Page 59 of The Fall

Thirty

Blair powers through defenders like water breaking stone, and I trail in his slipstream the way we’ve done a thousand times.

The puck flows between us, from his tape to mine, mine back to his.

I read the shift in his shoulders, how his weight loads onto his left edge.

I know that tilt of his hips as if I caress them every night.

That subtle drop on his right tells me everything: he’s cutting center ice, driving hard for the slot.

My skates bite ice as I wheel toward open space, ready for the give-and-go we’ve perfected, and?—

The hit comes from his blind side.

The defenseman catches him square in the numbers, where you never, never drive a man into glass.

Blair’s body folds wrong, neck whipping forward as momentum carries him face-first into unforgiving boards.

The sound splits through the arena, that sick crack of helmet meeting plexiglass, body meeting barrier.

My skates are already eating up ice before Blair falls, before his body slides down the boards in slow motion, his jersey riding up to expose the curve of his lower back. Before his stick clatters away, forgotten.

Players from both benches are standing. The ref’s whistle screams.

Blair’s arm drags beneath him, fingers splayed as he tries to push himself up. His knees slide, searching for purchase that won’t come. His body fights to remember how to work—God, I’ve never seen him like this.

Hollow drops beside him, one gloved hand steady between Blair’s shoulder blades, but Blair shakes his head, stubborn even now. He gets his skates under him for half a second before his legs betray him. He folds forward, forehead meeting ice, and stays there.

This is Blair who played three periods with separated ribs.

Blair who took seven stitches between the second and third and came back to score.

Blair who treats pain like background noise, who wears bruises like medals.

He plays broken and breathless and gets back up like he’s Lazarus with duct tape.

But he’s not getting up now.

The bastard—number thirteen—who laid him out is coasting backward toward his bench.

All that exists is the space between me and number thirteen, that coward already skating away like what he did was clean.

I’ve spent too fucking long swallowing every wrong thing.

My gloves hit the ice before I even decide to drop them. The sound of them landing—two soft thuds that mean everything’s about to change—cuts through the arena noise. Number thirteen turns as I reach him, his eyes widening behind his visor.

Good.

I’ve played clean my whole career. Never answered a dirty hit, never let the rage win. Coach’s voice lives in my head: Stay disciplined, Kendrick. Let the scoreboard do the talking. But Blair’s still not up, and all those rules I’ve lived by dissolve.

My shoulder drives into his chest first, knocking him back. His hands come up but I’m already swinging, my bare fist connecting with the side of his jaw hard enough to split skin.

There’s no grace to this. I’ve been in hockey since I was six and I’ve never thrown a punch, but I throw them now, and I throw them like I mean it, coming up from my skates and swinging from my heels. I go at him like I want him to remember me for the rest of his life.

He gets a punch of his own in, but I’m not feeling anything except the adrenaline. Hayes is calling my name, the linesmen are shouting, but I’m not stopping until someone pulls me off.

We hit the ice; my forearm digs into his neck. My gloves are gone, my knuckles are red, and the crowd has flipped to frenzy.

When the stripes finally wedge between us, I’m panting, my helmet is askew, and my heart is high in my throat. I’m roaring; I don’t know what I’m saying, but I know what I want—I want to hit him again.

“Skate it off, champ,” one of the linesmen barks at me. He has the collar of my jersey in his fist. “Cool down in the box.”

I shake the linesman off. I’m not trying to make it ten—or a game—but I’m still red-hot. My adrenaline is screaming.

Blair’s not on the ice.

Hayes skates to the bin, grinning around his mouthguard with my stick, gloves, and helmet all collected. The fuck is he happy about?

“Is he okay?” I bark.

“Calle’s okay, hotshot. He’s in the room, and he walked off on his own.”

I breathe. I look Hayes in the eyes. “He’s okay?”

“He’s okay.”

“You saw the hit?”

“Yeah, I saw it, and I saw you, too. You good?”

I breathe out hard, blink twice. My tunnel vision recedes; my heart thunders, an ocean roar in my ears.

“Yeah,” I tell Hayes. “I’m good.” My voice doesn’t sound like mine.

Hayes’s grin widens. “Didn’t know you had that in you. You absolutely fucking annihilated that dude.”

“Get in there before they add another two,” Hayes says, nudging me toward the box with the butt end of his stick.

