I don’t know if that’s true, but it explains the feet. And maybe the shoulders.
I tap the boards with my stick and Darius glances over, the faintest smile breaking through.
Then the kid whips a shot and it rings off his mask, so loud the echo bounces off the glass and hits me in the chest.
For a second, I wonder if it’s possible to be jealous of a guy who’s built his whole life around standing in front of high-speed violence and just absorbing it, but then I remember what it feels like to score on him in practice. The rare times it happens, it’s electric.
Like you cheated the universe. Like you matter.
I coast to the tunnel, trail behind the others, and unstrap my helmet as the sweat freezes to my scalp.
The cold air feels good. I breathe deep, taste the metallic tinge of blood, and for a moment I’m almost relaxed.
Then, from the hallway, there’s a weird noise.
A siren, not the usual buzzer, but something higher and insistent. For a second I think someone tripped the fire alarm, but the lights don’t flash and nobody seems to panic.
Instead, everyone just… stops.
The alarm slices through the air, a long, piercing wail that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
Coach Vasquez’s voice comes over the loudspeakers, sharp, all the vowels flattened by the shitty intercom. “LOCKDOWN. EVERYONE TO THE BENCHES. NOW. LEAVE YOUR GEAR.”
There’s a beat of pure confusion, the whole team frozen, mouths open, helmets half-off.
Then the guys start moving, fast, all the bravado gone, just shuffling toward the boards in silence.
Darius appears at my shoulder, mask up, eyes wide. “Is this a drill?” he says, but there’s no one to answer.
We all crowd onto the bench, pads creaking, gloves sticky on the rails. The siren keeps going, warbling up and down, never stopping.
No one talks. Not even O’Doul.
I sit, my heart pounding, and watch the door at the end of the rink, waiting for something to make sense.
———
We're still on the bench, packed tight, nobody breathing right, when the lockdown alarm cuts out.
For a second there's nothing, just the hum of the rink lights and the creak of the boards under twenty sets of skates.
Then the first shot hits.
Not the alarm. Not a puck.
A sound I've never heard inside an arena but recognize instantly, the way you recognize a scream, not because you've heard it before, but because your body already knows what it means.
Another pop, then another, then the sound doubles and triples like someone's turned the world up to max gain.
This is not arena noise. This is not a game.
A streak of shattering glass at the top of the boards, and something black and lethal punches through the plexi three feet from O’Doul’s head.
He ducks just as the boards explode in a fan of plastic shrapnel. The sound that comes after is a wet, sick thud, and then a player goes down hard, face-planting into the ice.
There’s a scream. Then more gunshots.
Then everyone is moving at once, bodies slipping and scrambling for any kind of cover. Helmets, gloves, sticks scatter in every direction, an instant chaos, evolutionary and total.
