Chapter 20: Third Period

Lev did not get up.

He tried, and his leg folded under him, and he sat back down on the ice with his teeth bared.

"Stay there," I said.

"My father said..."

"I heard what your father said."

Two trainers got him onto a stretcher, and he fought them for a second and then gave in.

On the way past the Kings' bench he lifted his head and looked straight at Gregor Vasko.

Vasko turned his back.

The crowd saw it.

A low boo started in the lower bowl, aimed at the owner's coat, and it rolled all the way round the building.

The Kings' captain stood at the blue line, a grey-bearded defenseman who had played eleven seasons for that family.

He looked at the bench, and he looked at me.

When Vasko waved him onto the ice, he shook his head.

It was a small shake, and eighteen thousand people saw it.

The period went on anyway.

It was hard and ugly and fast, and nobody scored for nine minutes.

The Kings' enforcer came off the bench with his jaw set, and Vasko's voice carried over the boards.

"Take her head off!"

He drove at me down the right wing with his stick high.

I let him come and bent under it, and I did not touch him.

He crashed into his own defenseman, and the whistle blew, and he took two minutes for high-sticking.

"Power play," my father said on the bench. He said it very calmly. "Mara, you're on the point."

"We scored on none in the last one."

"You'll score on this one."

We did not score.

The Kings killed it with four skaters flat on the goal line, and the clock ran down.

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