Page 168 of Secrets on Ice

And Sully.

I can't stop watching Sully.

Two minutes.

My heart's in my throat. The noise in here is a physical thing, pressing on my chest, and Jo's grip on my arm is going to leave marks. Their guy gets in behind Sully down the left side, clean, and my stomach drops through the floor. And somehow, I don't know how, Sully gets back. He's just there, stick down, body in the way, and he takes the puck clean off him, chips it out, and the whole building comes apart.

“Shit,” I hiss.

Cassidy screams something incoherent directly into my ear.

One minute.

And then they pull their goalie.

Six of them. Six against five. Collette makes a sound like a kettle. Claire says something in French that I am fairly sure is not a prayer. They come at us in a wave. The puck is moving too fast to follow, pinging around our zone, and every single person in this building is on their feet. Their guy winds up at the top of the circle.

My brother throws his whole body in front of it.

And I stop breathing.

49

SULLY

Three minutes left.

We're up by one, and I have never wanted anything less complicated in my life than the next three minutes. My legs are gone. That's fine, everybody's legs are gone. Emmett's everywhere, blocking shots, barking, dragging us up the ice by sheer force of will. Every one of us would run through a wall for him, he knows it, and he's using it. Pierre and Felix are playing like men possessed. Evan is calm, Evan is always calm, the freak, like this is a morning skate and not the last three minutes of everything.

Me, I just don't let anything through. That's my whole job tonight.

Don't be the reason.

Kill the play, eat the puck, block the lane, get it out.

Simple, every time I climb over those boards I think one thing.

Don't be the reason you lose the cup.

I get about forty seconds, and I'm back on the bench with my lungs on fire, watching Evan's pair do the same job, counting down the clock and hating every second I'm not out there. That's the thing nobody understands about the end of a game like this. Half of it you spend sitting down, useless, watching.

Two minutes.

Coach taps me back out.

Everything shrinks down to the ice, the puck, and the five of us. They come at us hard, their guy gets in behind me down the left side. I don't know how I get back, but I do, stick down, body between him and the net, and I take the puck off him at the last possible second and chip it out over the blue line. My legs are screaming. Somewhere above me, the building makes a noise I feel in my teeth. We get the change on the fly. I'm barely on the bench before a whistle blows.

One minute.

They pull their goalie.

Emmett looks down the bench at me and jerks his chin, and I'm over the boards before I've thought about it, because when it's the last minute of a one-goal game seven, you send your shutdown pair out and you keep them out.

Six on five.

Six skaters coming at us like a wave, and the puck's moving too fast to track. My heart is going to come out of my chest. I get a stick in a lane, and it stings all the way up my arm, and I don't care. They press, and press again. And then their guy winds up from the top of the circle, and Emmett, our captain, throws himself in front of it. The puck cracks off his shin pad. It skitters into the corner, and Felix is there, and he scoops it up and fires it the length of the ice at an empty net.

And it slides.