Pucking Road Trip (Bay Rebels #3)

Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles

S hay

Dee, Dee, don’t close your eyes. What if you don’t wake up and leave me alone with the monsters?

I rapidly blink my eyes, forcing away the echoing voice in my mind.

It’s not real.

I’m not back there.

I’m on the ice. This is the evening of the game between the Bay Rebels and the Los Angeles Kings.

It’s a tough game, which the pundits are predicting us to lose.

I’ve promised D’Angelo that I’m not going to fall apart, during the game. I won’t be distracted like he was after his dare.

I can’t be.

We have to win tonight.

The rest of the team is relying on me to score.

What’s there to be scared of? It was only smoke and mirrors in that haunted house. A musty room with a mattress and no light with sound recordings set up next door to freak me out based on what I’d told my therapist.

It wasn’t real.

And I’m free now.

But it bloody doesn’t feel like it.

I force myself to concentrate.

I can’t hear the crowds. I can barely see the rest of the players,

Everything is narrowed down to my stick, the puck in front of me, and the white, white, white all around.

The world is blurred like there are still tears in my eyes.

There aren’t.

Yesterday, in that room, I cried until my eyes were dry again and swollen.

I’m glad that my face is hidden underneath this helmet.

I skate like there’s wind beneath me, as if I’m flying.

Fleeing.

Perhaps, I’m faster on the ice than anyone else because they’re not running away from monsters like I am.

I skate toward the goal as fast as I ran out of Gibbs’ mansion, once the hour was up and the door swung open.

Ran and flung my arms around Eden, refusing to let go.

Ran from my haunted past.

Thumps, smacks, a kid’s desperate sobs…

All of a sudden, a LA Kings’ defenseman swerves in front of me.

I’m too lost in my head to see him, until it’s too late.

But my mind clears, snapped into sharp focus at the challenge.

I don’t bloody think so, Your Majesty .

Adrenaline rushes through me, as I don’t drop my speed, but instead, fake going wide.

Then immediately, I take a quick glance at the goal.

A lot of blokes shoot the puck at the net. But I shoot to bloody score.

And I do.

Suddenly, it’s like the lights and sound have been turned on in the arena.

I stagger from the sound of the crowd exploding with joy. I squint against the bright lights.

My teammates are offering each other fist bumps in celebration.

I don’t raise my stick, however, or even smile.

Everyone is watching me.

Suddenly, I feel lost.

“Dee,” I mutter.

I stare down at my hands in my gloves, confused.

They don’t feel like they belong to me. This uniform with its pads, tight socks, and polyester jersey feels too constricting.

I’m trapped.

I need to escape.

I begin to pull at the strap on my helmet, but then someone wraps their arms around me in a celebratory hug.

“Deep breaths,” a calming, familiar voice whispers. “I’ve got you.”

I raise my hands, clutching onto the man’s strong shoulders. I take deep breaths of his masculine scent.

“That’s it.” D’Angelo — it’s my captain — continues. I know that he has to let go of me now with the whole arena and everyone watching but I don’t want him to. “You should enjoy this moment. You’ve been lighting up the lamp all evening. Both teams have three goals. We need one more, and I bet that’ll be enough to win. This has been hard on you, but I’m with you. You’re not alone. We’ll kick these Kings’ asses and show them who the true ice royalty are. We can do this together, right?”

He pulls back, giving me a piercing look.

I struggle to meet his frosty gaze, nodding.

He gives a curt nod, skating away to the face-off zone.

I glance to the side of the rink.

Robyn and Eden are standing together on the other side of the glass.

Robyn catches my gaze, grinning.

She’s wrapped up in a long coat, as well as Eden’s gray scarf and gloves. Also, a woolen hat that Eden insisted on going out to buy for her, which makes her look like an elf. Her hair still splays around her like tentacles, when she jumps up and down in excitement.

She waves at me.

I force myself to raise my stick in answer.

Guilt slams through me, however, when my gaze darts to Eden standing at Robyn’s side.

Eden’s shoulders are hunched in a way that tells me that his ribs are hurting.

He’s been pushing himself too hard. The long hours in the RV are bad for his recovery. I better make sure that he’s truly giving himself enough time for his physiotherapy exercises.

Yet he’s doing this trip to support me.

He’s taken every step of his life to stay with me.

My shadow.

Shakily, I turn away from them both.

I didn’t think that anyone could accept or understand me in the way that my brother does, but then Robyn burst like a klutzy angel into my life.

I don’t deserve either of them.

I let them both down yesterday.

