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The whistle goes. Our goalie's covered the puck. The building's gone dead quiet.

Dana's over the boards before I can breathe. Anand's behind her. They're kneeling on the ice beside me, and Dana's got her hands on my leg, and Anand's saying something I can't hear.

"Don't move it," Dana says. "Owen. Owen, look at me. Don't move it."

I look past her.

He's there. Rémy. He's standing ten feet away, at the edge of the circle, with his stick in both hands, and his face is white. Completely white. He's not moving. Sorel's got a hand on his arm, like he's holding him back.

I look at him. He looks at me.

He doesn't come any closer. I told him to stop. I told him not in hotels, not at my place, not anywhere. He listened. God help me, he listened.

They get me up. Webb on one side, Kowal on the other, my arms over their shoulders. I can't put any weight on the leg. The building stands up and starts clapping, the way they do for a guy who's hurt, slow and loud. I hear it the whole way down the tunnel.

The trainer's room is small and bright. Anand's pressing his fingers into the side of my knee, and each press is like a nail.

"It's gone," I say. "Isn't it."

He doesn't answer right away.

"I need an MRI to know how bad," he says. "But Owen, I can feel it. The meniscus is displaced. There's a lot of fluid. I'd bet money the cartilage⁠—"

"Can you tape it?"

He stops. Dana stops.

"Can you tape it," I say again. "Drain it. Numb it. Anything. There's twelve minutes left in the third."

"Absolutely not," Anand says.

"It's an elimination game."

"It's your leg."

"It's my last game." I'm half sitting up on the table, holding myself up on my arms. "If we lose tonight, it's over. The season's over. My career's over. I'm not going to spend the last twelve minutes of it in this room."

Dana puts her hand flat on my chest. Right in the middle. Right where he used to put his. I don't think she knows.

"Owen," she says. "Listen to me. If you go back out there, you will never walk right again. Never. Not in a year. Not in ten. I am not letting you do that."

"Dana—"

"No." She's crying. Dana doesn't cry. I've known her since I was twenty-six, and I've never seen her cry. "No. I've watched you lie to everybody all season. To Moretti. To him. To yourself. I'm not letting you lie to me about this. You're done. You're done tonight."

On the TV in the corner of the room, the game's back on. One-one. Eight minutes left.

Brandt's on the ice. So is Rémy. So is Sorel.

I watch Rémy take a pass at the blue line. I watch him wind up. It's a slapshot, a big one, the kind he never takes, and it goes wide, off the glass, and he slams his stick against the ice so hard the blade cracks.

"He's not okay," I say.

Dana looks at the screen. Then at me.

"No," she says. "He's not."

We win.