"Go!" Lou screamed. "Transition!"
The counterattack was messy and exhausted, but it was something. Rowan carried the puck across the blue line, drawing defenders toward her before dishing to Camille on the wing.
Camille.
Even in the chaos of the game, Lou's heart swelled at the sight of her. Camille had been playing injured—that knee had to be screaming, the heavy strapping beneath her gear—but she moved like the injury didn't exist. Like nothing existed except the puck and the goal and the desperate need to win.
Camille caught Rowan's pass and snapped a shot toward the net. The Wildcats' goalie got a piece of it, deflecting it into the corner, and the play died there as the defense recovered.
Six minutes left. The clock was bleeding away, each tick of the scoreboard a countdown to the death of their dreams.
Lou could feel the despair settling over her team like a shroud. Could see it in the slump of shoulders, the heaviness of movements, the particular darkness that crept into eyes when hope began to fade. They'd given everything—every ounce of effort, every drop of determination—and it wasn't enough.
The Wildcats were just better. Faster. More rested. More complete.
Mara called another timeout, but this time her words bounced off exhausted players. Lou stared at the ice, her breath coming in ragged gasps, her body a symphony of pain and fatigue. She'd spent years trying to get this team to the PWHL, and now it was going to end like this—one goal short, one moment short, one miracle short.
And then Camille grabbed her arm.
"Look at me." Camille's voice was fierce, her blue eyes blazing. "We're not done yet. I didn't come back from that injury to watch us lose. I didn't fall in love with you to watch you give up."
"Camille, we're out of time?—"
"We have five minutes. That's five goals' worth of time if we play smart." Camille's grip tightened on Lou's arm. "I need you to believe. I need you to fight. One more shift. Give me everything you have for one more shift, and I swear to you I will make it count."
Something shifted in Lou's chest—a spark, catching in the ashes of her exhaustion. Camille was right. They weren't done. Not yet. Not while there was still time on the clock and breath in their lungs.
"Okay." Lou straightened, feeling the last reserves of her energy gather like kindling. "Okay. One more shift. Everything we have."
The whistle blew. The puck dropped. The arena held its breath.
And Camille Laurent-Dubois put on a show.
Lou had watched Camille play for weeks now—had memorized her patterns, her tendencies, the particular way she moved when she was in the zone. But she'd never seen anything like this. This was Camille at her absolute peak, every ounce of skill and determination fused into something transcendent.
She intercepted the Wildcats' pass before it even reached its target, her stick a blur of precision. Two defenders moved to cut her off, and she danced between them like they were standing still—a fake left, a stutter-step right, her bad knee seemingly forgotten in the heat of the moment.
The crowd noise shifted. The despair that had beensettling over the arena lifted, replaced by something electric. Hope. Possibility.
Camille wound up for the shot. The Wildcats' goalie set herself, reading the angle, preparing for the save.
But Camille didn't shoot. At the last possible moment, she passed—a no-look dish to Rowan, who'd been streaking toward the net on the weak side. Rowan one-timed it, and the puck flew past the goalie's shoulder before she could react.
Goal.
The horn blared. The crowd erupted. Lou screamed, her voice lost in the cacophony of celebration, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
Tied at three. Four minutes left.
"One more!" Camille shouted as they reset for the faceoff. "One more goal, and we're in the PWHL!"
The Wildcats weren't going quietly. They came back with everything they had, desperate to protect their position at the top of the standings. The Valkyries made three more saves in sixty seconds—each one more miraculous than the last. The boards shook with the force of body checks. The ice grew slick with spray and sweat.
Two minutes left. The scoreboard clock ticked down like a bomb.
Lou's body was screaming at her to stop. Her lungs were fire, her legs were rubber, and somewhere along the way she'd taken a hit that left her right shoulder feeling wrong in ways she didn't want to examine too closely. Every muscle, every joint, every fiber of her being was begging for rest. But she looked at Camille, skating beside her with that fierce determination in her eyes, and found one more reserve of strength.
One minute and thirty seconds.
