My fist collides with his face, and he reels back, blood blooming instantly and coloring the scraped up ice. He tries to backpedal, but I’m on him. I slam him into the boards, and there’s just hit after hit after hit. The asshole can’t even cover his face to defend himself. I don’t feel my knuckles split. All I feel is rage.

And her.

Lakynn in a fucking wedding dress.

My girl wearing another man’s ring.

My fucking future wife being promised to someone who isn’t me.

I growl and drive my elbow into the ref’s chest. He slumps. Someone's yelling behind me, but it’s distant. The arena's screaming, and still, it’s quiet in my head.

Because all I hear is Lakynn’s sweet voice.

All I see are her lips.

Her mouth taking vows with someone who could never deserve her.

I’d kill for her.

I have killed for her.

So this? This pathetic stooge of my father’s? This is nothing.

They’re trying to pull me off of him, and when I’m satisfied, I allow them.

I stand over the ref’s bloody body, chest heaving, and wait for the fallout.

The head official skates up with wide eyes, screams something about suspension, ejection. I don’t flinch. I’m not worried that the police will be called or anything will happen to me. Colleges like this one do not like to involve the law because there are too many secrets to uncover. Even if they do, I’ll be long gone before they could ever find me.

I calmly bend down, pick up my stick, and skate off the ice like I didn’t just destroy someone’s face. My strides are slow. Fluid. Like I’ve got nowhere better to be. Like I didn’t just put a very violent plan into motion.

I hear the buzzer go off signaling that the game is commencing despite the beat down I just gave the ref publicly. The locker room is quiet when I step inside. The kind of quiet that doesn’t soothe. The kind that echoes. The kind that wraps around your skull and tightens. I need to get cleaned up before I head back to Castlebrook. I haven’t given it much thought, but I know I’m going to steal a vehicle in the parking lot because I sure as fuck am not waiting around and riding on the bus with the rest of the team.

I strip off my gear without thinking, fingers moving in a mechanical rhythm. Pads hit the bench. Jersey tossed aside. I shove my compression shorts down, letting them fall around my ankles as I head for the showers.