The Dare That Changed Everything

The Shot That Changed Everything

CHAPTER SIX

Emilia should have gone home. Instead she was back in the media section the next night with the photograph tucked inside her notebook where she could still feel the edges of it. Every few minutes her fingers found it, like she was checking whether it was still real.

Tonight was game night and the place was packed. Blue and silver everywhere. Music loud enough to feel in her chest. The energy was the kind that usually pulled her in. Tonight she barely noticed.

Ashley dropped into the seat beside her. The others followed.

“You look miserable,” Ashley said.

“I’m working.”

“You’re brooding.”

“I’m not.”

Emma studied her. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Lie.”

Emilia sighed and handed over the photograph. The reaction was immediate. Ashley’s smile disappeared. Emma frowned. Peggy sat up. Even Elsa looked worried. No one spoke for a few seconds.

“Where did you get this?” Ashley asked.

“Someone left it on my car.”

The girls exchanged the kind of look that meant they were worried too. If Ashley was worried, maybe she should be.

The lights dimmed. Player introductions started. The crowd got louder with every name. Then the captain.

“NATE WALKER!”

The arena exploded. Emilia’s eyes found him without meaning to. A mistake. Because somehow, across all the distance and the thousands of people, he looked right at her. The moment lasted only a couple of seconds. Then the game started.

The first period was chaos—fast, physical, no one giving ground. By the end it was 2–2. The second period wasn’t any cleaner. Goals traded. Momentum swung. By the start of the third the score was 4–4 and the tension was thick enough to feel.

Ashley was gripping her drink. Emma looked pale. Peggy was yelling at players who couldn’t hear her. Elsa stayed weirdly calm. The final minutes ticked down. Everyone was standing.

On the ice Nate felt the fatigue and the burn and ignored both. The game was tied. His team was waiting on him. He glanced toward the media section once, found Emilia already looking, and then the whistle blew and the world narrowed to the puck.

Twenty seconds. Dave won the face-off. The puck went to Barry, then Andrew. Andrew crossed center, drew a defender, and slipped the pass at the last second. Straight to Nate.

The crowd rose. Nate accelerated, cut past one defender, then another. The goalie squared up. This was the shot. He pulled the stick back. Time stretched. He fired.

The puck left the blade clean and hard. The arena started to roar, sure it was going in—then the sharp crack of the post. The puck ricocheted up, too fast, too high, and hit the glass.

The glass shattered.

Screams. People ducking. Security moving. Players turning. Nate looked toward the stands and everything stopped.

Emilia was on the concrete. Not moving. Blood bright against her skin and the sweater she’d been wearing. Her notebook was a few feet away. The photograph had drifted across the floor.

He didn’t think. He went over the boards. Security tried to stop him and failed. He reached her in seconds and dropped to his knees. Blood in her hair, on her face, on his hands the second he touched her.

“Hey. Look at me.”

Nothing. Panic climbed his throat.

“Nate…” Her voice was barely there.

Relief hit so hard it hurt. “I’m here. I’m right here.”

Her eyes tried to focus. Blood kept coming. Every second felt like his fault. His shot. His puck.

Paramedics arrived fast and still not fast enough. One of them told him to move. Nate didn’t. The man started to argue, then saw his face and stopped. The kind of fear that couldn’t be hidden was written all over him. Everyone saw it—his teammates, her friends, the whole section.

They got her on the stretcher. She winced. Nate felt sick. As they wheeled her out her eyes opened one last time and found him, confused and scared, before drifting down toward the photograph near the seats. A paramedic stepped on it. The image flipped. Nate saw Logan’s face next to his own from five years ago and something cold settled under the fear.

Someone had given her that photo. Someone was still playing. The accident suddenly didn’t feel like an accident.

A paramedic’s voice cut through, sharp. “We’re losing pressure!”

The world narrowed to the ambulance doors. For the first time in years the future Alpha of Shadowfang was actually afraid.

And somewhere in the crowd, hidden among thousands of students, someone smiled.