The series tightened considerably over the following week — Kestrel adjusting their defensive scheme after Game One's loss, taking Game Two on their own ice with a physical, grinding performance that left Ironbrook's roster bruised and frustrated heading back home for Game Three tied at one apiece.
Rae's knee, tested harder by Kestrel's increasingly aggressive physical play, began sending up warning signals she recognized immediately from two years of careful self-monitoring — not the sharp, acute pain of new injury, but the deep, grinding fatigue that meant the joint was working at the edge of its current capacity.
"I need to be honest with you both," she told Dr. Reyes and Beckett, gathered in the training room the morning before Game Three, unwilling to repeat the mistake of two years
