"Come on, Mae!"
"Let's go, Captain!"
"SMOKE HIM, MAEBELL!"
That last one is Sage, unmistakable.
We cross the halfway line neck and neck, and I feel Rafe's pace increase. He is pushing harder, digging deeper, his breathcoming in sharp bursts visible in the freezing air. He expected to be ahead by now. I can read it in his posture, the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his stride lengthens with urgency instead of confidence.
He thought this would be easy.
It is not going to be easy.
The halfway mark passes beneath my blades, and I calm my breathing.
Inhale through the nose. Slow. Controlled. Exhale through the mouth. Release the tension in my shoulders. Loosen my grip on the stick. Let my legs do what they have been trained to do since I was four years old and my father first put me on the ice with blades too big and a helmet too heavy and told me to find a single point on the boards and skate toward it with everything I had.
Focus on a single target, Mae. Block out everything else. The crowd, the noise, the fear, the doubt. Just one point. And skate forward with all your might.
It is risky in games. In real competition, there are obstacles, defenders, angles to monitor, bodies to avoid. But a straight race with no barriers is perfect for this technique.
I lock in.
My eyes fix on a single point where the far boards meet the ice.
And I let go.
My strides shift. The controlled, pace-matching rhythm I maintained for the first half transforms into the sprint that made my father's coaches cry. Short, explosive pushes that barely let my blades leave the surface, each one building on the last, each one faster than the one before. My body drops lower, my core tightens, and the wind hits my face with a force that steals the breath from my lungs.
I use my agility. My slight frame. The weight that I have always been self-conscious about becoming the greatest advantage I possess, because there is less of me to move. Less mass to accelerate. Less resistance against the air that is now screaming past my ears.
Everything becomes a blur.
The lights overhead streak into lines. The boards in my peripheral vision dissolve into a smear of white. The screams of the crowd merge into a single, roaring frequency that vibrates through my skull.
I am flying.
Not skating. Not running. Not performing.
Flying.
The way I used to before the world told me I was not allowed to have wings.
The boards rush toward me, growing larger with a speed that my brain registers as alarming. I need to stop. Need to brake. Need to dig my edges in and skid to a halt before I slam into the plexiglass at a velocity that will leave a dent in either the boards or my skeleton.
I shift my weight to initiate the stop.
"PUCK!"
The shout comes from behind me. Multiple voices, overlapping, frantic.
My brain stutters.
Puck? What puck? Where?
Before I can process the warning, my left skate catches on an object that should not be on the ice. The impact is minuscule. A tiny collision between my blade and a stray puck that someone left on the surface, the force barely enough to register as contact.
But at the speed I am traveling, barely enough is more than sufficient.
