He pulls back enough to look at me, and his face is wrecked—eyes swollen, lashes wet, mouth trembling.
“What… happened?” I ask, blinking slowly, trying to piece it together. My ribs scream. My leg. My shoulder. The side of my head is pounding.
“You were in a crash,” he chokes. “The bus. After the meeting with Coach. It—it caught fire. They said you stopped breathing twice.” He swallows hard. “You flatlined in the ambulance and again in surgery. They didn’t know if you’d wake up. Or if you’d remember. Or…”
He cuts himself off and just clutches me.
I exhale slowly. “Still here,” I rasp, one hand lifting, shaky, slow and cupping the back of his neck. “Still yours.”
He lets out a sound that’s not human. Like I just stitched his heart back together with two words.
Elias moves fast, too fast, but he’s trembling, so I don’t stop him. He grabs the plastic pitcher and pours with hands that still won’t settle. The glass rattles once, then he’s at my side again, holding the straw to my lips like he’s afraid I’ll vanish between blinks.
I drink slowly and painfully. It scratches down my throat, but it’s water, so I don’t complain.
He’s watching me like I’m holy and breakable all at once. “I thought I lost you,” he whispers.
I pull back from the straw and let my head fall back against the pillow. “Never,” I rasp.
The door creaks open before he can say more. A pair of clean white sneakers step in first, followed by a white coat and a face that’s too tired, calm, professional. The doctor gives Elias awary glance, like he’s waiting for him to lunge. Which makes me painfully raise an eyebrow at Elias.
“Mr. Kade,” he says carefully. “Your surgery went well. You suffered multiple internal injuries, a broken femur, three cracked ribs, and blunt force trauma to the head and chest. You coded twice—once en route, and once on the table. We stabilized you. You're lucky to be alive.”
I nod once, slow and careful, and even that tiny movement sends a fresh ache pulsing through my chest, sharp enough to make me wince. But I don’t stop. Because every beat of my heart feels like a miracle I haven’t earned yet, a reminder that somehow, against everything, I’m still here.
But before I can sit with it, before the weight of that fact can even settle, the door flies open so hard it slams against the wall, and suddenly, chaos doesn’t just arrive. It storms in.
“DAMIAN!”
“CAP!!”
“HE’S FUCKING AWAKE?!”
It’s a goddamn pressure cooker blowing its lid.
Shane comes flying down the hall in a wheelchair, tearing through like he’s racing for gold. Cole stumbles over a chair, arms flailing, clearly forgot how legs work. Mats crashes in behind them, vibrating with pure adrenaline, eyes wild, on the edge of either sobbing or throwing a punch.
Viktor’s the last to enter—massive, silent, arms folded tight and scowl locked in place. Already bracing, already positioning himself between the bed and anyone dumb enough to come too close, too fast.
“Shane, slow the fuck down—”
“Curls, tell me this isn’t a dream—”
“I swear to god if you flatline again, I’m kicking your ass myself,” Mats barks it out—deadpan, zero hesitation. Less a joke, more a legally binding threat.
The room’s a riot of noise. Voices clash, footsteps echo, emotions crash into each other like wreckage on a loop. Elias hovers at my side, half-curled between me and the chaos, twitchy and protective. He’s got that look—touch him and die—and I fully believe he’ll swing on anyone who steps wrong.
I just grin. Crooked and small. It fucking hurts, but I do it anyway. Because they’re here. All of them. And for the first time since the darkness swallowed me whole, I don’t feel alone.
The doctor clears his throat. Doesn’t bother to raise his voice. Doesn’t fight the noise. He waits, calm as hell, like this isn’t the first time he’s watched a storm burn itself out. And when it does, when the shouting fades, and the adrenaline turns to breathless silence, he speaks. “Mr. Kade,” he says, calm and too careful. “I’m afraid you’ll have to hang up your skates.”
The words hit like a puck to the chest.
The entire room freezes.
My breath leaves me slow, deliberate, as if I’m keeping myself from reacting too fast, too hard. I stare up at the ceiling for a second, blank and blinking, then exhale a long, low groan. The kind that comes from somewhere deep, less pain, more inevitability. “Fuck,” I mutter, rough around the edges. “Well… wasn’t planning on skating after playoffs anyway.”
The silence that follows is instant and absolute. The only one in the room who doesn’t look blindsided is Coach. He’s standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest, not a flicker of surprise in his eyes. Just quiet understanding. Because he knew. That’s what we were talking about before the crash. Retirement. The end of the road. Passing the C. Letting it all finish the right way—with me choosing it.
