Chapter 18: First Period

A voice from that long dark car had called to me before the glass rolled back up:

"Wear the visor, sweetheart."

I thought of them again in the tunnel before the final, with eighteen thousand people roaring over my head.

I wore number 31 and my own name on the back.

My father stood at the bench door in his black suit, with the five empty hooks hanging above him in the rafters.

Nobody had put anything in their place.

"You play your game," he said. "Not Ghost's. Yours."

"I know, Dad."

"If it goes bad, I'll pull you."

"It won't go bad."

I lied, and he knew it, and he squeezed my shoulder anyway.

The puck dropped, and the Kings went straight through us.

Lev took the first shift hard and fast, and his father watched from the box.

He ran three checks in his first minute, and he did not look at me once.

The Kings' enforcer, the same big man I had put on his back in their own arena, came over the blue line with his head down.

Paolo stepped up to meet him.

I saw it before it happened, because Paolo always steps up.

The enforcer put his elbow into Paolo's ribs, right where the brace had been.

Paolo went down on his side and did not get up.

The whistle never blew.

"Hey!" I screamed at the official. "That's a foul!"

The official waved his hands for play on.

The Kings scored, off a loose puck, while our captain lay on the ice with his hand over his side.

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