Page 25

MILLIE

Julian's 'punishment' for skipping practice was benching me for the first period of our next game. He probably thought it would teach me a lesson.

What he didn't anticipate was the entire arena chanting my name two minutes into the first period after Toronto scored their opening goal.

Toronto plays dirty.

I play dirtier.

That's why every mouth in the crowd demanded my return, and Julian had no choice but to put me back in.

What I didn't expect was that Toronto had been saving all their anger for me.

Our game's tied 2-2. Toronto-especially Jenna-always plays rough, but tonight it feels personal.

They've been targeting me all night. Even when I don't have the puck, they're skating toward me like I'm the sole target, as if I've got a neon sign flashing above my helmet: HIT HER.

I take another check hard into the boards, the plexiglass rattling against my back as my shoulder absorbs the worst of it.

It's the same side that's been sore since the last time we faced them.

Jenna's team. Of course. I push off the boards with a grunt, my breath sharp in my throat, and keep going.

There's blood in my mouth-bit the inside of my cheek when I took that last fall. My legs are burning. But I skate hard. Harder. Because this is who I am. This is the game.

My stick finds the puck off a rebound. I weave through the neutral zone, one hand tight on my stick, the other flexing against my ribs.

My skates cut through the ice clean, slicing past two defenders.

One of them tries to shove me off balance-I twist my body low, control tight, shift my weight to keep possession.

My mind is sharper than my body right now. That's the danger.

I hear the crowd yelling, thundering down. One voice cuts through.

"Julian, pull her out!"

I don't even have to look to know it's my Mom. I can feel her panic through the glass. I know where she's sitting. Front row, left of the bench. Right next to Harper.

I push harder, ignoring the screaming protests of my muscles.

The puck is back on my stick, and I make a break for the goal. A defender comes at me, but I sidestep, sending her sprawling into the boards. I shoot.

The puck hits the post and ricochets off. So close. I circle back, ready for the rebound, but Jenna's there. She slams into me, her elbow catching my already bruised shoulder. Pain explodes down my arm, but I don't let it show. I can't.

Julian doesn't pull me out. Even with Mama's voice cracking against the boards. Even with blood sliding from my temple into the corner of my eye, seeping beneath my visor. Even with every breath like a punch to the ribs.

I stay on the ice. Julian doesn't call me off. He can't. Because I'm the one they count on when it's all on the line. And tonight, it is.

Toronto's strategy is clear now: take me out, and the game falls with me. They don't care if I've got the puck. They come at me like I do-like I'm a magnet for violence.

Every check rattles more than my bones. It shakes something deeper. But I don't stop.

I drag my skates along the edge of exhaustion and spit the taste of blood onto the ice. My stick feels heavier with each shift, and my legs burn like hellfire. Still-when the puck skitters loose in the corner, I'm there. First. Always first.

I snag it, pivot fast. Jenna's on me before I can blink. I don't flinch. I press into her hit, shoulder to shoulder, teeth clenched so hard I feel them shift in my jaw.

The crowd is a roar behind the glass, but I can't hear it anymore-just the sound of my own breath, ragged and thin, trapped beneath the cage of my helmet.

My chest is heaving, legs barely holding me up between shifts, but I don't let it show.

I grip my stick tighter, knuckles white beneath my gloves, and push forward.

One more play. One more shift. One more second I don't have to give.

The puck ricochets off the backboards and we scramble-sticks colliding, skates cutting jagged lines through the ice.

I slide into the fray and feel it in my spine when I connect with the puck, the satisfying weight of it on my blade.

I flick it out to our winger, and he drives it forward.

We break into the offensive zone like a storm, and I trail just behind the crease, where I live, where I hunt.

The pass comes back to me-clean, perfect.

And I bury it.

Top shelf.

The horn blasts.

The crowd loses it.

3-2.

I don't raise my arms. I don't celebrate. I don't have the strength. I skate back toward center ice, bent low, trying to suck air into lungs that are already beyond their limit. My shoulder is on fire. My legs scream. My ribs ache with every breath.

