CHAPTER 1
EXHIBITION
JACE
The ice smelled like every rink I'd ever played in. Pressure and old sweat and a cold that burrowed into your lungs and stayed there.
This is an exhibition game against the Kingsbridge Saints. Meaningless in the standings, just a preseason tune-up, but nothing felt meaningless when twenty thousand people were watching you prove you still belonged here.
I tapped my stick against the boards during warmups, the rhythmic thunk grounding me better than any meditation app. My therapist would probably call that avoidance. I'd tell her she wasn't the one who had to skate onto this ice and silence the doubts.
The crowd was building, that low rumble of anticipation making my pulse kick up whether I wanted it to or not. I took a lap around the ice, stretched my hips, then fired a few shots at Elias Sato. He was already in full goalie-saint mode, tapping his posts like a prayer: three taps left, two right, glove touch to the crossbar. Same routine since juniors. I envied the consistency.
“Hart, you awake over there?” Finn Callahan's voice cut through my focus. The rookie was doing crossovers at center ice, showing off his edges. “Because you look like you're about to attend a funeral, and it's literally just an exhibition, dude.”
“Don't let Rook hear you say that.” I snapped a wrist shot that Elias caught casually. “Pretty sure he thinks this is Game Seven.”
“That's why he's captain,” Finn said, nodding toward Rowan “Rook” Kincaid, who was stretching near the bench with focused intensity.
I moved away before Finn could read anything into my tone. The truth was I thought it was Game Seven too. Every game felt critical now. Every shift. Every shot. My brain kept replaying that penalty shot from two seasons ago: the one that hit post instead of net, the one that turned me from golden boy into punchline overnight.
I'd scored forty-three goals that season. Franchise record for a winger. No one remembered that. They remembered the miss.
The horn sounded for the end of warmups. We filed back to the bench and I took my spot on the first line between Rook at center and Mason O'Rourke on the left wing. Mace was already locked in, jaw set, scanning the Saints' lineup like he was cataloging who he'd need to fight later. At least his job was clear.
My job was to be inevitable. To make the highlight reels. To bury one-timers from the circle with enough velocity to make goaltenders pray. Except lately, I couldn't find the release point.
The anthem played. I stared at the ice and tried to find the quiet space in my head where instinct lived, the place I used to access without effort. It used to be automatic, like breathing. Now it felt like trying to remember a language I'd spoken fluently as a kid but lost somewhere along the way.
The puck dropped.
Rook won the opening draw clean, snapping it back to Dmitri Volkov on the blue line. Our top defensive pair, Volkov and TateHallowell, moved the puck with smooth control. Tate sent a cross-ice feed that I gathered at the half wall. I scanned for lanes, but their defense collapsed toward me instinctively. Flattering and infuriating at the same time, because it meant they knew exactly what I could do and were determined not to let me do it. I threaded a pass to Rook in the slot. He one-timed it on net, their goalie made the save, and the rebound kicked out to Mace, who slammed it home before the red light flashed.
One to nothing, Northgate. Forty seconds in.
I tapped Mace's helmet as we skated back to the bench. He grinned, gap-toothed and feral. “That's how you fucking start it.”
“Nice finish,” I said, but my hands were still tight on my stick.
The game moved fast after that, both teams testing each other's systems. The Saints were disciplined and well-coached. Their captain, Marcus Kane, was a nightmare version of a shutdown center—six-foot-three, intelligent positioning, relentless on the forecheck. He caught me with a clean hit along the boards halfway through the first period. Nothing dirty, just textbook separation between man and puck.
I bounced back up and chirped him. “That all you got, old man?”
“Plenty more where that came from, kid.” His smile was all teeth. “Try me again.”
Respectful competition. I hated it. I wanted him to give me a reason to be angry. Anger was easier than fear.
We traded goals through the rest of the first. Finn scored on a breakaway: all speed and fearlessness, the kind of confidence I used to have and somewhere along the way had misplaced. The Saints answered back when Kane won a battle in the corner and fed his winger for a tap-in. Then I set up Rook for a power play goal with a cross-ice feed that bisected their penalty kill, and we went into the first intermission up two to one.
Two to one felt fragile.
The Saints came out of the intermission harder. Kane was shadowing my line through the second, making every shift a war. His stick was always in the passing lanes, his body always between me and space. He wasn't trying to hurt me. He was trying to make me irrelevant, which was worse.
“You're quick, Hartley,” he said during a TV timeout, skating past me. “But quick doesn't mean anything if you won't pull the trigger.”
My jaw tightened. “Watch me.”
He laughed. “I am. That's the problem.”