My stomach twists.

I didn’t tell Robyn. I couldn’t.

How could I admit that I tried to escape the Room? I’d have run from the haunted house before the hour was up, if the door hadn’t been locked, failing the dare.

Shit, I’d have been the bastard who wrecked her family.

It’s the same way that I let down my own brother by not being able to protect him, when we were kids.

That eats me up.

I spent our entire childhoods trying to make up for it, but no matter what I do, it’s never going to be enough.

After that long hour trapped in the dark with only my demons, I see that fucking clearly now.

My heart beats faster.

I slowly skate to line up to face the Kings in a circle.

One more goal...

My hands are sweaty, slipping on my stick. I clutch it tighter, white knuckled.

Finally, the referee drops the puck between D’Angelo and the Kings’ center. They battle for it, and D’Angelo wins.

I turn quickly, making for the goal and working to get myself in a position that he can pass to me.

We’re good at this.

D’Angelo and I have an intuitive understanding of each other’s play. It gives us the edge.

For the first time, my normal thrill at playing rushes through me. I smile, glancing at the net. I find open space to the side and a brilliant position, from which to shoot.

D’Angelo has set me up on the perfect goal.

He raises his stick and passes the puck to me.

To my shock, all six feet six solid muscle of Minchew, the Kings’ left defenseman, barrels into me. He’s hardly even pretending that he’s going for the puck.

Minchew elbows me in the stomach with the butt end of his stick.

I wheeze, unable to breath.

Bent over, I suck in desperate gasps of air.

I don’t know where the puck’s gone.

I’ve lost it.

When Minchew slams me back against the boards, my back protests.

“B-b-bastard,” I gasp out.

But for a moment, I revel in the pain.

Since the moment that door slammed shut in the haunted house, and I realized that I was back in the Room, this is what I’ve needed: The clear, simplicity of physical pain.

It hurts less than emotional pain.

It blocks memories and spiraling thoughts from my mind.

I clasp my bruised stomach, peering up at Minchew, who’s still casually caging me.

I hate that I’m the shortest player on the rink.

Minchew’s long, auburn hair flows out of his helmet, matching his stubbly beard.

“Some kind of fucking hero, huh?” Minchew leans closer. “You’re a newbie who doesn’t know shit. You just got lucky. So, don’t go thinking that you deserve to win, sunshine.”

He starts to turn away.

I should let him.

Minchew’s only venting because he’s pissed at how well the Bay Rebels are playing. He’s reached the playoffs three times already, but I’ve been schooling him this game.

Fucking hero?

My chest is tight. The sound of thumps and slaps echo around my mind.

I drop my stick, holding my hands over my ears.

Minchew twists back to me, narrowing his eyes at me in confusion.

Suddenly, I’m desperate for more pain — anything — to make the memories in my head quieten.

“If I’m lucky, then your bad luck in this game must be karma for being such an arsehole,” I spit my chirp at him like a challenge.

Hit me.

I may as well have yelled it.

Minchew stares at me in surprise. “What?”

“Or is it that you’re too old to win, grandpa?” I tilt up my chin. “Do the nurses know that you left the care home? Wait, does your coach even know that you’re out here?”

I used this trick at high school.

When I needed pain to block out everything that I couldn’t face, I’d allow the class bully to corner me. Then I’d talk back with as much sass as possible.

It wasn’t difficult for me to be a brat.

I never dared use the same trick with Blythe. She hurt me enough, even when I was trying to be good.

I can’t suppress this urge to get what I deserve .

D’Angelo is too good a man to treat me like this. No matter how much I screw up, break the rules, or brat, he’s never harmed me.

I don’t understand why.

And Eden would cut off his own hands, before he laid one on me.

Minchew slowly and deliberately pulls off his gloves, followed by his helmet. He throws them onto the ice.

He looks at me expectantly like he expects me to follow suit and join in the fight.

I don’t.

This isn’t a fight.

It’s a beating.

“Shay,” I hear D’Angelo’s desperate call from behind Minchew.

But it’s too late.

Minchew shrugs like he doesn’t care that this is one-sided. “It looks like I need to teach this newbie a lesson about what happens to mouthy shits.”

When Minchew punches me in my bruised stomach, I double over in agony. I wrap my arms around myself, but it’s no protection from the flurry of blows to my chest.

I close my eyes. Submitting to it. Falling into the pain.

I force my arms to drop to my sides, no longer protecting myself.

I’m a sacrificial offering.

I’m sorry, Robyn. I’m sorry, Dee.