I could do these half-asleep.
Which was convenient, because half-asleep was the closest I could get to functional.
The crowd roared when I stepped onto the ice, my name blaring through the speakers, my stats flashing across the jumbotron.
“All-Star debut for Cole Armstrong of the Colorado Dragons!”
They made it sound like triumph.
I took my position at the top of the circle, stick in hand, shoulders loose, breath steady. Cameras crowded the glass. Kids held homemade signs with my number. A girl with glittery face paint screamed something that sounded like “I love you, Cole!” The dragon inside me flinched.
Focus.
The whistle blew.
The commentators went wild. The crowd surged to its feet. A wave of applause rolled over me like heat when I didn't miss a single one. I barely felt any of it. My body knew what to do. My hands knew what to do. My heart had no idea where it belonged anymore.
The last event was something I normally avoided—showmanship wasn’t really my style—but the fans were excited, and my team liaison begged me to do something “fun.”
The rink lights dimmed and spotlights swept across the ice. Music pulsed from the speakers. Cameras zoomed in on me as I skated slowly toward center ice. Someone in the crowd shouted my name with so much enthusiasm it stung. I swallowed hard and flicked the puck onto my blade.
Fine. Perform.
I launched into a controlled spin, keeping the puck glued to my stick despite the rotation, then popped it up and smashed it mid-air toward the tiny top-center target.
Direct hit.
The roar was deafening. But it wasn’t enough, not for the fans. They started chanting—rhythmic, thunderous. “One more! One more! One more!” The coordinator gestured frantically for me to go again.
So I did.
This time I weaved between props, flipping the puck behind my back, dragging it heel-to-toe, then ending with a cross-body swipe no one expected. Hit. The jumbotron froze on my face—cold, composed, perfect for the cameras—and the arena erupted into something close to hysteria.
I lifted a hand in acknowledgment and skated off. Inside, I felt nothing but exhaustion. And pain. So much pain I was surprised the ice didn’t crack under me.
The hotel room was too quiet.
Downstairs, the All-Star festivities were still going strong—music drifting faintly through the walls, bursts of laughter rising from the lobby, the muffled thud of someone dropping their gear bag in the hallway. Normally, that kind of energy would keep me wired, buoyed by the rush of a good performance, and I knew I should be there.
I sat at the edge of the bed, the dragon kept shifting under my ribs, restless and uneasy, and I couldn’t tell whether it was reacting to the day’s exertion or the ache in my chest.
Probably both.
The lights of the city spilled through the window in fractured gold. I stared at them without seeing anything. I should have been proud. I should have been riding the high every other All-Star dreamed of. But all I felt was a low, twisting ache in my stomach I couldn’t shake.
And underneath it—shame.
The word surfaced slowly, like something rising from deep water.
I’d been avoiding it all day, pushing it down every time it threatened to break through, but now that I was finally alone, it spread through me like cold. I’d told Phoenix to leave.
The dragon inside me recoiled at the memory, pressing outward as if trying to undo it, to reach for someone I’d pushed away with my own hands. I scrubbed both palms over my face.
“What did you do?” I muttered to myself. “What did youdo, Cole?” I replayed the scene—the envelope, the money, the way Phoenix had looked at me like his whole world was falling apart. My anger had been white-hot, blinding.
And that old, familiar terror that I was being used again—like when I was a kid, when my father had paraded me in front of investors and donors like a prop.
But none of that excused what I’d done. I leaned back against the headboard, staring at the ceiling. Phoenix had grown up in boxes and shelters, stealing heat from radiators in abandoned buildings, living on scraps from diner dumpsters.
