SoulBound To The Hockey Captain

4|| The Second Chance

Selena

Outside, the cold night air hit my face, and I stood there for a moment, shaking as the city moved around me. Then I kept walking and I don’t know how long it took.

I only knew that when I finally reached the bridge, my legs were barely holding me up. I walked toward the railing and stared down at the river watching the water move under me.

I pressed my trembling hands against the cold metal and closed my eyes as a sob broke out of me. God, I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t know how to keep living either. I wanted my old life back so badly that it physically hurt, and I kept wishing there was some way I could go back in time and change everything, to pay more attention to the people around me and notice the things I had been too blind to see.

If I could go back, I would make that bastard pay for what he had done to me. I would make Gerald feel every bit of the pain he had put me through, and I would make Rebecca feel exactly what I was feeling right now. I wanted them to know what it was like to have everything ripped away from them in a matter of minutes, to wake up one day and realize the life they had spent years building was gone.

Another sob shook my chest as I looked down at the dark water through my tears. “I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but my ruined throat couldn’t form the words, leaving only a broken sound behind my lips. I climbed over the railing with my entire body trembling, my legs barely strong enough to hold me as I stared down at the water one last time.

Then I let go.

I barely had time to realize I was falling before a hand suddenly grabbed mine. My body jerked violently as someone grabbed my wrist.

A man was shouting something at me, his voice filled with pure panic, but I couldn’t understand him over the roar of blood in my ears.

“Hold on!” he yelled. “Don’t let go! Are you insane?!”

His fingers tightened around mine as he fought to keep his grip, his entire body straining against the weight pulling me down. I could feel his hand trembling around mine, and somehow that terrified me more than anything else.

My eyes fluttered open, and the first thing I saw were his eyes.

They were the bluest eyes I’d ever seen in my entire life, bright even beneath the dull streetlights, but there was nothing confident or charming about the way he looked at me now. They were filled with pure fear as he desperately tried to keep me from falling.

“Please,” he begged, his voice breaking as he leaned farther over the railing. “Give me your other hand. Come on, you’ve got to help me here!”

I stared at him through my tears, and even in the middle of my panic, something about his face felt strangely familiar. His dark hair was messy from the wind, his sharp jaw was clenched tightly, and there was a small scar cutting through one of his eyebrows that I knew I’d seen somewhere before.

I searched through the fog in my mind until the name finally came to me.

“Ryder Vane” I tried to say, but nothing came out except a broken rasp from my ruined throat.

My eyes widened as reality suddenly crashed over me.

I really jumped off a bridge and standing on the other side of the bridge railing was Ryder f*****g Vane risking his life trying to pull me back.

Panic exploded through me.

I reached desperately for the railing with my free hand, trying to pull myself upward, but my body was too weak. My fingers barely moved before my arm gave out again.

“Come on!” Ryder shouted, his face twisting with effort.

“I’m trying,” I sobbed, even though I knew he couldn’t understand me.

Ryder pushed himself farther over the railing, trying to get close enough to grab me properly. His body was practically hanging over the edge now, and I could see the muscles in his arm straining as he fought to hold both of us.

“f**k,” he grunted, his breathing becoming heavier. “I don’t want to die!”

The words hit me like a slap. I stared up at him and suddenly felt dread.

This man hadn’t asked to be here. He hadn’t asked to become part of my nightmare. He was trying to save me, and now he was putting his own life at risk because of what I’d done.

“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, shaking my head desperately as tears poured down my face. I could barely get the words out through my sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

His fingers tightened around mine one last time, and then his grip on the railing slipped. His eyes widened in terror. “f**k!”

For one horrifying second, we just stared at each other, neither of us able to understand what was happening. Then the railing disappeared beneath him, and suddenly there was nothing holding either of us up anymore.

We fell.

The freezing water swallowed us almost instantly, and the impact ripped the breath from my lungs. The cold was unbearable as I sank beneath the surface, desperately fighting to reach the top, but my body refused to cooperate. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t see, and every frantic attempt to swim upward only seemed to pull me deeper until the darkness finally closed over me.

Then suddenly, everything was bright.

Flashes assaulted my eyes one after another as I blinked rapidly, struggling to understand what was happening. My lungs burned as I sucked in one desperate breath after another, my chest rising and falling violently while I looked around in confusion.

I was breathing and I was alive but that couldn’t be possible because I had felt myself drowning.

I had felt the freezing water filling my lungs and the terrifying weight of it dragging me down. I had been certain I was going to die, so why the hell was I standing here?

And where was here?

The deafening roar of a crowd slowly came into focus, followed by cameras clicking and thousands of people cheering. I looked down at myself, and my confusion only deepened when I saw the familiar skating dress covering my body.

I slowly lifted my head, and my heart nearly stopped as I knew this place.

I was standing on the podium at my first major competition, the moment that had changed my entire career. The scoreboard behind me displayed my name and the scores that had made the skating world start taking me seriously.

My gaze shifted toward the silver podium, and there she was.

Rebecca Volkov.

She looked younger, just as I remembered her from five years ago, standing under the lights with a silver medal around her neck and pure hatred in her eyes after I had beaten her.

My breathing became uneven as I turned toward the other side of the podium to see Gerald.

He was walking toward me with that same familiar smile, holding the gold medal he was supposed to place around my neck.

Five years ago, this was the first time I had met him. The day I fell in love with him.

The day he offered to become my coach, and I accepted without ever imagining that the man standing in front of me would eventually destroy my life.

My lips parted as I stared at him, and the word slipped out before I could stop it. “You…”

My voice sounded strange to my own ears.

I immediately brought a trembling hand to my throat, my eyes widening as I realized I could speak.

My heart began pounding as the truth crashed over me so violently that I almost lost my balance.

I had died and somehow, I had woken up five years earlier. Five years before Gerald gave me the drug. Before he destroyed my career.

Five years before I lost everything.

Now he was standing in front of me, smiling as if he hadn’t done anything wrong.Gerald stepped closer and lifted the gold medal, completely unaware of the storm raging inside my head.

I looked at the man who had taken everything from me, and something inside my chest burned hotter than the rage I’d carried into death.

Before I could think about the cameras, the crowd, or the consequences, my arm moved. My palm slammed across Gerald’s cheek with enough force to snap his head violently to the side.

The sharp crack echoed through the arena and the celebration died instantly.

Thousands of people fell silent as Gerald slowly turned his face back toward me, his eyes wide with disbelief and the gold medal still hanging from his hand.

Tears blurred my vision, but this time they weren’t tears of fear, they were tears of fury.

I stared into the face of the man who had destroyed my life and finally understood what this impossible second chance meant.

This time, I was ready for him.