Page 2 of Omega’s Forward

Dorn takes his first run at Linus not long after. It gets a groan from the crowd but not a whistle out of the referee. Linus pops back up and skates away.

The second time, it’s after the whistle and a glove is shoved in the kid’s face, Dorn’s mouth going the whole while. I’m too far away to hear it. I don’t need to hear it. Linus shakes his head and skates to the bench.

“He’s doing it on purpose,” Linus tells me over the boards, careful and accented. “He wants me to fight him.”

“You don’t fight him. Not tonight, not ever. That’s not your job.”

“I don’t want to fight him.” He says it simply, no shame anywhere in it. God, I like this kid. “Fighting is stupid.”

“Stay near me when you can.”

Here’s the thing about this sport that never makes the broadcast. There’s a code.

Nobody writes it down, but every man on that ice knows it.

You don’t touch a goalie. You don’t hit a man from behind. You don’t take runs at teenagers who can’t defend themselves.

The referees can’t catch everything, and the league office is a thousand miles away. The only enforcement that happens in real time is us.

I don’t mind a scrap on the ice, but I’m getting older. Fifteen years in, my hands ache on cold mornings and my nose clicks when I breathe too hard. I’d retire happy if I never had to drop the gloves again.

But I’m captain. The team is mine to protect and if you go soft, the other team smells blood. Alphas like Dorn smell blood.

I don’t start fights, but I make them cost. Anyone causes shit with my guys, I’m going to make sure they’re sobbing for their mommies on the way home.

We score late in the first, our second line banging one in off a scramble, and the building roars.

One-nothing.

Midway through the second I line up across from Dorn and say it plain. “Leave the kid alone.”

“Or what, grandpa?” He grins around his mouthguard. “Gonna read me the memo?”

So he’s heard about the league’s little image instructions too.

I roll my eyes at him. “If you have to be a giant asshole, at least pick on someone your own size.”

I can handle Dorn, but he doesn’t like going for me. I’m not easy to take down. He prefers easier pickings. Dick.

The puck drops. I win the draw clean and we spend forty seconds in their end just to annoy him.

It happens with four minutes left in the period.

Linus rims the puck around the boards and the whistle goes. Icing.

Play stops and everyone is coasting. And Dorn takes three more strides and puts his shoulder hard into the back of the kid.

I hear it crunch. Linus’s helmet tips forward over his eyes and the glass shudders where his shoulder catches it.

Linus goes into the boards and folds onto the ice, and eighteen thousand people make a low ooh.

For three seconds Linus doesn’t move. Then he gets to his knees, and by the time our trainer reaches him he’s up, bent double. He’s in one piece but his breathing is ragged.

Linus doesn’t argue when the trainer steers him toward the bench. He disappears down the tunnel, still bent over his ribs, and Ozzy hops the boards to take his shifts. No announcement, no ceremony. The game doesn’t wait for anybody.

The referee gives Dorn two minutes for roughing. Two.

I look down the bench at Sacco. Sacco looks back at me, jaw working. I know exactly what he’s thinking.