Chapter 2 Dangerous Women
990 Words
Tell me who I am.
Tell me who she is.
Tell me—
who is the woman standing before history, writing her own name into it?
“Brooks! Brooks!”
The tremor of a heart being struck reverberates through the arena, through the world outside it, through every stunned face pressed close to a television screen.
Tonight, the world remembers her name.
Iris Brooks.
She no longer needs to sit on the sidelines.
“Brooks, this is your first NHL appearance, and you score an astonishing ten goals. How does it feel?”
Iris stands before the dark-blue media backdrop. She removes her helmet, and her damp black curls glimmer beneath the camera flashes.
She listens to the question, then smiles.
White teeth. Red lips. A young face carrying the arrogance of someone who has just discovered how powerful she can be.
“Feels pretty good. It’s Iris’s first professional game—uh, I mean, my first game. Everything feels incredible.”
“Some people aren’t happy that Montreal gets beaten by a rookie like you. Is there anything you’d like to say to them?”
The corner of Iris’s mouth lifts.
A sharp curve.
Bright enough to cut.
Under the eyes of the entire world, she raises one finger and gestures for the camera to come closer.
Her hazel eyes are wild and untamed. Her voice is almost careless.
“If you lost to me, you don’t have to feel inferior.”
She gives the camera a mocking wink.
And just like that, a star who seemingly appears out of nowhere throws a casual challenge at the entire world.
“Brooks! Brooks!”
The reporters call after her.
She drags the playback bar all the way back to the beginning.
A long, overcast night.
The air tastes faintly of iron.
Toronto After the First Regular-Season Game
Ryder stands at the far end of the corridor, in an awkward little space beside the stairs. It is the farthest place from the media.
She watches the Montreal team bus disappear into the night. TML players file out one after another. Scotiabank Arena gradually falls quiet.
She should be leaving with her team. Instead, she leans against the old wall outside an empty equipment room.
She watches the night.
Then she drags the video back to the beginning again.
The voice in her headphones becomes unnaturally clear as she tears open the wrapper of a protein bar.
“Hart, right?”
Ryder’s hand stills for a moment. She turns her head, her shoulder forming a cold angle against her jaw.
The star of the video now stands not far behind her.
What surprises Ryder is how different he looks up close——
This is the Toronto forward who has just humiliated her team,
his freshly styled curls are still slightly tousled. And that jacket looks a little too heavy for the weather.
Ryder doesn’t answer.
Under the dim, cold-green corridor lights, Iris looks at her with eyes far too deep for someone so young.
“I’m your fan.”
Ryder turns to face him.
“Thank you.”
“You’ve been playing for Montreal for so long. Don’t you ever get bored?”
Iris changes direction without warning.
Ryder watches him.
“I don’t.”
“Oh. Right.”
Iris nods as though she suddenly understands.
“But your style doesn’t fit Montreal anymore.”
She walks toward her.
“The same old thing. Predictable. One clean strike, and it’s over.”
She stops directly in front of her. The contempt in his eyes is barely concealed.
“Don’t you think?”
Ryder’s expression barely changes.
“And what gives you the right to ask me that?”
The distance between them is shrinking. In the faint light, she notices the sharp glint of his earring. Like something trying to disguise a lethal question.
Not on the ice.
Off it.
In interviews.
“A fan?”
A beat.
“A player?”
Iris’s answer comes quietly.
“Myself.”
Her voice is like berry soda packed with ice, fizzing just beneath the surface.
She can feel the atmosphere around Ryder.
Still.
Unfamiliar.
Something like a magnetic field.
Something like control.
“You don’t have the right to ask me, no matter which one you are.”
Ryder’s blue eyes remain calm.
“As for my style…”
She takes one step closer.
“Maybe you can come and experience it for yourself.”
“You’re not my opponent.”
Iris’s expression hardens. She moves closer too. She wants to force something out of Ryder.
Anything.
A crack. A reaction. Proof that there is something underneath that calm face.
“Who knows?”
Ryder doesn’t move.
“My performance tonight should’ve answered you.”
“Impressive.”
Iris’s fingers tighten around the strap of her bag.
“If that’s your answer, then I’ll beat everyone around you.”
Ryder steps closer. There is almost no distance left between them.
Iris swallows.
Her throat moves beneath Ryder’s gaze.
“Son.”
The word is quiet.
Almost affectionate. Almost cruel.
“If you keep chasing other people’s approval, how are you ever going to get better?”
Breath.
Cold breath.
A kind of cold that makes Iris instinctively recoil.
Ryder lifts a hand and pats her shoulder. Iris tenses. Her hand rises on instinct, ready to knock Ryder’s away—
then stops.
The strength drains from her fingers.
Ryder turns and walks away as casually as if nothing has happened.
Iris watches her retreating figure from beneath the heavy ridge of her brow.
Her fingertips curl until they hurt.
Her eyes drift toward the abandoned hockey stick inside the equipment room. A piece of it is missing.
From the moment they first see each other, they both understand it, they will never be friends.
And after this conversation, they understand something else——
They can only be enemies.
The corridor lights go out.
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