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CHAPTER 73

“He looks better today,” Novak said as they watched Dylan warm up. Dylan didn’t have a puck, was just doing lazy laps around the ice, but it was true he didn’t look as tense as the last game. It did sell the illusion that nothing was wrong. “How bad is it? He still won’t tell me.”

Henri made a face and looked around. There was no one else within earshot, so he answered honestly. “He won’t tell me much either. Nothing is torn or broken. He doesn’t need surgery. But it obviously hurts. He moves differently to avoid it.”

Novak nodded. His stick was upside down on the ice, and he was resting his weight on it as he watched. “He doesn’t look like a total garbage fire, but if you’re looking, you can see he’s not at his usual. What are we going to do? We can’t just not use him. If the Mounties figure it out, we’re fucked.”

“I don’t know. I think he’s mostly fine as long as he doesn’t shoot.”

‘Mostly fine’ meant not visibly wincing. Hardly an encouraging benchmark.

“Best fucking shot in the league, and he can’t shoot,” Novak grumbled. “Well, we’ll see what we can do.” He stood up and turned his stick over to grab a nearby puck. “How many meds he on right now? Can he even feel it?”

“There were a lot of painkillers and Biofreeze involved,” Henri said. He tried to sound neutral about it, but he hated it. It was one thing to numb pain day-to-day, and another entirely to do it before a game. It was a trick to make you push yourself in ways you physically couldn’t handle. Dylan could make it so much worse and wouldn’t know it until later.

Novak tapped him with the blade of his stick. “We’ll take care of him,” he promised as he skated off.

“Against his will,” Henri muttered.

Henri looked up at the scoreboard. 0-0. A fresh 20 minutes ready to go.

Hockey. As much as they practiced and trained, analyzed and prepared, it was unpredictable. Too many variables, some might say. A matter of luck, others claimed.

The Turkeys shouldn’t have made it this far. The first round, fine. That had been reasonable. No one thought they could make it through the second round. They should’ve lost in four, maybe five games in the third round. But they’d survived. They were here, in game seven against the fucking Edmonton Mounties, one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup this year.

Correction. They were here in double overtime against them, because their goalies were having amazing nights. Each had saved well over forty shots so far.

Henri cracked his neck. The arena was deafening. His right wing’s shoulder was fucked. He was being fueled by energy drinks and smelling salts. One fucking mistake, no matter how small, could end it all.

But then Dylan would be okay.

He ignored that line of thinking as he squared up for the face-off.

The only thing worse than losing would be not trying. Dylan would hate it, hate you if you made this about anything other than the game.

His jaw tightened around his mouthguard. The game had started at 7:30 p.m. local time. It was closing in on midnight by now. The longest game Henri had ever played, and he was exhausted. But it was this or nothing. No guarantee there would be even another shift after this one. Whatever he had left, he needed to give it.

The puck dropped.

He won the face-off.

He won the next one too. And the next. He won all of them, but still they couldn’t beat Edmonton’s goalie. The minutes ticked by, beautiful shift after beautiful shift with so many opportunities, yet nothing went in. Dylan had taken over as the crease menace, using his size to screen the goalie and hopefully redirect the shots the rest of them sent his way. He did get a stick on one, but it went right into the goalie’s glove. Dylan had left the ice as soon as the whistle blew, looking pale and gritting his teeth.

“You’ll get it next time,” Coach Krzysztofek said to him. Everyone seemed to think he was upset about the lost opportunity. No one noticed the way he leaned forward against the boards and took short, pained gasps of air.

Henri sat next to him and prayed someone would score. Anyone. Just let it be over.

But like clockwork, soon their line was back on the ice. Four minutes left before another break and another overtime. Was this what purgatory was like?

They spent the first twenty seconds of the shift stuck in their own zone until a bad pass by the Mounties led to the puck being tossed down the ice. It was the wingers’ job to chase after it. Henri would normally be relieved that he wasn’t the one expected to charge after it. It was on Dylan’s side, and he watched Dylan race after the defenseman. And he knew, could read it in Dylan’s stride, that he wasn’t going after the puck. He would crush that defender into the boards and hope Novak was there to grab the puck.

Idiot! You’ll hurt yourself!

There was no conscious decision. It wasn’t as though his mind weighed the options and plotted out the best course of action. All he saw was the inevitable collision and Dylan’s face etched in pain. Henri didn’t realize what he was doing until he was sprinting past Dylan. Full steam ahead, his only plan was to keep himself between Dylan and getting hurt.

He had enough wherewithal to stop moving his feet once he was through the circle. He was gliding, technically, when he hit the defenseman. Henri didn’t jump, didn’t lead with his shoulder, avoided the head. Textbook, because he wasn’t trying to hurt someone in place of Dylan. But the hit was big, rattling his teeth and sending both of them to the ice.

Henri had no idea where the puck was. As he scrambled to his feet, he barely caught sight of the little black dot sailing towards Dylan. Henri’s heart stopped. He watched Dylan wind up for the one-timer, shoot.