Chapter 10: Loud

Toni texted me at seven on Saturday morning.

"Nothing's out. Maybe it was a kid with a phone."

"Maybe," I wrote back.

Neither of us believed it.

The arena in Ontario held four thousand people, and by two o'clock it was more than half full.

It was the biggest room the Owls had ever played in.

The night manager walked out onto the stage, saw the seats, and sat down very fast.

Toni was up in the casting booth over the floor, with her partner and a window full of light.

She didn't look down at me, and I didn't look up.

The widow had a seat behind our bench, and she'd brought the Canadian's mother, who had flown in from Winnipeg.

Austin came out in brown and orange with the streamer in the middle, waving to the crowd.

I gave myself Bodie's ears and closed my eyes.

The first round, I heard five sets of boots running for B.

"B," I told them in the break before the second round. "They're loud, and they're all going B."

They came through A.

The boots on B had been one player running back and forth across a hallway.

The second round I heard a shield clank down on A, and gadgets bursting by the B door.

"A," I said. "The shield's on A."

They came through B with five.

The shield on A had been planted and left behind.

Mac swung around in her chair in the break.

"Stop," she said. "Whatever you're doing, stop."

The streamer knew me.