Jenna meets me at center. Her smirk is razor-sharp, venomous.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" I hiss, barely loud enough to carry over the ref's whistle. "You playing hockey or trying to end my season?"

She leans in, voice sickly sweet, too close to my ear. "You think you're special, Bennett? They cheer for you like you're untouchable. Thought maybe it was time someone reminded you that you bleed like the rest of us."

I grit my teeth. She peels away like she didn't just gut me with that line.

The puck drops again.

We're barely back in motion before Toronto slams one past our goalie. A cheap shot. A lucky bounce. Doesn't matter.

3-3.

The building sways with noise. The clock bleeds under two minutes.

My hands tighten on the shaft of my stick so hard I feel the fiberglass strain.

Every eye in the arena is on me-waiting.

Expecting. Demanding. The pressure is a physical thing now, something I wear like extra padding, only heavier, meaner.

I skate in circles to stay loose, but I'm not. I'm hanging by a thread.

We regroup. One last face-off in our zone. I lean in, dizzy now, vision starting to smear at the edges. I've taken too many hits. I've played too many minutes. But no one else can finish this. Not like I can. Not like I have to.

The puck drops.

I win it clean. I spin, stretch, sprint-if you can call what I'm doing now sprinting. More like sheer force of will dragging my body across the ice.

I've got the puck. And they see it.

They come at me.

Three players.

I dodge the first with a wide arc, slip the puck behind me with a backhand pass I barely control, and-

The hit comes from behind.

Hard.

Dirty.

Illegal.

Late.

It lifts me.

Lifts me off my skates like I weigh nothing.

The sound when I land-it's not a crack, not a snap, but it's worse. A sickening thud as my helmet flies off and my head hits the ice bare. Cold and sharp and blinding.

My vision explodes in white.

Then black.

The air leaves my lungs in one long, voiceless gasp.

I don't hear the whistle.

I don't hear the crowd.

Somehow,

I hear a sweet voice calling my name. Laughter. A calm voice saying 'Night, Millie,' before closing the door behind her.

Harper.

My body won't move. My limbs feel foreign, heavy. There's shouting, I think. Someone slides beside me. Gloves grab my face gently. A medic maybe. Or a teammate. I don't know. All I can think is-

Please don't let her see me like this.

Don't let the world see me so fucking weak.

And then, everything goes still.

────────── ???? ──────────

HARPER

I think I stopped breathing when I saw her helmet land right in front of me.

It spun across the ice like something out of a nightmare, skidding just past the boards before clattering against the plexiglass with a hollow, final sound.

That's when the world tilted sideways.

Everything after that-honestly, I don't know if I remember it right. The whistle must've blown, I think. I saw the ref's arm go up. But I didn't hear it. My ears rang so loud it felt like the inside of my skull was splitting. Like something inside me cracked with that hit.

And Millie...

Millie didn't get up.

One second she was streaking across the ice like a storm-fast and uncatchable, like she was made of fire-and the next, she was crumpled on the ground, arms slack, motionless, the back of her head having hit the ice so violently I swore I felt it in my own chest. Her body didn't even twitch.

Not a flinch. Not a hand raised to say I'm okay.

I couldn't move.

My hands were frozen in my lap, pressed so tight together I think I left half-moons from my nails in my palms. My whole body was locked in place, but my heartbeat was thrashing. Loud and chaotic and useless.

"Oh my God," Audrey whispered beside me, and I couldn't even answer her.

Luna was already yelling, already on her feet, shouting something at Julian-at the ref-at the world. She looked like someone who would rip the ice open herself if that's what it took to get to her daughter. I couldn't blame her. If I could've moved, I would've done the same.

I just kept staring at Millie.

Or what I could see of her. The trainers swarmed so fast, I barely got a glimpse of her face. But I saw the fall. I saw the way her head hit. The sound it made. That awful, wet crack. I'll never unhear it.

She wasn't wearing her helmet.

She wasn't wearing her fucking helmet.

And I can't stop thinking-that could've been her skull.

That could've been it.

