Heartless Player by R.C. Stephens
Prologue
Wolfe
The team ison fire tonight. Ryse, one of our wingers, scores a goal that I assisted, and we’re only in the first period. I fly around the back of the net and swing around. A player from Havenshire, our rival team from Boston awaits me, thinking he can slither the puck away from me, but no chance in hell am I letting it slip. I whizz past him like a beast and shoot from an angle. My breath stops for the briefest of seconds as the puck slides past two players from Havenshire and enters the net. The crowd goes wild and I lift my stick above my head. I’m skating out to center ice, when my feet are swiped from under me. I should land flat on my back, only, the fucker who tripped me caught my leg with his stick and I fall back, landing in a weird way on my leg. Dammit.
The Havenshire team is known for their dirty tricks that fly under the refs’ noses, but this is the lowest of the low. Searing pain sucks my breath from my lungs. I’m screwed. The ref blows the whistle. I watch as the ref flails his hands in the air, shouting something about the illegal move that just took place, but my vision blurs from the excruciating pain. Coach Ramirez rushes to me with a medic. My vision clears enough to see Derrick Berlin shouting at the ref that I tripped and it wasn’t his fault. That asshole has had it in for me since we played junior hockey on the same team. I was always the golden boy, and he was my sloppy seconds. The medic assesses my leg. Coach assures me everything will be okay, but I’m not so sure. My heart thumps a mile a minute, and all I can think is I’ll lose my spot on the team, risking my free ride at Westfall. Cole Davis, my best friend and teammate, presses his chest into Berlin, but Coach swivels around, telling him it isn’t worth the trouble and that Berlin is going to have to pay for his actions.
Cole backs away, cussing up a storm, then drops to one knee beside me as the medic helps me sit up. “We got to move him off the ice with a stretcher,” the medic explains.
Cole takes a step back. “This is no biggie. Remember the time the guy’s skate sliced your eye open? This isn’t as bad.”
My eyes squeeze shut from the pain. This is so much worse, Cole. I’m taken to the locker room, but all I can see is blackness.