When I looked up, Ro was already moving.
I knew what was coming before his gloves hit the ice. The code demanded it. Dorsey had crossed a line, and someone had to answer. That was how this worked. That was how it had always worked.
Dorsey turned. He had time to drop his own gloves, get his hands up, and square his stance. It didn't matter. Ro grabbed a fistful of his jersey and threw the first punch before Dorsey could do anything but absorb it.
The fight was short and brutal. Ro had six inches and forty pounds on him, and he used every bit of it. Three punches landed clean before the refs got between them, and Dorsey's nose was streaming red by the time they pulled Ro away.
The crowd was on its feet, chanting something, Ro's name maybe, but the sound reached me through a layer of cotton.
I made it to the bench. The trainer was already reaching for me, but I waved him off.
"I'm good."
Bouchard appeared at my shoulder. He didn't say anything, just stood there while I caught my breath, his body angled between me and the cameras to block the view.
Ro was heading to the penalty box, five minutes for fighting, and he caught my eye through the glass as he settled onto the bench. His knuckles were split. His face was calm.
I nodded.Thank you. I've got this.
He nodded back.Go score.
The refs sorted out the calls. Dorsey got five for fighting and two for roughing, which meant we had a power play. Two minutes with a man advantage, and I was already calculating the angles, the lanes, where the space would open up.
"Piper." Coach's voice cut through the noise. "You're on PP1."
I grabbed my stick and went over the boards.
The arena was loud in that particular way it got when something was about to happen. Seventeen thousand people held their breath, waiting to see what we'd do with the chance Ro had given us.
I took the faceoff and won it clean, the puck sliding back to our defenseman at the point. The play started moving, passing lanes opening and closing, Calgary's penalty kill collapsing toward the net.
I found the soft spot in their coverage and drifted into it.
The puck moved around the perimeter. Point to the half-wall. Half-wall to the circle. Calgary's penalty killers shifted with it, reading the play, trying to anticipate where we'd attack.
They were watching the puck. I was watching the space.
Their defenseman cheated toward Bouchard, expecting the one-timer. It left a lane to the net, just a sliver, there and gone in half a second. I was already moving before my brain caught up, cutting toward the crease, my stick on the ice.
The pass came low and hard. I got my blade on it and redirected it toward the net, but their goalie was there, sliding across, and the puck caught his pad and bounced into the chaos in front of the crease.
Bodies crashed together. Sticks hacked at the loose puck. Someone's elbow caught my ribs and someone's skate tangled with mine, but I dug for the rebound anyway, reaching, stretching, my balance gone but my stick still working.
The puck slid free. I lunged for it.
And then I was falling.
I don't know who tripped me. Could have been anyone in that tangle of bodies, friend or enemy, accident or intention. It didn't matter. My feet went out from under me and I went down hard, my hand shooting out to break the fall, and something happened that my brain couldn't make sense of at first.
There was pressure. Then heat. Then a strange wet warmth spread through my glove.
I pushed myself up to my knees and looked at my hand.
The glove was filling with blood. It seeped through the leather, and when I tried to flex my fingers, something screamed up my arm and into my shoulder, pain so sharp it locked the breath in my chest.
The noise in the arena changed. I couldn't have said how, only that it was different now, the cheering replaced by something else, something that sounded like a held breath multiplied by seventeen thousand. The whistle was blowing, and voices were shouting words I couldn't quite catch.
I looked up.