They brought out the stretcher. People around us gasped. Someone behind me said, "Shit, is that Millie Bennett?" and I wanted to turn around and scream don't talk about her like she's not a person. But I didn't. I couldn't.

I think my lips moved. I think I whispered her name.

They lifted her carefully. Like she was made of glass. Like if they touched her wrong, she might disappear.

I didn't even realize I was crying until I blinked and tasted salt.

The hospital is a zoo of reporters. The lights are too bright. Too clean. Too sterile. They smell like bleach and nerves.

They put us in a waiting room. One of those ugly ones with muted grey chairs and magazines nobody actually reads. The kind of place where people sit quiet and still and try to pretend their hearts aren't caving in.

I sit across from Luna. She's holding her coffee cup with both hands, like it's the only thing tethering her to the ground.

My body's here. My mind isn't.

It's back on the ice.

It's back on that moment.

That sound. That fall.

I feel nauseous.

Not just because she's hurt-though God, that's killing me-but because I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to feel this much. I wasn't ready to lose her. Not even a little. Not even for a second.

I press my hands to my knees and try to breathe, but my chest won't cooperate. It feels locked, like someone sealed it shut from the inside.

What if it's serious?

What if it's her spine?

What if she doesn't wake up?

I bite down on my bottom lip until I taste blood. It's the only thing that keeps the panic from spilling out of me like a flood.

Julian finally comes through the double doors.

His shoulders are square, but the line of his jaw is clenched, twitching like he's holding something in.

His mouth presses flat, but it's his eyes that make my stomach drop-red-rimmed, glossy.

Not the usual stormy frustration I'm used to.

Something rawer. Regret, maybe. Something close to grief.

Luna's up before he even stops walking. She launches toward him, her voice low and shaking and loud enough to crack through the sterile calm of the ER.

"You knew she was hurt."

Julian blinks, as if he didn't expect this-like he thought he could just deliver the news and walk away clean.

"You knew, Julian," Luna seethes, jabbing her finger into his chest. "She was getting targeted. You knew. You saw it."

"I-" His voice falters. "I didn't think-"

"Exactly. You didn't think," she snaps. "You didn't think. You just left her out there like she was a name on a roster and not my daughter. Not your niece."

Julian rubs a hand down his face, visibly shaking now. "I needed her. We needed her. It was tied, and she-"

"She's not a puppet, Julian!" Luna's voice breaks, raw now, splintered with panic that finally has room to come out. "She's not just your star forward or your strategy or your goddamn clutch player. She is a human being. My baby."

"She's not a baby," he whispers. It's pathetic. Weak. Defensive in a way that says he knows it's not good enough.

"She's mine," Luna growls. "And you knew her shoulder was wrecked. You saw her skating slower. You saw her hit the boards six, seven times and you still didn't pull her. You saw her bleeding! I was screaming at you."

"I know." Julian's voice cracks, and it's not enough. "I heard you."

Luna looks like she might slap him. Her chest rises and falls like she's still standing behind the glass, watching Millie hit the ice. "And you ignored me."

He drops his head, eyes squeezing shut. "Because I believed in her."

"You believed in her more than you protected her," she says, and it's quiet this time.

Quieter than anything else in the room. "And now she's back there with god knows what kind of head injury-because you didn't pull her out.

Your niece, Julian. The baby you held as soon as she was born.

She's not your captain, she's. Your. Niece. "

Silence follows that. Thick. Final.

Julian turns away like he might fall apart right here, right now.

And part of me wants to let him. Let him stew in it.

Because Luna's not wrong.

I watched it too.

I felt it-the pressure they were putting on her.

Every time Millie pushed up the ice, two of them were waiting to slam her into the boards.

Jenna was playing like it was blood sport.

And Millie? She never once asked for out.

Because she doesn't know how to quit.

Because people like Julian made her think quitting means weakness.

And now she's back there-broken or bruised or worse-and I can still see the exact second her helmet hit the ice in front of me.

The doors swing open again, and the breath I've been holding collapses in my chest. Mia bursts into the waiting room like someone ripped her straight from a nightmare.

