My shoulder slams into his chest, driving him back into the boards with a crack that echoes through the arena. My glove’s off before he can breathe. My fist follows.
Knuckles meet jaw.
Steel meets bone.
The barn erupts.
Wrangler throws wild, sloppy. I don’t care. I pin him against the glass, fists carving every cheap second out of him. The refs swarm, the linesmen grabbing at my arms, the whistle shrieking like it can cut through me. It can’t.
I get one last punch in—clean, hard, enough to drop him—before they drag me back. The Wranglers are howling, the crowd’s on fire, red lights blazing. And Elias—
He’s back on his knees, shaking it off, eyes wide as he looks at me through the cage.
I don’t break eye contact. Not for the refs, not for the Wranglers, not for the penalties about to pile down on my head.
The linesmen shove me through the gate, my skates cutting grooves in the ice as I let them. The box door closes behind me, glass humming with the crowd’s roar. I drop onto the bench, roll my shoulders, flex my taped knuckles once. Blood blooms under the skin. Doesn’t matter.
I sit back, calm as stone. Five minutes. They can spare me that long.
Elias is still on the ice.
Kid should’ve gone down, should’ve limped off, should’ve let the trainers check him after that hit. But no. He waves the ref off, grips his stick tighter, and lines up for the draw like he’s never been hit in his life.
Good.
Wranglers tease him from the circle. I can see their mouths moving through the cage, spitting filth. Elias just grins—sharp, feral, reckless—and waits for the puck.
Drop.
Clash.
Win.
He rips it clean, bursts forward with speed that burns. Wranglers try to pin him again, bodies colliding, sticks hacking, but he fights through. Teeth bared, legs driving like I drilled into him until his lungs bleed.
Then—shot.
Wrister, hard and filthy, past their goalie’s glove. Net rips. Horn detonates.
The barn explodes.
Elias doesn’t celebrate with the boys. Doesn’t slam Cole’s helmet, doesn’t tap Mats’s gloves. He turns straight for me.
Straight for the box.
Grin wide, chest heaving, eyes blazing. He slams his stick against the glass right in front of me—BANG, BANG—eyes locked on mine. A salute. A taunt. A promise.
For me.
The crowd eats it alive, chanting his name, the whole bench pounding sticks, Cole howling like he’s on TV. But Elias doesn’t break my gaze. Doesn’t even blink.
Good little attack dog.
I let the corner of my mouth curl slow, sharp, enough for him to see it through the glass. His grin only widens, feral, like he’d bleed himself out on this ice just to earn another one.
Second period ends 3–1. Barn’s a riot of smoke, red lights, fans banging on the glass like they’ll tear it down. Wranglers look wrecked, our bench rides high, and Elias—he’s grinning through the cage like he hasn’t been nailed into the boards once already.
I don’t buy it.
