by Reed, Zoe
My eyes drifted to the smaller of the two caskets. Lacey’s casket. Never again would I look on that smiling face, or hear the laugh that had been such a large part of my childhood. Lacey was gone, and as I glanced up at my Alpha I could see that with Lacey had gone that last bit of Eli’s soul. He’d recover and carry on for the sake of the Pack, but I would always see the loss and the emptiness in his eyes.
The pain on Eli’s face and the pain I felt in my own chest caused a tear to break loose. When I lifted a hand to wipe it away I felt Kyla’s arm slide around my waist and pull me close in a loving embrace. At the same time another person’s hand fell on my shoulder, rubbed comfortingly across the top of my back, and then fell away. Another escaped tear ran down my cheek at the gentleness of my companions, and desperate for any kind of comfort I wrapped an arm around Kyla’s waist to pull the girl closer, while my other hand reached for the one Abby had touched me with.
We stood like that while the preacher finished his speech, and then while the caskets were lowered into the ground. The whole time I fought, without success, the tears that stung my eyes, and I didn’t let go of my companions until it was time to follow tradition and throw a handful of dirt over the caskets. Then, after saying his or her final goodbyes, everyone left, everyone except me. When the area around me was empty I made my way to one of the chairs that had been set up, and sat while I watched two men begin to refill the ground with dirt.
A minute after I’d been sitting there, watching silently and fighting more tears, Kyla returned and sat at my side, putting an arm around my shoulders while the other hand went to my thigh.
“You say bye to Abby?” I asked, leaning my head against her shoulder. She just nodded and squeezed me a little tighter. After almost a minute of silence I felt I had to explain why I was still sitting there. “I’m scared they’ll be lonely, if we leave just yet.” I knew it was crazy, but sounding crazy was better than feeling guilty about leaving.
Kyla nodded again while her fingers ran mindlessly through my long blonde hair. “We can stay as long as you want to.” Another few minutes of silence passed by. “You know they won’t be lonely though. They have each other.”
Now I nodded, and we sat there for another twenty minutes in silence. Finally, when I felt we’d been there long enough, I stood and grabbed Kyla’s hand. “Come here, I want to show you something.”
I led her to a gravestone adjacent to where we’d just lay Lacey, and when I got there I pulled up my knee-length skirt a little and got on my knees in front of it. I could feel a slight dampness soaking the bare skin of my knees, but I didn’t care. Neither did Kyla, who knelt down beside me.
I gave her a moment to read the name on the gravestone. Katie Might. “Lacey’s mother?”
“Yeah,” I confirmed, and ran my fingers through the grass in front of the polished stone. “I don’t know about the afterlife, but I like to think they’re together again.” More tears stung in my eyes, but I took a deep breath to calm myself. “I know they’re happy.”
Kyla let me stay there for a few minutes until I was satisfied. I put my fingertips to my lips and then pressed them against the stone to say goodbye. When I stood, Kyla stood with me, and I felt the girl’s strong arm wrap around my waist again as we started our walk to the jeep.
“I bet you’re just dying to get out of Oregon,” I said in an attempt at lightheartedness, ready to rid the feeling of despair. Ready now for this whole thing to be behind us.
Kyla was silent for a few moments, and I could tell she was contemplating something. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she said eventually. “I think I want to stay.”
“Okay,” I shrugged. “We can stay until you feel like you have enough control.”
“No,” she said and stopped, turning and taking my hands in her own. “I mean I want to stay here, with the Pack.” My eyebrows furrowed as I took in her words, and she must have worried I was getting upset, because the brunette added, “I know you hate fighting, but this whole thing with stopping the vampires and taking out Benjamin… I felt like I was actually making a difference. I felt like… I don’t know, like this is what I’m meant to do.” I could feel my expression shift to show the shock that I felt, but Kyla ignored it to continue explaining. “It’s like, we’ve been given all this strength and power, and I want to use it for something other than running a few times a week.”
I still didn’t know what to say, but there was a stirring inside of me, and it was more than the passion that the blood connection allowed me to feel from Kyla. She added finally, “And I know you don’t like it, and I know it’ll be dangerous. So if you say ‘no’ I’ll drop it, and I’ll go back to California with you or wherever you want and we’ll live our lives safe, and I’ll never bring it up again.”
