WOLFE
Itry to argue about getting off the ice. I want to finish the fucking game but suddenly get light-headed and fall over. Before I know what’s happening, medics engulf me, strap me to the backboard, and carry me off the ice.
Great.
“I’m not even bleeding. I do not have to be off the ice.” It hurts to talk, pain radiating from my jaw down my arm, but it’s not the worst I’ve felt.
“There’s a lot in there you could have messed up. You need to be checked out.” Chad, one of our trainers, puts a pulse ox on my finger, and someone else straps a blood pressure cuff around my arm. I’m completely surrounded by people when they set me back down.
“I’m not going to the hospital.”
Usually I like the guy, but I’m about to fight him. Medical people make me uneasy because I was always told if they find out anything, it will ruin our family, and that inclination isn’t easy to fight.
“Can you breathe okay?” Chad asks, ignoring my statement.
“I can obviously talk, which means I can breathe. Can I sit up?”
“No, you could have a spine injury.”
“I don’t have a spine injury.” I’m annoyed, and this is all an overreaction.
“Are you a doctor?” Chad asks with attitude.
“Are you?” I throw back, knowing he’s not.
Chad ignores me and returns to medical shit.
“Is he refusing?” one of the medics asks.
“Give me a minute,” Chad says before I can object again.
“Who’d they put in?” I ask.
“They put in Savage, your back up,” one of the trainers says like I have a head injury.
“I know who my backup is, but that’s not saying Hawke knows what to do when I’m out. I’m never out,” I snap, trying not to be too irritable.
“The game’s over,” Coach Hawke says, appearing in the doorway.
“Did Savage desecrate my goal?” I say, afraid of the answer.
“He protected your shut out. Calm the fuck down.” Hawke comes further into the room. “Fucking goalies.” He steps aside while a trainer fills him in.
“Where’s—” Archangel shoves past Coach, still in most of his gear, clearly having fought multiple people to get in here. “What happened?”
I point to my neck, sure it’s already bruised.
He winces, telling me all I need to know about how I look. “Fuck, can you breathe? Is that why you collapsed?”
“I didn’t collapse, and if I can talk, I can breathe.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” Archangel looks at Chad.
“Don’t fucking ask him,” I growl. “He’s on time out.”
Hawke and Archangel inspect the bruise.
“How bad does it hurt?” Hawke asks.
