Page 40 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

LAKE EFFECT

Sebastian

The snow was getting away from us. What had started out as flurries had worsened steadily throughout the game.

Lake-effect snow, they called it. I knew that, because we’d had it in Ottawa, too.

A good six inches had settled on the field in the second half, and it was still coming, swirling so hard it was difficult to see twenty yards ahead.

The grounds crew was out there during every break clearing the line stripes and the sidelines, so you could more or less tell where you were, but that was all.

I stood on the sideline with my hands stuffed into my parka the way I’d told Kristiansen I would, but I didn’t feel anything like as calm and confident as I’d tried to come across.

The only contribution I’d made so far was an extra point and two kickoffs, and knowing that the Bills hadn’t trusted their own kicker for that extra point in the conditions and had gone for two instead, which hadn’t worked? Cold comfort. Literally.

The Bills to the 24. A slant pass, a run, and a first down on the 13. Six minutes left in the game, and they weren’t hurrying to use any of them. Running out the clock.

Another TV break for the first down, and some more frantic clearing of the field.

The defense down almost at the goal line, huddled like a herd of sheep against the storm, barely visible through the blowing snow.

And beside me, Kelsan Simmons, the undersized, undrafted twenty-three-year-old who’d won the kick-returner job by sheer force of will—and by outworking everybody else—said, “Damn,” and beat his gloved hands together to keep them warm.

“Too early to say that,” I told him.

“Nah, man,” he said absently, his eyes on the field as the Bills ran yet another short passing play. The QB backpedaled, swiveled—and was sacked by Dante Culpepper, who jumped up and did some chest-thumping. I couldn’t blame him. Beside me, Simmons said, “I just want to get out there.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Me, too. You know the hardest part of this job?”

“What,” Simmons said, “getting the ball to go through the pointy things?”

“No,” I said. “Not getting the chance to.”

“Yeah,” he said, then was jumping, still beating his hands together in the way of a 23-year-old with too many fast-twitch muscle fibers and a total inability to sit still.

The Devils had just stopped the Bills again.

This time, the QB had got the pass off, but it had only reached the original line of scrimmage.

“Third down,” Simmons said unnecessarily. “Come on. Come on.”

The Bills were set up in a running formation.

Made sense, because the snow was even heavier now, blowing nearly horizontally from the north.

The ball was snapped into the QB’s hands where he stood under center, and he was turning to hand it to the running back, who took it and was instantly darting, twisting.

Wait. Play action. The QB still had the ball, and he shot it hard and low, the only way to get momentum on it in this wind, to his tight end.

Foxworth, that was. His gloved hands closed around it halfway between those last two cleared lines, the 10 and the goal line, his feet already moving as the crowd roared into life like some enormous, headless animal, because as far as I could tell, nobody had gone home.

Inches of snow covering them, and they were still there, still willing their team on.

Boom. Something like a freight train smashed into Foxworth even as the ball hit his hands.

His feet were still moving, but the slippery, icy ball had squirted out, was bouncing.

A groan from the crowd, and another Devils player picked it up and started to run.

I was jumping myself now, but the whistle blew and the runner stopped.

Not a fumble, or not ruled that way. Incomplete pass.

Simmons and I were both clapping, then I was shoving my hands under my arms to warm them and so was he. My heart had picked up speed, and I couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. My eyes were on the field, where the field-goal unit was trotting out.

Twenty-seven yards, my mind automatically informed me. No kind of gimme in the wind and snow, but Carlos Alvarez was a good kicker despite that earlier choice by his coach, and he’d have learned something about winter after kicking here all season.

A good snap, Alverez’s leg up, his helmet down, and the ball sailing … sailing wide right?

The ball hit the upright, and I was frozen, watching. A half-second that felt like a minute, and it had bounced left. And gone through.

Not 7 to 6 anymore. 7 to 9.

And the clock ticking down toward the two-minute warning.

I hadn’t been calm all game, but suddenly, I was.