I stood there with Kyla still holding my hands, looking up at me with those bright green eyes and waiting for an answer. This is what Benjamin changed inside of me. My perspective. Though I couldn’t give all the credit to Benjamin. It had been changing in me for a while. Ever since the first time our lives had been threatened by the mutts in California. I’d always hated the violence that came with being a werewolf. I never understood why the Pack was so black and white when it came to dealing with someone’s life. But now I understood that it wasn’t because brutality was our nature.
The violence was necessary. In our supernatural world, the law was survival of the fittest. I still wouldn’t say I liked it, but now I understood it. The ferocity, the bloodshed, it was survival. It was protecting the ones I loved. And through protecting the ones I loved maybe I could save other lives too. Just like we’d prevented the Phantoms from feeding off of and killing unsuspecting humans.
“Okay,” I answered with a consenting sigh.
Kyla’s eyes widened in shock, like she wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Okay? Okay you’ll think about it, or okay we’ll stay?”
I sighed again, and despite the fact that I agreed with her, I just hoped this didn’t turn out to be a bad decision. Though I knew as long as I had her, I could get through anything. “Okay, we’ll stay.”
Can’t Get Enough?
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Interference
In the small but competitive world of women’s inline hockey, I’m a rising star. But Taylor Becks is still the best, even though she doesn’t talk to anyone. She especially doesn’t talk to me. We’re rivals, and with our teams there’s a history of rink-bound violence. So… how is it I’m falling in love with her?
Interference
Another glance at the tied up scoreboard told me there were only nine minutes left in the last period of the game. The other team had called timeout, and now everyone was just standing around the bench, waiting for the referees to blow the whistle and signal that the game was ready to start again. As I leaned with my elbows over the boards and stared down at the tiled rink below my borrowed skates, a movement on the left caught my eye, and a second later my best friend, Victoria, bumped me with her hip. Through the steel cage of her helmet she gave me a knowing smile, and then turned around to lean her back against the boards.
“So, J, what do you think?” she asked me as she pulled at her jersey, which read Cyclones on the front, and because of the sweat had begun to stick to her stomach.
I turned to mirror her position, and glanced out over the rink before answering, “I wish you’d told me this was a tournament.”
Victoria and I had been friends since grade school. Normally her and some of the other girls that were hovering around the boards played scrimmage games at an ice rink nearby. She was the one who’d taught me to skate, and since she’d always played hockey, I’d always hung around and more often than not joined in on the pickup games. Even though they usually practiced at an ice rink, roller hockey was the first love for each of them. Wh
en Victoria had called me that morning telling me her team needed an extra player, I thought she’d meant for a scrimmage. Little did I know that her and the other players had rallied together a bunch of extra inline gear for me to sub in at this tournament.
“It’s just a small tourney,” she justified, blue eyes betraying her internal laughter as she absentmindedly slid the blade of her hockey stick across the floor.
I scoffed and rolled my eyes as both of our gazes drifted to the world outside the boards. There were three rinks at this outdoor facility, each one occupied by a tournament game. After already playing five games throughout the day, we’d made it to the championships, and this was the last women’s game of the weekend. Still, the stands of each rink were filled, with more people standing along the outside to watch through the glass. Loud music could be heard filtering over the boards from the booth of a radio station that had showed up just for the occasion, and plenty more booths lined the walkways between rinks to occupy the hoards of people who weren’t watching a game. It may have been a small tournament by Victoria’s standards, but for the first real game I’d ever played, it was pretty damn big.
“Hey, Jordan.” The coach tapped me on the shoulder, so I turned to look at him, eagerly awaiting any advice he could offer. “Don’t look so nervous,” he laughed. “You’re doing good, I just need you to do one thing for me.” I nodded, patiently waiting for the tip. “You’re fast and you’ve got good hands, use it to get goals instead of penalties, okay?”
My cheeks colored red, but I laughed anyway. That was his advice? Sure, I’d played more than enough scrimmage games with the team to be able to hold my own in a high level tournament, but I didn’t have the experience to know what kind of hits were considered dirty or not, especially since you couldn’t check in roller hockey like you could in ice hockey. For that, I’d earned two penalties. One more and I’d get kicked out. So… maybe his advice was pretty sage.
One of the refs blew his whistle and made his way down the rink to the right faceoff circle near our goal. Along with the other players, I pushed myself off the boards and coasted to the circle, taking my place on the hash mark just outside it. One of the other team’s forwards took position directly in front of me, practically placing the blade of her stick on top of mine. Before leaning over into position I scanned each of the players on the rink. Even after only two periods, I’d learned which players on the other team to look out for. Which ones were the goal scorers and which ones were most likely to take my head off and get away with it.
