"I'm fine." Through clenched teeth. She was not fine. Her shoulder was wrong, dislocated or partially dislocated, and the pain was radiating down her arm in hot, pulsing waves that made her want to vomit. She tried to push herself up with her right arm and the movement jarred her left shoulder and her stomach lurched hard and she swallowed bile.
The ice was so cold. It seeped through her jersey and her pads and into her skin, numbing everything it touched except the shoulder, which burned and throbbed and would not stop.
Then Sienna was there. The doc.
She came onto the ice fast, medical bag over one shoulder, moving with controlled urgency across the slick surface in her trainers. No hesitation. No panic. She dropped to her knees beside Elise, right there on the cold ice, and her face was focused and completely devoid of the awkwardness from the medical room earlier. Her hands were warm through the latex gloves as she began assessing the shoulder, pressing along the joint line with firm, knowing fingers.
"Elise, I need you to stay still." That voice. Calm. Steady. Professional. All the softness from the medical room strippedaway, replaced by pure competence. "Can you tell me what you're feeling?"
"Shoulder's subluxed. Just reduce it and tape it and I'll finish the game." The words came out clipped, bitten off against the pain. This was the third period. The score was 1-1. She could hear the crowd murmuring, restless, wanting the game to continue. Lex was on the bench, ready, waiting. If Elise came off now, she might not get back on. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
The fear of that was worse than the shoulder.
"I can't do that." Sienna's fingers moved along Elise's collarbone, pressing at intervals, checking for fracture. Her face was close enough to show the tiny mole near her left ear, her jaw set with concentration. Even through the haze of pain, even flat on her back on the ice in front of twenty thousand people, some traitorous part of Elise's brain registered that Sienna Park had beautiful hands. "I need to examine you properly. You're coming to Medical."
"It's not that bad."
"You can't move your arm."
Elise gritted her teeth. "I can."
"Show me."
Elise tried. She willed her arm to move, put everything she had into the command, and the pain cut through her so sharply that her vision went white at the edges and a sound came out of her mouth that she didn't recognise. She stopped.
"Medical." Sienna's brown eyes met hers, steady behind her glasses. There was no room for negotiation. "I'm not going to reduce your shoulder on the ice so you can play through an injury I haven't diagnosed. That's not how this works."
"If it was a playoff game..."
Sienna's hands stilled on the joint. "It might be different if it was a playoff game. But it's not." The honesty in that was worse than the refusal. Sienna wasn't being cruel. She was beingpractical. And she was right, which made Elise want to argue even more. If it was a playoff game, maybe the equation would be different, maybe the risk would be worth it. But this was a regular season match and Sienna was looking at her and she was not going to move.
"I need to play," Elise said, and her voice cracked on the last word. Not from pain. From fear.
Sienna's expression didn't change, but her hand was still on Elise's good shoulder, and she didn't take it away.
She pressed the radio on her belt. "Mara, it's Park. Elise needs to come off. Replace her."
The words crackled out of the radio and into the cold air and they were final. Elise shut her eyes. The ice was freezing against the side of her face. Beyond the boards, the PA music started up to fill the stoppage and the crowd began to murmur, restless, twenty thousand people who wanted the game to resume and didn't particularly care whether Elise Moreno was in it.
She could hear Mara's voice through the radio, clipped and businesslike, confirming the substitution. Somewhere on the bench, a line change was being called. The game was already moving on.
"Okay." Sienna's voice was close, right beside her ear. "Let's get you up. Slowly."
She helped Elise sit up, one arm firm around Elise's waist. The pain in her shoulder screamed with the movement and Elise swallowed hard against the nausea. They got her to her feet. The ice was treacherous beneath her skates, her balance wrecked by the pain, and Sienna kept her steady, guiding her toward the bench.
The crowd clapped. Polite, sympathetic. Some people were standing. A kid in the front row held up a sign that said GO MORENO in red marker. Elise barely registered any of it. She was focused on putting one skate in front of the other and notfalling down and not crying in front of twenty thousand people and the cameras that were probably following her every step. Her eyes stung. Her throat was tight. Her shoulder screamed with each stride.
As they reached the boards and Elise stepped off the ice onto the rubber matting, she looked back.
Lex was already skating out. Number twelve, dark hair streaming behind her, that explosive first stride carrying her into the play before the whistle had even dropped. She was already talking to Lou, already pointing, already locked into the game with the intensity that made her so good. She didn't look at Elise. She didn't need to. She was already filling the space Elise had left, and the space didn't look any smaller for the exchange.
Sienna's hand was on her back, warm through the jersey, guiding her into the tunnel. The noise of the crowd faded with every step, muffled by concrete walls and distance, until it was just Elise's ragged breathing and the clatter of her skates on the rubber floor and the steady presence of the woman beside her.
"Almost there," Sienna said quietly. Her hand hadn't moved from Elise's back. It was a small point of contact, barely anything, but the heat of it came through her jersey and her pads and all the layers between them, and it was the only thing keeping her upright.
The corridor was empty. Everyone who mattered was at the ice. Elise's skate guards clicked against the floor with each step. The walls were lined with framed photos of the Valkyries' PWHL inaugural season, and Elise was in half of them, smiling in her red jersey, part of a team bigger than herself.
She didn't look at them.