting in the bottom of a bottle more often than not. Numbing myself to life seems to be catching up to me, and I don’t know how to fix it.

“Figure it out before I do something about it.” He gives me his back and heads to his locker, undressing in silence while our coach stands in the corner with his arms crossed.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. I know a disappointed coach when I see one. He gives me a curt nod, indicating he’d like to see me in his office before I go. Muttering a curse under my breath, I finish undressing before hitting the shower.

Standing under the hot water, I let my head fall forward. The heat chases away the memory with each and every drop. It’s not cold anymore, I’m not cold anymore. But the damage is already done. It might have been easier if I had been left with a crippling fear of airplanes, but I wasn’t. I got over it pretty damn quick once I learned why it happened. But in the cruelest twist of fate, I was left with temperature-induced panic attacks. Which, for some reason, has gotten worse over the past few years.

I quickly dress and head to Coach Stevens' office, ready to face the music. Rapping my knuckles on the metal doorframe, Coach looks up from his desk and points to the chair in front of him. My legs feel like they weigh a ton each, sluggish in the way my body always is after a flashback.

The leather squeaks as I sit, ready to have my ass handed to me. But I’m shocked when he takes off the whistle from around his neck, laces his fingers together, and leans forward. “What’s going on? This isn’t like you.”

How do you tell your coach that at twenty-eight, you’re still having nightmares from something that happened thirteen years ago? How do you begin to explain that your brain runs in fragments, tipped off by the most random things? So instead, I give him the truth he thinks he knows.

“I had a little too much fun this week, it being Mardi Gras and all.” I toss him a wink just for shits and giggles, but the lack of amusement on his face makes me sink further into the chair.

“Mardi Gras was months ago, Samuels.”

Mierda⁠*.

“Look, we have a new assistant coach starting next week. He’s already brought up your behavior. And I can’t say I fully disagree,” he says with a raised brow.

What the hell? Some dude I’ve never met before is making comments about me like he knows a damn thing. “Respectfully, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what someone who doesn’t know me has to say, Coach. I show up for my team when it matters.”

“But you didn’t today.” He fires back.

My fingers twitch against where they’re wrapped around my biceps, fighting the urge to defend myself, to point out all the reasons he's wrong, even though he’s not.

“This is your chance, give me something to work with, otherwise, we’re going to have some difficult conversations.”

My head snaps up to meet his, not even realizing I’d dropped my gaze to the ground. “Now wait a minute…” I stammer, but am met with a raised hand.

“You’re one of my best players, Markus. You’re an integral part of this team, on and off the ice. But it’s clear you’ve got other things going on. So either you handle them, or you’ll be riding the bench this season. And as much as I’d love to hand you a contract extension right now instead of when the season is over, I have a lot of pressure on my shoulders over whether you’re still the guy or not.”