She's still wearing her coat. She's shaking so hard it looks like she doesn't even know she's moving.

Her face is blotchy, eyes wide and wet and scared.

I've never seen her like this-never seen the always-composed, always-warm Mia look like a ghost of herself.

"Lu?" she gasps, her voice breaking, shattering in the sterile white light. "Where is she? What happened?"

Luna doesn't even speak. She just walks across the room and takes her wife's face in her hands. "She's in with the doctors," she says, voice soft now, like the fight drained out of her all at once. "They're running scans. She hit her head, baby. Her helmet came off."

Mia lets out a sound I don't know how to describe. A sob. A scream. A kind of grief that doesn't even know where to land yet. Her knees give and she stumbles-but Aurora and Summer are there in a heartbeat.

They catch her like they've done it before. Like this family's had practice in holding each other up when the world tilts sideways.

"I-she-God, I can't-" Mia's gasping into Summer's shoulder now, her fingers digging into Aurora's arm.

"It's okay, Mom," Aurora whispers, smoothing her hand over Mia's hair. "We've got her. She's gonna be okay."

"She's hurt," Mia cries. "And I wasn't there. I should've been there."

"No," Luna says fiercely. "This is not on you. Don't you do that, baby."

The three of them are pressed together now, one trembling body holding another, grief and love binding the seams. And somehow, Luna's still standing-just barely-arms wrapped around all of them like she's willing herself to stay upright until she can see her daughter's eyes again.

And me?

I'm still in the chair.

Still frozen. Still staring at the way this family breaks and holds itself at the same time. At the way no one blames each other, not really. Because all the blame is already swallowed by fear.

I'm crying, I don't make a sound, but I'm crying.

Then the door opens.

A woman in navy scrubs steps out, clipboard tucked under one arm, her face drawn and tired. Her eyes scan the room until they land on Luna.

"Bennett's family?" she asks.

Everyone's already on their feet.

Luna's voice is thin. "Yes. We're her mothers."

The doctor nods. "I'm Dr. Paredes. I was the attending when she was brought in. She's stable."

The sound Mia makes could break brick. She folds forward in Summer's arms, and this time it's Luna who holds her. But no one relaxes. Not yet. Because the doctor hasn't stopped talking.

"She took a significant blow to the side of her head. Her helmet came off before the impact. She lost consciousness on the ice and remained unconscious in the ambulance. She came to briefly during the scan but was disoriented. As of now, she's sedated for pain and observation."

Luna flinches. "Is there... bleeding?"

The doctor nods once, carefully. "There's some swelling. A mild traumatic brain injury. The kind we refer to as a grade 3 concussion. Her CT didn't show a skull fracture or any intracranial bleeding, but we're monitoring her closely. If anything changes, we'll know immediately."

Mia's whisper is like paper tearing. "But she's going to wake up?"

"Yes. She already has, briefly. She was confused, combative. That's expected. She knew her name. She told us what day it was. She's a fighter."

"She's a hockey player," Julian chokes out from the back. It's the first thing he's said since she went down.

Everyone turns. He looks wrecked. Voice hollow. "She's always been a fighter."

"She doesn't need to be right now," Luna snaps, and it's not just anger-it's grief. "She needed to be protected."

Dr. Paredes lifts a hand gently. "We're going to keep her for observation at least overnight, possibly longer depending on how the swelling behaves.

The next twelve hours are important. But I'll be honest-considering how hard she hit, she's lucky.

Her scans are cleaner than I expected. No fractures.

No spinal involvement. Her reflexes were present. She's going to be okay."

The room doesn't collapse. It exhales. All at once.

Summer lets go of Mia, just barely. Aurora leans into the wall like her legs forgot how to work. Julian finally sits, his face in his hands. And Luna-Luna stares at the floor like she's trying to breathe in her daughter's stead.

"Can we see her?" Mia asks. She's shaking so badly I'm afraid she'll fall over if someone doesn't anchor her again.

"In small groups, yes. She's still sedated and resting. But she'll know you're there."

She says more-I hear words like monitoring and concussion protocol and observation window-but none of it registers. The doctor gives them a room number, and then she disappears with a soft murmur of take your time.

