Page 36 of The Players We Hate (Rixton U #2)

Talon

The second the puck dropped, it wasn’t hockey anymore. It was a fight against the pressure chewing us up from the inside.

It sat heavy in my chest, every shift harder to breathe.

The arena spun in black, purple, and aqua, lights flashing off the glass.

The crowd was deafening, but it all blurred into static.

What cut through were the dead spots—the groan after a blown pass, the hollow thud when a shot smacked the post and died.

We weren’t playing. We were hanging on by a thread.

Every whistle chipped at us. Our systems were shot, breakouts sluggish.

I saw it in Kade’s hesitation on a rotation.

In the twitch of Rowdy’s glove after a save.

In the way Owen’s shoulders locked as he crouched over the circle.

Even I couldn’t shut it out—choking my stick until my hands ached, trying to squeeze the noise out of my head.

By the second period, we were down one. Then two.

It wasn’t because they were better. It was because we were broken .

The bench felt dead, energy bottled up with nowhere to go. Coach Dawson barked until his voice cracked, but nothing caught. The weight of everything off the ice had bled into this one—scandals, headlines, whispers we couldn’t skate away from. It was in our lungs, our legs, our bones.

The sound of the buzzer lingered, not as closure, but as judgment.

I skated for the tunnel, staring straight ahead, blocking out the other bench’s roar. My lungs burned, not from effort, but from the hollow ache of knowing it wasn’t just a loss on the scoreboard. We’d lost the last chance to control the story.

Inside the locker room, no one spoke.

You’d expect a blow-up—helmets thrown, sticks cracked. But nothing. Just the hiss of showers in the back, the rip of velcro as pads peeled away.

Rowdy sagged onto the bench, chest heaving, gear sliding off him like it was too heavy to wear. Kade leaned back in his stall, eyes shut, jaw tight. Owen dropped to the floor, forearms braced on his knees, sweat dripping steady as he stared at the tile.

And me? I sat there with my jersey bunched in my hands, twisting the number until the fabric knotted.

My head wouldn’t stop spinning. My mom. Wren. Everything we’d fought through to get here. And it still wasn’t enough.

The air in the room pressed down, thick and suffocating.

Finally, Owen’s voice cut through, low and rough. “This whole year,” he muttered, eyes still on the floor, “we were fighting ghosts. Chasing something that was already lost. ”

Kade didn’t lift his head, but his words cut through the quiet. “Ghosts don’t hack game tape or funnel money through fake charities.”

“No,” I said, slower this time. “People do.”

Rowdy let out a laugh that didn’t sound like him. Bitter, sharp around the edges. “Guess we were never playing on even ground, huh?”

No one answered. The silence that followed was heavier than anything the scoreboard could throw at us.

For the first time, I didn’t feel like a captain. I felt like a kid again, beaten down by a loss I couldn’t fix with harder hits or one more desperate power play.

The silence that followed wasn’t the usual kind. Not the hush after a bad play or the low grumble of fans heading for the exits. This one stuck, pressing down in my chest and refusing to move.

Coach cleared his throat once, like he had a speech lined up—the kind he usually gave after a loss. But nothing came. Just a tight jaw, a single nod, and then he walked out without a word.

We hadn’t just played distracted. We’d played weighed down, the truth dragging at every stride until there was nothing left in us. Maybe that was exactly what happened.

I stayed hunched forward, forearms on my knees, staring at the same patch of rubber floor until my vision blurred. My jersey lay crumpled across my lap, sweat-soaked and shapeless, something I barely recognized.

One by one, the guys filed out, heads down, too ashamed to meet anyone’s eyes. I couldn’t blame them. We weren’t used to this. We were the team that pulled miracles in the last five minutes, that found ways to win when we had no business winning.

But tonight there was nothing. No spark. No comeback.

I stood slower than I meant to, shoved my jersey into my duffel, and hauled it over my shoulder. Everything ached—not just from the game, but from months of carrying more than I should’ve, holding it in until it set deep in my bones.

I didn’t stop. Didn’t wait for PR or the reporters crowding the tunnel. Not yet. I kept moving—down the tunnel, through the back hall, into the cool dim light behind the arena.

That’s where I saw her. Wren. Leaning against the wall near the players’ entrance, arms crossed, wearing one of my old hoodies like it belonged to her. Her hair was pulled into a messy bun, strands falling loose. Her eyes caught mine the second I stepped out, and everything in me went still.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

I stopped in front of her, the overhead lights throwing our shadows long across the floor.

“You okay?” she asked, her voice soft.

I swallowed hard, my throat thick. “We lost.”

“I know.” She didn’t look away. “You had more than the season weighing on your shoulders tonight. You were defending everything else that had come with it, too.”

My jaw tightened as I dropped my gaze to the floor. “Doesn’t feel like I carried it well.”

She moved closer, her fingers threading through mine. They were cold at first, then warmer as she held on, steady in a way that anchored me .

