Chapter Eight: Too Close

Rory I got hit so hard during the scrimmage that I saw a brief, unwanted preview of the afterlife, and it looked exactly like the Thornebridge rink ceiling. It was supposed to be a controlled drill — full contact, sure, but *controlled*, the kind of word coaches use right before something goes sideways. I'd been playing like I had something to prove, which, in fairness, I did, and I'd been doing a genuinely excellent job of proving it right up until I got caught watching the play develop instead of watching my own blind side. The hit came from the left, low and mean, and the boards met my shoulder blade with the kind of enthusiasm that made stars actually happen, not the cartoon kind, real ones, sparking at the edges of my vision while the wind left my body in one long undignified wheeze. "Monroe's down," someone called, and then there were skates everywhere, a crowd forming with the specific chaotic energy of nineteen-year-old boys who've just watched their new favorite person eat the boards. Duval got to me first, which was, of everyone on the roster, statistically the worst possible outcome. Duval had spent two weeks being quietly furious that a transfer had taken a starting spot he'd been chasing since freshman year, and while I didn't think he'd actually hurt me on purpose, I also didn't think concern for my well-being ranked particularly high on his list of priorities in this exact moment. "You good?" he asked, already reaching for my jersey collar, the universal hockey gesture for *let me see if you're bleeding anywhere important,* his fingers catching the edge of the fabric before I could get a hand up to stop him. "I'm fine," I gasped, which was a lie on at least two separate levels, and grabbed his wrist harder than the moment probably called for. "You're not fine, you took that shoulder-first, let me just —" "Duval." My voice cracked on the word, half from pain and half from pure adrenaline-soaked panic, because his fingers were an inch from the edge of the compression gear and one more inch was the difference between my entire life staying intact and my entire life ending in a rink full of witnesses. "I said I'm fine." He froze, hand still hovering, reading something in my face that clearly wasn't matching the words coming out of my mouth. "Okay," he said slowly, backing off half an inch. "Jesus. Okay. Didn't realize it was a whole thing." It was, in fact, a whole thing. It was several whole things stacked on top of each other like a very poorly built tower. Coach Reyes arrived a beat later, cutting through the crowd of gawking teammates with the brisk efficiency of a man who's seen a thousand collisions and doesn't intend to let this one turn into a group therapy session. "Give him room," he barked, already crouching beside me, hands moving with practiced precision toward my shoulder, my ribs, the exact zone where a normal trainer check would head next. "I'm okay," I said again, louder this time, trying to sit up before he could get any further, which — bad plan, immediately punished by a fresh wave of pain that made the rink tilt sideways for a second. "You're not moving until I say you're moving." He said it without heat, the flat authority of a man who's used to being obeyed. "Let me check the shoulder." "Coach, seriously, I've had worse. I just need a minute." He paused, hand still hovering near my jersey, and studied me — not suspiciously exactly, more like he was recalibrating something, the same unreadable weight of a look he'd given me during tryouts. For one horrible second I thought he was going to override me entirely, haul the jersey up right there in front of God and the entire roster, and I had absolutely nothing left in the tank to stop him if he did. "Trainer's room," he said instead, slow, deliberate, like he was making a decision he wasn't fully explaining even to himself. "Private evaluation, like your file says. Go." Relief hit me so hard it was almost worse than the original impact. "Yes, sir," I managed, and let Cole — who'd appeared out of nowhere with the easy competence of someone used to hauling injured teammates off the ice — help me up and steer me toward the tunnel, away from Duval's still-narrowed eyes, away from the huddle of teammates already speculating in low voices about whether I'd be back for the next drill. "You gotta stop scaring us like that, Rookie," Cole said, mostly joking, mostly not. "Jarvis about had a heart attack on the bench." "Tell Jarvis I appreciate the concern and to please stop having heart attacks on my behalf, it's bad for team morale." He laughed, delivered me to the trainer's room door, and left me alone with my racing pulse and the sudden, sick realization of exactly how close that had actually been — close enough that Duval's fingers were still, in my memory, an inch from disaster, close enough that Coach Reyes's hand had hovered exactly where it needed to not go. I sat on the trainer's table catching my breath, shoulder throbbing, adrenaline finally starting to ebb into something closer to nausea, and thought, with a clarity that scared me more than the hit itself had: *This can't keep happening. One of these times, somebody's hand is going to land an inch further than this one did, and there won't be a coach's private-room policy standing between me and the end of everything.* The door opened without a knock. I looked up, already bracing for the trainer, and found Dray standing in the doorway instead, gaze sweeping over me — the wince I hadn't fully hidden, the careful way I was holding my shoulder, the general disaster of the whole scene — with an expression that had nothing to do with concern for a hockey injury and everything to do with a man confirming a theory he'd already been building for weeks. "Heard you went down hard," he said, stepping inside and closing the door behind him with a quiet, deliberate click. "Wanted to see it for myself."