Chapter 17: Kael
Captain’s meetingsalways run long.
They always start with good intentions—quick updates, tactical adjustments, maybe a few notes about discipline—but by minute twelve, the rookies stop pretending to pay attention, Coach starts rambling about “fundamentals,” and someone inevitably asks a question that derails the entire agenda.
Today, that someone is Whitaker.
“You want us to tighten the forecheck in the neutral zone?”he asks.“Because if Atlas keeps pinballing off guys like yesterday, the refs are gonna bury us in penalties.”
Atlas isn’t here, thank God.I don’t need the collision replayed in front of him.
Coach sighs the sigh of a man who has aged fifteen years this week.“I want everyone to tighten everything.You’re all skating like your heads are in your asses.”
He’s not wrong.
The team is distracted.
Unfocused.
Snappy at each other.
Because I’m distracted.
And the team follows the captain.
Coach clicks the remote and video footage lights up the screen: yesterday’s scrimmage, the hit, the instant Wren sprinted onto the ice like her life depended on it.
I tense.Hard.
Coach pauses the clip mid-collision.“This,” he says, pointing at Atlas’s limp body sliding down the boards, “is what I’m talking about.You boys are playing reckless because you’re not paying attention to the damn game.”
He looks at me deliberately.
I unclench my jaw.“We’ll tighten it.”
“We?”Coach echoes.“Or you?”