“We told the truth,” she said quietly. “We didn’t let them bury it. You didn’t let them win.”

The breath that left me came rough, jagged, like it had been lodged in my chest all night.

“I thought if we won, it would make it worth it. Maybe I could undo what happened to my sister. Make being away from my mom when she needed me mean something. That somehow, winning would give it all a purpose.”

“And now?” she asked.

I forced myself to meet her eyes. “Now I just hope it’s enough to change what comes next.”

Wren stepped in, closing the last bit of distance between us until I could feel her breath. She cupped my face, her thumb brushing slowly along my jaw.

“You don’t have to fix everything, Talon.”

Her words hit deep, heavy in my chest, but at the same time, they loosened something that had been locked tight inside me.

“You just had to stop carrying it alone.”

My eyes closed at the feel of her touch. At the quiet truth in her voice. The way she was still here, still standing beside me after everything.

I leaned in until my forehead rested against hers, my voice so low it barely left my throat. “Thank you.”

Her breath warmed against mine. We lingered there for a beat before I closed the space and kissed her. It was simple, certain, the kind of kiss that left no doubt what I wanted.

When I pulled back, she didn’t move far. Her hand stayed on my jaw, her eyes steady on mine, cutting through every wall I’d put up .

All season, I’d been afraid of being seen with her, worried about what would happen once it got back to her dad. Not anymore.

With Wren beside me, with the truth out and the secrets burned down to nothing, I didn’t feel like a pawn in someone else’s game. It wasn’t everything, but it was enough.

The press room was brutal. Bright lights in my face, voices firing questions from every angle. They didn’t want answers. They wanted to pick me apart and see what was left.

Hands shot up before I even reached for the mic. Red lights blinked from the cameras, waiting to catch every word, every slip, like they were hoping I’d hand them something bigger than the game.

“Pierce,” one reporter called, his tone too polished to be casual, “how much did the off-ice controversy play into your team’s focus in tonight’s semifinal?”

I gave them what they wanted. A safe line about staying locked in, about giving it everything we had, about how proud I was of the guys in the room.

But I could feel the shift building. The kind of pause that settles over a room before the real question lands.

“Given your relationship with Wren Perry… do you feel like that complicated your commitment to the team this season? Especially considering her alleged involvement with the compliance leaks?”

I drew in a slow breath through my nose, steadying myself. I could’ve played it safe, given them some canned line about focus and professionalism, but I made a promise that I wasn’t going to hide anymore. I certainly wouldn’t hide what I have now with Wren .

I leaned toward the mic, elbows braced on the table, eyes locked on the rows of cameras and flashing bulbs.

“If you’re asking whether my relationship with Wren Perry made this season harder…” I let the words hang, made them wait. “Yeah. It did.”

The room shifted. Murmurs rippled out, thin and sharp, like glass starting to crack.

“Except it’s not for the reason you think.”

My pulse hammered against my ribs. I didn’t glance at the moderator. Didn’t wait for anyone to shut me down.

“Her name isn’t the problem,” I said, my voice steady. “The system is.”

The room went still. Reporters stopped writing. A camera jerked as someone rushed to zoom in. The moderator started to speak, but I kept going.

“I’ve worn this letter on my chest all season.

” My hand pressed flat to the captain’s patch.

“I’ve played through injuries, through the noise, through threats.

But none of that came close to learning the truth—that the game we’ve bled for was being sold off behind closed doors.

That players were being bribed, silenced, and tossed aside. ”

My gaze swept the room. I wasn’t speaking just to the press anymore.

“Wren didn’t ruin our season. She didn’t distract me from my team. She’s the reason we held it together at all.”

I pushed back from the table, the chair legs scraping against the tile like a door slamming shut. “So if you want something worth writing, write this. She told the truth when no one else would.”

The shouts followed me down the hall, sharp and impatient, but I didn’t give them the satisfaction of looking back .

Because in the far corner of the room, just beyond the glare of the cameras, I saw Wren. She wasn’t slipping away, hiding like the media wanted to believe she would. She was here, standing at the back of the media room, her arms wrapped around herself like she wasn’t sure if she belonged.

Our eyes caught, and for a second, the noise of reporters and cameras faded into nothing.

When I said her name, when I told them she wasn’t the problem and that the system was, I saw it hit her. Not with quiet tears, but with something deeper, the kind of break that comes when you’ve been holding it all in for too long.

She hadn’t cried when her father’s administration dragged her through the mud. She hadn’t cried when the threats poured in, or when the team kept her at arm’s length. She hadn’t even cried the first time she stood up to her parents and told them she wouldn’t be their shield anymore.

But when I said her name like it mattered, she let go.

And at that moment, I knew we had already won something bigger than a season. Bigger than a trophy or a title.

We had won a truth that couldn’t be buried again. And I would fight for it, fight for her, every single time if it came to that.