“You know how you called Tibby a wrecking ball on razor blades that time? He’s that, dialed up to eleven and with a bad attitude to boot.”
“You’re up!” Coach shouted, and Etienne and Adam scrambled off the bench onto the ice.
They hit it fast and hard, Etienne hyper-aware of Adam to his right, always exactly where Etienne needed him to be. Etienne ducked around an oncoming winger, spun and shot the puck to Orlov off the boards. Orlov caught it and they headed for the offensive zone, the Embers all over them.
Almost there, Orlov sent the puck between his skates to Etienne behind him. Adam was ahead and to his left, closer to the net, but a defenseman and the center were between them. Etienne doubled back and raced down the ice, Krzinski close behind him and the center sticking like glue to his side. Etienne sheared off before the blue line, faked right, then left, shoved the puck between the center’s skates, and dodged around him. He bounced the puck sideways to Adam as the center flung out a desperate hand and tripped Etienne with his stick, sending him to the ice.
The whistle didn’t blow. Etienne watched in slow-motion, belly-down on the ice, as Adam caught the puck, spun sideways past a winger on a desperate dive, and smacked it home under the goalie’s reaching arms.
The buzzer sounded. The crowd erupted. The goalie picked himself back up. And Krzinski slammed into Adam from behind at twenty-five miles an hour, sending his much smaller frame hurtling into the boards.
Etienne couldn’t move. Time had slowed to an agonizing crawl. He watched as Adam flew backward, helmet flying free. It soared up into the crowd on a lazy arc as Adam’s back hit the boards, his head connecting with the plexiglass a split-second later, a sickening crack that Etienne heard over the screams of the crowd.
Etienne thought vaguely he might be screaming too. He didn’t know. He couldn’t feel anything. Somehow he was on his feet, slipping and slithering and falling in a mad scramble to where Adam lay crumpled on the ice, a terribly small, still figure.
Nonopleasenotagain—
He was dimly aware of Jetty hurtling past and colliding with Krzinski, but Etienne didn’t look. There was blood pooling around Adam’s head, a slowly growing halo of crimson. Etienne went to his knees and crouched, shielding Adam with his body as Jetty and Krzinski fought just feet away, sharp metal blades gouging the ice terrifyingly close to Adam’s head.
Adam’s eyes were closed. Was he breathing? Etienne couldn’t tell. A skate caught his sleeve and ripped it as more players joined the scrimmage.
“Wake up,” Etienne pleaded. “Adam, please—”
Then the linesmen were there, whistles shrieking and players being dragged apart. Someone grabbed Etienne’s arm. He shook them off with a snarl, hunkering down over Adam’s still form.
“Medics!” someone shouted in his ear. “Let them at him!”
Etienne looked up as the stretcher and paramedics arrived. This time he allowed the hands gripping him to pull him backward. It was Jetty and Shannon, he realized vaguely. Jetty was bleeding from a cut on his temple and a split lip. There was blood on his teeth and in his beard. Shannon said nothing, but his hands were so tight on Etienne’s arm that Etienne knew he would bruise. He didn’t try to get away. They watched in silence as the paramedics straightened Adam’s limbs and eased him onto the stretcher in one quick move.
The ice was smeared bright, bloody red, and Etienne thought he might vomit. He pulled away from Jetty and Shannon as the medics picked the stretcher up and carried Adam out of the rink.
Coach Hannity caught his arm as Etienne tried to follow. “You’re bleeding.”
Etienne didn’t even look. “Let me go.” Adam was getting farther away.
“Go with them,” Coach said, releasing him. “Get stitched up and stay with him.”
As if Etienne had anything else in mind. He brushed past, stooping to untie his skates, kicking them off, and then running down the tunnel barefoot in all his gear, shouting at the medics to wait.
They slowed their headlong pace just enough for him to catch up and scramble into the back of the ambulance, but when he tried to get closer to Adam, he was shoved unceremoniously back into place by a medic.
“Don’t you dare bleed on him,” she snapped.
Etienne barely heard her. His chest was in a vice, laboring for every breath. “How is he?” he managed. “Please, he’s—”
The medic’s face softened briefly as she motioned him backward so the other two in the ambulance could work on Adam. “Just let them work. I’m going to cut your sleeve off, okay?”
Etienne just nodded, all his attention on Adam’s hand dangling over the edge of the stretcher. “He’s so pale,” he whispered.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” the medic said. She had dark hair pulled back into a sleek, tight bun, brown skin, and dark eyes. Her name tag said ANA LOPEZ. She lifted the sodden sleeve back to reveal a deep gash in Etienne’s forearm, still oozing blood, and hissed through her teeth. “So have you. How are you feeling?”
Etienne spared her a glance. “I’m fine. Just stitch me up.”
“God, hockey players.” Ana shook her head and reached for the disinfectant spray as Etienne willed the ambulance to hurry.
32
They were separated when they got to the hospital, despite Etienne’s loud protests. A nurse and an orderly caught Etienne’s arms as he tried to follow Adam’s stretcher toward surgery.
“Sir, sir, you can’t go back there. Sir, you’re bleeding, we have to get you fixed up as well.” The nurse was black, in her mid-forties, with hair pulled off her high forehead in a perfectly symmetrical puffball. Her eyes were sympathetic, but her tone was brisk and calm as she and the orderly nearly dragged Etienne into the nearest room and sat him down on the bed.
“I’m Tess. Are you family?” she asked, grabbing gauze and dabbing at the wound.
“I’m—yes. He’s—” Etienne was swamped by a wave of dizziness. “I’m his emergency contact. Please, I’m all he has.”
“He doesn’t need you right now, honey,” Tess said. She finished cutting his jersey off as she spoke and the orderly, apparently convinced Etienne wasn’t a flight risk, left the room. “Right now he needs the best doctors in the city, and he has them. So you just sit right here and let me get you fixed up, okay?”
“He’s all I have too,” Etienne whispered, and tears spilled hot and stinging down his cheeks. Tess made quietly sympathetic noises as she peeled the jersey off him. When she would have cut his pads off, Etienne managed to stop her, stripping out of his gear and dropping it on the floor without looking.
“Is he alive?” Etienne asked suddenly, catching Tess’s hand. “What if he—” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
Tess squeezed his hand. “He’s not dead. You can’t think that way. He’s in good hands, I promise you. Now be still.”
Etienne swallowed hard and did his best to obey.
Rudy arrived sometime while Etienne was being stitched up. He was waiting in the hall when Etienne stumbled out, gear hanging over his good arm.
He stood when Etienne appeared, a set of pale lavender scrubs in his hands. “Give me those,” he said, indicating the pads, “and take these. There’s a shower just down the hall. Go get clean. I’ll be here when you get back.”