Page 299 of Slashed Bonds

A rejected Omega with a scar on her neck, a pack that burned a shed. A good story. Loud. The kind you can hide behind the way you hide behind a goalie. Nobody looks at the small blonde one crying on the ice when the big one’s bleeding.

And then the small one grew to love the big one.

That’s the part I didn’t plan.

The lighter goes back in the bag. The pink phone comes up off the chair. I read the text, finally. Greenie. the twins want to know if Monday means a “suit” suit or a gala suit and also are we allowed to be happy about this or is it a paperwork thing. asking for them. and me.

I type back, a gala suit. and yes. Add a heart. Pink. Send it.

Then I stand.

Brush the gravel off the back of my skirt. Put the face on, the one with the giggle at the ends of the sentences, the one that goes flat when it reads something it doesn’t like, the one the whole league watched take a draw and thought was there for the photo.

The stairwell door’s heavy. It sticks. I lean my shoulder into it, the shoulder, the one that put two men bigger than Killian Graves through the boards in one season out east, and it gives, and the party comes up the stairs to meet me, the dog, the twins, the smell of black cake, Mori’s voice saying no, Nikolai, we are not naming it after a goalie pad, all of it warm, all of it mine.

Portland. Last Tuesday. A passport name. Note the date.

I said leave her be. I meant it. For now.

Because Papa taught me on a pond with a shovel in one hand that you don’t go into the woods after a thing. You let it come to you. You stand on the ice and you make yourself look small, and you cry a bit when you need to, and the big ones come to see if you’re all right. They always do.

And they never see the hands.

Mori’s on the lounge, awake, laughing at something Killian’s said, one penguin on each knee, the monarch on her hand catching the skylight.

She looks up when the door opens. Looks at me.

Nods.

My family doesn’t have to be blood…

I have sisters who’d ride and die with me, so now…

There’s no need for hesitation for what’s to come.

Now, sweet sister, it’ll be your time to enjoy the pure agony that rises from the ashes in the peak of ruined rivalry.