Page 56 of Your Masked Haunting

“Yeah, right. Why don’t you leave it to the professionals, huh?” Ransom teases.

“Professionals?” I exhale with shock. “Where? We’d love to have them.”

Ledger lifts his glove, and even without X-ray vision, I know he’s flipping me off.

“And I was just starting to like you too.” He sits down beside me, spraying water into his mouth and down his jersey. “But I guess we’re stuck together now, huh? Dirty secrets and all.”

“A five-man group that can’t be separated or traded. We sure made it difficult for the organization to ever trade us,” I add, watching the offensive line on the ice dominate the defense like they’re blindfolded.

“They won’t,” he says matter-of-factly. “You know you guys are the face of this organization; they’re structuring their trades around you.”

He’s not wrong.

“That's not to say that you and Ransom aren’t right there with us.” I take the bottle from him and take a drink.

“Oh, we are.” A cocky smirk tips his mouth.

Shaking my head, I can’t help but laugh at his arrogance. But it’s hard to not relate when we’re the same. It’s harder to be mad at the cockiness if his confidence wasn't backed by serious stats.

Our conversation falls to the wayside as one of the rookies dekes out Rurik, who loses control and crashes to the ice. Our team goes wild, cheering and rooting for the rookie, who drives it home, the puck ringing off the post and flying into the net.

This may just be a practice, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t go hard or celebrate our wins. Practices should be so hard that games feel easy. That’s our mentality. That’s why we win.

That’s also why an eighty-mile-an-hour puck made best friends with the back of my leg. If I wouldn’t block that here, how would I know my instinct would lead me right when the time came? Simple—I wouldn’t.

The pain is fading for now, but it’s still incredibly tender as I step back on the ice, setting up at the center dot since the rook scored.

Finny, our acting center, takes the draw, winning it and dishing it back to Kol. We’re going against our fourth line. That doesn’t mean they’re bad; it just means they’re worse than us. Those are two very different things.

Kol passes it to me right before we hit the zone, and I break the blue line, gliding across the ice as I approach the face-off dot. This is my sweet spot, and I wish I had an opening right now; I would fire it home, even with Jojo in the net.

He was one of the hottest goalies—if not the hottest—in the league last season. If anything, he’s only gotten better during the offseason, and he’s been a wall thus far for preseason games.

We’re currently undefeated, and obviously, we’d like to keep that streak going as long as possible. Last season, we beat the record for the longest win streak in the league’s history, setting a new high at twenty games.

I swing the puck back up toward the blue line, and Ledger catches it, immediately passing it to Kol, who’s breaking open and sliding through the slot. A quick redirect, and we score. Or we would’ve, if Jojo hadn’t blocked it.

But the play isn’t over yet because he didn’t hold the puck.

It ricochets weird, hopping on the ice back toward Kol, who swings mid-bounce, batting the puck home. “Fuck yeah!”

After a little celebrating and showboating, we head back to the bench and swap out.

“Ooh, give me,” I shout at Kol, who’s mid-squirting water into his mouth but tosses the bottle to me after. His shot replays in my mind. “Brighton, that shot was fucking dirty, bro.”

With a look of disappointment in his eyes, he clicks his tongue and sighs. “You know, it’s hard, carrying the team on your back sometimes, but it’s a job someone has to do. I’ll sacrifice for you guys. Because I love you.”

Finny winds his arm back and smacks the shit out of his helmet. “Sit down if you can with balls that big.”

“Fuck off, Finny,” Kol snaps, fixing his bucket. “Fucking prick.”

“Don’t be bitchy, Brighton.” Finny scoffs. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

“Oh God,” Kol gasps dramatically. “Can you take a closer look?”

Finny plays it up, looking intently at his face. “Come here.”

Kol sucks a breath through his teeth and grabs his cup, jiggling it. “You’re going to have to get on your knees for the wrinkles I’m talking about.”