They move like a tide-soft, staggering, silent. I watch them go: Mia supported between her daughters, Julian walking behind like he doesn't know where else to be, Luna in front, like she can't risk being even one step farther from Millie.

And for the first time since the hit, I move.

It's strange-like surfacing after being held underwater for too long. The lights are too bright. The floor too cold. My body feels detached, like someone else's limbs are moving. My chest is still tight. My hands still tremble. But I need to see her.

I need her.

Only-I don't follow the family. I hang back, frozen by something deeper than fear. Something closer to shame. Because I don't know if I deserve to be the first face she sees.

I'm not blood. I'm not family. I'm not even real, not in the way she deserves. We were supposed to be pretend. Safe. Simple.

And then somewhere along the way-it wasn't.

I don't know when it happened. Maybe it was the first time she looked at me like she already knew what I was going to say.

Maybe it was the way she made me coffee without asking, remembered how I liked it, pushed the mug into my hands without comment and sat next to me in the quiet.

Maybe it was how she made space for me. Always.

Quietly. Without demand.

Maybe it was the night she sat on the kitchen floor with me when I couldn't breathe and just leaned her shoulder against mine, like she knew I'd break if she tried to hold me too tight.

Maybe it was when she made me laugh in the middle of a parking lot, her face pink from the cold, her hoodie three sizes too big and her smile too wide for someone who claimed she wasn't good with people.

I don't know when I started to feel this much. I just know I did.

Aurora is the one who notices I haven't moved. She stops just before the hallway turns, glances over her shoulder, then doubles back. Her footsteps are soft, her face unreadable.

"Harper," she says gently, stopping in front of me. "Come with us," she says, voice quiet. "You're family too."

That word breaks something in me.

Family.

It hits like a bruise I didn't know I had-deep and tender and sudden.

I look up at her, eyes burning, throat thick, and I nod.

It's barely a movement. But she squeezes my wrist gently like she knows what I'm trying to say even if I can't speak it yet.

Then she turns again, guiding me forward, and I follow this time.

On unsteady legs. With too many thoughts and none at all.

We walk down the hall in silence, the fluorescent lights above casting long shadows on the tiled floor.

The cold bites at my arms even though I'm still wearing my coat.

My chest tightens with every step toward the room where Millie is, and all I can think-over and over again-is please let her be okay.

Because I didn't realize how much of me is already hers until I thought I might lose her.

I want her. I want her laughter and her moods.

Her stubbornness. Her shameless flirting and the way she looks at me like she's not pretending at all.

I want her tired eyes and her stupid sweatshirts and her stupid talent.

I want the way she can't stop talking when she's nervous, the way her voice drops when it's just the two of us.

I want to wake up next to her. I want to hold her hand under the covers.

I want to know what it feels like to kiss her without any pretending, without any rules.

We reach the room, and Mia's standing just outside it, her hands wrung together so tightly they're shaking.

Her cheeks are streaked with tears. Her chest rises and falls in quick, uneven bursts, like every breath is a battle.

Aurora's arms wrap around her from behind, and Summer touches her shoulder, grounding her the same way Aurora grounded me.

Their closeness is quiet but fierce. A circle.

A wall. And in the center of all of it-love. Thick and heavy and raw.

And I'm just on the edge of it, not sure if I'm allowed to step in.

But Mia sees me.

And she doesn't hesitate. She reaches out with both hands and pulls me into the hug like I've always belonged there. Like there's no question. And it floors me. The way her hands shake against my back. The way her whole body trembles like she's trying to keep herself from shattering.

"She's awake," she whispers against my ear. Her voice is hoarse. Broken glass on pavement. "She asked for me and Luna first... but she'll want to see you next."

I nod, swallowing hard, the sound catching in my throat like a sob.

"I was right there," I whisper, eyes burning again. "I saw it happen. I saw her fall. I-"

"She's okay," Mia says, as much to herself as to me. "She's okay."

I don't know if she's talking to herself or me- but I don't know how to believe her.