A sort of shield had settled down around me, a bubble of invincibility, a certainty deep down in my chest that all I could do from here was my best, and that I knew how to do that.

I was turning to Simmons just before he ran out with the special-teams unit and saying, “You’ve got some of the best moves I’ve ever seen.

Get out there and show it, and I’ll put it through. We can win this.”

He didn’t say anything, just nodded, but his eyes were big behind his face mask, and I put a quick hand on his shoulder, shook it, and said, “We’ve got two minutes, and we’ve got this. You and me. Let’s go.”

Alix

I was on Sebastian’s second couch, which had arrived earlier today.

Oversized, a practical brown, and built for two.

Of course, Ben wasn’t on his own couch now but beside me instead, his eyes glued to the screen along with mine.

My hands were at my mouth, my heart galloping like it was running for the stables, and I was saying, “Oh, man. Oh, man.”

Ben said, “Why won’t you just let me tell you what happened?

You’re, like, torturing yourself.” I couldn’t tell whether that meant the Devils had won or lost, but I was the one who’d said I didn’t want to know.

A commercial, and Ben said, “Do you want me to make you a cup of tea or something? Sebastian bought some.”

“What?” I turned my head and tried to focus. “Because I’m going to need comforting? Wait. Don’t answer. No. I don’t think I can even hold a cup of tea.”

The endless, stupid insurance commercial went on, featuring people sitting around talking—what was the point of an ad like that, when most people would have it muted?

—and as I was fumbling for the remote to fast-forward, the snow was back.

Also a bunch of blue-clad players lining up like they were in starting blocks, and a bunch of white-clad men opposite them, their helmets and uniforms almost invisible against the snow.

Could your uniform color actually be an advantage?

Please, I thought. Please. I hadn’t seen Sebastian all game long, other than two kickoffs and one extra point, which he’d executed with his usual lack of drama, which meant I couldn’t tell one bit how he was feeling.

The other field-goal kicker had barely made that kick, and it had been from right out in front, so maybe I didn’t want Sebastian to have to try.

How hard would it be if you tried and failed, and they lost?

It would be doing your job, that’s what.

I suddenly realized the word for that quality he had.

Resilience. He didn’t just believe he could come back from anything, he knew it, because he already had.

He’d started over again and again. Now he’d taken in a boy, and he was making that work somehow.

His sister was dying and it was too hard, but he was coping anyway.

You weren’t successful because you always won. You were successful because you never gave up. You gave yourself every chance you could take. You changed course, but you never surrendered.

All of that flashed across my mind in a second, and then the ball was sailing through the air and one of those white-clad figures was catching it.

All the way down near the goal line—I couldn’t tell how close, because you could only see some cleared patches on a few of the stripes —and he was running.

White ghost in white snow, the black numbers on his jersey and the black gloves on his hands almost all you could see of him. Ducking, diving, spinning, somehow keeping his feet in the inches of powdery snow. Hands reaching for him, grabbing, and missing.

Down the field, running like slow motion, slogging through the snow. The noise of the crowd, roaring at their team to stop him, getting louder as a player converged from either side and slammed into him. A collision so fierce, you could swear you felt it right here on your couch.

Three figures in the snow now. Two of them rolling to their feet, and one of them, that white ghost, staying down a minute, then getting up haltingly. Jerkily. The clock showing one minute and forty-three seconds. And a commercial again.

“I can’t,” I was moaning, my hands in my hair. “I can’t.”

“Do you want me to tell you?” Ben asked.

“No,” I said. “How many times do I have to tell you? No!”

“OK,” he said. “Geez. You don’t have to bite my head off.”

“Sorry.” I reached for his hand, and he let me take it as the commercial ended. “I need to hold onto somebody,” I said, “and you’re the only one here.”

“There’s Lexi,” Ben pointed out.

“She’s busy.” In fact, she was stretched across the other couch on her back like it was hers now, her four legs in the air, one of them twitching as she uttered little dream-barks.

Lexi, it seemed, was the most evolved of all of us.

Lexi had no trouble rolling with life. Maybe the solution was to be a dog.