Page 1 of Pucked Up

Chapter one

Micah

The axe bit deep. Wood splintered, cracked, and then surrendered with a sound like breaking bones. I yanked the blade free and positioned another log. My breath clouded the air, spectral and fleeting.

Sweat trickled down my spine despite the cold. My thermal shirt clung to my skin, soaked through after hours of the same motion. Split, stack, repeat. My shoulders burned, new strain colliding with old injuries, but the pain kept me tethered to something real. Something present.

The Upper Peninsula sky hung low and heavy, threatening more snow. Marquette, twenty miles north, was expecting a foot of white stuff. Flakes drifted down, melting against my overheated skin. I welcomed them. The sting of cold against heat reminded me I was still alive.

I'd lost track of how many days I'd been at the cabin. Fourteen? Twenty? I escaped just before questions about what I'd do during the term of my suspension.

Time blurred when there was no one watching. No press conferences. No coach's disapproving stare. No teammates pretending not to notice the pariah in their midst.

Just me, the axe, and the violent sound of wood splitting.

Another log. Another swing. I didn't think about the league hearing scheduled for late in the season. Didn't think about hockey. Didn't think about the crunch of cartilage beneath my knuckles or the way his head had snapped back when I drove him into the boards.

The rookies always thought they were untouchable until they weren't.

I had a winter to get through. I positioned another log, widening my stance. My boots crunched in the old snow, treads gripping the hard-packed ice beneath. The rhythm kept the thoughts at bay. The ones that whispered I'd finally crossed the line. That this time, there'd be no return.

At night, I lay awake and heard the crowd's roar turn to shock, then silence. A pool of blood spread across the ice from beneath his helmet. His body was still. Those few seconds before he moved stretched into eternity.

That was the way the media told the story, but here, in the cold and quiet, I could pretend it was just another bad game. Just another penalty.

Another log. Another swing.

I'd come to the cabin because it was safer for everyone if I disappeared. Even Coach had said, "Get your head straight, Keller. Figure out what the hell you want."

As if what I wanted had ever mattered.

I wiped sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. My knuckles were split and raw. I couldn't remember whether I'd done that during the game or after, punching the locker room wall while reporters waited outside. It didn't matter anymore.

The forest held its breath around me. Nothing but the rhythmic thunk of steel meeting wood, the whisper of falling snow, and the rasp of my own breath. My voice had grown rusty from disuse. Sometimes, I'd catch myself talking aloud just to remember what words felt like in my mouth.

I raised the axe again, muscles coiled, ready to deliver the blow that would shatter another log into submission.

Then, I heard something.

It was the crunch of tires on frozen gravel, the low purr of an engine fighting the incline to my cabin. The sound didn't belong here. It meant trouble.

I froze mid-swing, muscles locked, blood rushing in my ears. For a heartbeat, I listened. The engine cut off. A car door opened, then closed with a decisive clunk that echoed through the trees.

Nobody knew I was here. Not even Coach. I didn't share my getaway spots, and he'd stopped calling after the first week.

I lowered the axe slowly, fingers tightening around the worn handle. My throat constricted. I rounded the side of the cabin, keeping to the shadows of the porch overhang.

A dark sedan sat in my driveway, its black paint smeared with road salt and slush. Steam curled from the hood into the frigid air. Beside it stood a figure, tall and lean, wearing a navy peacoat that matched the gathering twilight.

He stood perfectly still as if he belonged there. As if he'd been waiting for me to appear.

I stepped forward; axe still gripped at my side, eyes narrowed against the snow flurries. Recognition hit like a sucker punch to the gut.

Noah Langley.

The rookie I'd sent to the hospital at the end of last season.

My lungs seized. No marks remained on his face. He'd at least partially healed. He watched me with an expression I couldn't read.

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