Page 65 of Jaded

No matter what I decide to do about the rink, about work, about JB’s repo business, one thing I know without a doubt: I can never truly give up hockey.

It lives in my bones, beats in my blood, a rhythm, a music all its own. To give up on skating would be, truly, to fade out of my own existence. And so, it’s to the Ice Out I’m headed, to the dark twisted depravity of Day River’s literal underground.

I flash my phone in front of the bouncer, and he waves me through.

I crowd into the holding pen, the stink of skates and gloves and sweat and unwashed bodies making my nose burn. Tripping some kind of adrenaline response at its familiarity.

We gravitate towards the darkness reflected inside of us, Olli’s words return to me, which of course means Olli does too—always. Why can’t I stop thinking about him?

Why can’t I stop seeing him—limned in moonlight outside Everton’s house, grinning at me from across the ice, bare chest speckled withlingering drops of water that set the lean muscles of his chest and arms shimmering—

The crack of the door opening jerks my attention back to the present. A blue-haired, purple-masked woman leans in to call out our numbers. Leading pigs to the slaughter. “Forty-Seven! Twenty-Three! Ninety-Three!”

And like the desperate sheep we are, we follow.

My heart slams at my ribs like it’s trying to beat through the bone. I rise to meet my new teammates at the door. One’s huge—taller than me by a few inches, nearly twice as broad.

He eyeballs me down from behind a fitted black mask. “Same Forty-Seven from last week?”

“None other.”

“You start shit with me, I’ll end it.”

“I believe it.” I shrug. “I didn’t start the fight last week.”

“Takes two to tango.” He turns away. “Stay off my shit side, and put the puck in the net.”

“Can do.” My eyes slide to the second player—roughly my size. Nondescript. Number Twenty-Three. He merely inclines his head in the briefest of nods. Better than threats, I suppose.

But when the door opens, I forget about everything else. The teammates flanking me, the crowd screaming outside, the soft rubber under my skates, the sharp, pressing smells of sweat and mildew, even the ghost-boy who haunts my days . . . it all fades as the ice stretches out before me.

And for this one moment, as I cross the distance between the door and the ice, the screams of the crowd a muffled roar around me, it might just have been real hockey.

My skates slide onto the ice. I breathe in that cracked-cold air, sharp enough it’s almost weaponized, a knife against my lungs. Size up the other team—blood splatters the front of one skater’s jersey. The second leans hands onto knees, chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. Third tips water over his face through the mask.

Tired. They’ve been out for a while, I’d bet.

My gaze trails back to my own team. The big man stands like a stone, glaring down the opposition. The smaller man turns quick circles in the ice, his skates fluid and free against the slicked surface.

Good. He’ll be my ally then.

Someone throws a puck onto the ice, and hell breaks loose. The two closest players surge forward. Collide. They scrabble together like rats in a cage.

So I dart in, snatch up the puck.

My gaze tilts, searching—there.

Number Twenty-Three cuts between two players, giving me a wide open passing lane just as someone barrels towards me.

I snap the puck forward onto Twenty-Three’s stick.

Hesitate one breath as that rampaging player closes in, overcommitting—

I sidestep, spring forward. Race up behind my temporary teammate.

My tape taps the ice. “Here!”

And like he’s got eyes in the side of his head, or maybe he was expecting me to do exactly what I did, he sends the puck flying towards me.

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