The penalty box door swings open and I drop onto the bench. My right hand throbs, my knuckles split and swelling already. I flex my hand. Nothing broken, but tomorrow’s going to hurt like hell. “You’re sure Blair’s okay?”

“I’m sure. They’re checking him out, but he’s good.” Hayes passes my stick through the opening. “He was chirping at the trainer about missing his next shift.”

A smile threatens, but doesn’t form. That sounds like Blair.

The crowd’s still buzzing, half of them on their feet. Some kid in a Calle jersey pounds on the glass behind me. The scoreboard replays the hit in slow motion, and my stomach turns watching Blair’s head snap forward again.

Then they show me. Gloves dropping. That first swing connecting. The way I drove him down, my fist coming up red. Jesus.

Hayes taps his stick against the boards. “Thirteen’s getting five and a game. Boarding major.”

My breathing starts to slow, but the fury is still there. I have seven minutes in this box while Blair’s getting his brain checked. I’m lucky I’m not thrown out, but the refs are allowing a little yard justice tonight.

Blair’s going to be okay. He’s off the ice. He walked off on his own.

Seven minutes feels like seven hours. The game moves around me—passes, checks, the crowd rising and falling with each rush—but all I see is Blair’s body folding wrong, that terrible angle of his neck, how his fingers dragged across ice like he was trying to hold onto consciousness.

The penalty clock ticks down: 5:42... 5:41... 5:40...

My adrenaline won’t quit; it keeps flooding through me in waves, making my hands shake, making me want to climb over these boards and find number thirteen in his dressing room, make sure he understands exactly what happens when someone goes after Blair.

A whistle blows. Face-off in our zone. Nolan loses the draw, and the puck slides back to their point man. He winds up, but the shot rings off the post next to Axel.

3:17... 3:16... 3:15...

Hayes skates past the box on a line change and taps the glass with his stick.

1:48... 1:47... 1:46...

I stand even though there’s still time left.

The ref glances over, but doesn’t say anything.

Maybe he saw the hit. Maybe he understands why my knuckles are bleeding, why I can’t sit still while Blair’s in the bowels of this arena getting his pupils checked and his neck examined, answering the same questions over and over: What’s your name?

What day is it? Do you know where you are?

0:32... 0:31... 0:30...

Someone bangs on the glass behind my head but I don’t turn. My eyes track the digital numbers counting down.

The penalty box attendant reaches for the door handle.

0:02... 0:01... 0:00.

I feel Blair’s absence like a missing rib; his shadow should split from mine when I take the ice. I explode out of the box; Hawks threads his pass through three bodies, the puck sliding flat and fast toward my tape.

The rubber kisses my blade as a defenseman clips me. I absorb the contact, legs churning harder. Another defender converges from my right, stick extended, trying to lift mine. Too late—I’m already gone. The blue line passes beneath my skates; I have open ice and a breakaway.

My quads burn as I load my weight onto my back foot. Everything lines up the way Blair taught me. Feel the torque build from your edges up, he said, his hand on my lower back, adjusting my stance. I pull my stick back, way back, loading every ounce of fury and fear and love into the wind-up.

My blade meets rubber with a crack like thunder?—

And my shaft shears apart in my grasp, the head of my stick cartwheeling toward the boards. The follow-through yanks me sideways, empty air where my blade should be. But I got the shot off; the goalie tries to get his pad on my puck, but it rockets past his blocker and slams into the twine.

I raise what’s left of my broken stick overhead, then toss it down, half-staggering to the corner where the guys are already charging. They crash into me, slapping my shoulders and screaming in my ears.

But I don’t hear their shouts. I only hear the crack of the boards when Blair went down.

Blair’s waiting for me when I come off the ice after the final horn.

He’s out of his gear and dressed in shorts and T-shirt, and he’s got a hard look in his eyes. My heart leaps as he jerks his chin down the hallway, separating us from the rest of the team.

I follow him around the corner. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He stops walking and turns to face me. I’m still in my gear and skates, but when he squares up to me, we’re still eye-to-eye. “Doc cleared me.”

“Good. That’s—that’s good.”

My voice catches on the last word. My hands want to reach for him, to check for myself. Take his chin, trace the spot where his head snapped forward, but I hold back.

“What the fuck was that out there?” Blair growls.

My rage flares up again. “He boarded you. He could have broken your neck.”

His eyes narrow. “I don’t need you to fight my battles.”