Another thing I’d had to adjust to after playing so many ice games with Victoria was the number of players on the rink in roller hockey. I’d always assumed five and a goalie was standard, but in these inline games I learned the number was reduced to four and a goalie. It came as a bit of a shock at first, but I couldn’t say I minded. Less players on the rink meant less people to watch out for. It also meant there was more room to skate and pull off stunts that were harder to do during an ice game.
The referee pointed at the other team’s goalie at the far end of the rink and, receiving a nod, looked to our goalie. When she nodded too he held the black puck over the faceoff circle, and a second later dropped it. The two players’ sticks clashed in the center for only a moment before the puck went flying to one of the other team’s defenders, who was waiting near the boards in the middle of the rink. The second she felt it hit her stick she received it and sent it across to the defender on the opposite side. I was already on my way to the second player that received the puck, and by the time she got it I was nearly three quarters of the way there.
She held the puck on her blade, cradling it near the boards with her eyes darting from me to the other players on her team, waiting either for someone to open up for a pass or for me to get there so she could try to skate around me. It was clear by the speed I’d already picked up that I was going to get to her first. Goals, not penalties, I reminded myself as I neared striking distance. The look on her face said she thought I was going to hit her, and her body tensed as I drew near. Instead, I stretched my stick across her body to hers, and hit the puck backwards as I flew by her.
I’d hit the puck hard enough to knock it over her stick, and I picked it up as I continued with it, alone, toward the other team’s goalie. The goalie coasted forward, squaring up and making herself large in the net. I was at the top of the circles in front of the net now, so I brought my stick back with the puck and cruised left. The goalie followed my every move, shifting to the side with me. Finally, with a flick of my wrist I released the puck, but instead of sending it to the left side of the net like I’d been lined up to do, I angled my stick to shoot at the top right corner. My breath nearly caught in my throat as it sailed through the air, and then I sighed with disappointment as it hit the post with a loud ding, which deflected it up into the safety net above the boards.
With the puck hitting the net the referees had to blow the whistle, and when I heard the coach shout ‘switch’ each of us made our way back to the bench. Upon sitting, Victoria grabbed her water bottle and squirted it through the cage of her helmet and into her mouth before handing it over to me. I did the same, squirting it toward my face and not-so-accidently spilling some of it down the front of my jersey. At first the icy fluid stung as it hit my chest, but after I got over the initial shock I grinned at how cooling it was.
“That girl is pissing me off.” One of the players I was familiar with, Holly, fell onto the bench next to me and pulled off her helmet, wiping her short black hair away from her forehead before sticking it back on.
“Which one?” I asked, leaning forward and glancing onto the other team’s bench. Then I pulled a hand out of my glove and grabbed the ponytail of my long, straight blonde hair to throw it over my shoulder.
“The forward.” She nodded discreetly toward the other team’s offensive side of the bench. “Number eighteen.”
Victoria leaned over from the other side of me and glared at Holly. “Holly, you get in a fight with her every other game. I swear to God if we lose because you get a penalty, I’ll kick your ass.”
I couldn’t help but smirk. Between Victoria and I, she was definitely the hot head, but she was nothing compared to some of the other girls on the team. I’d never gone to watch any of their inline games before, but all too often Victoria would complain about how many fights would break out, especially between them and the team we were playing now, the Misconducts. And if I was counting correctly, Holly also had two penalties. One more and she was done.
“I’m going to kick her ass if I feel her stick clip my wheels again,” Holly grumbled. “No joke, she’s just waiting until the ref can’t see so she can trip me.”
It was obvious Victoria had something else lined up to say, but the whistle cut her off, and yelling ‘switch,’ the coach pushed us off the bench. This time I took the faceoff, which once again started down near our goal. I’d have been more comfortable if the puck ended up in the other team’s zone more often, but all rivalry aside, they were good, and they controlled the play a majority of the time. The Misconducts forward took place directly in front of me, and as the ref skated over we lined up for the faceoff.
The ref threw the puck down between us, and instead of going in and battling with her for it, the second it hit the ground I knocked her stick out of the way with my own, leaving the target open for less than a second, which was more than enough for me to go back in and get it. With the puck on my blade I whizzed past her, skating up the boards while my other forward went up with me near the center of the rink. She had someone right behind her, but her stick was open so I shot her a pass. When it hit her tape she came to an abrupt stop, and unprepared for it the defender who’d been following skated right past her. Now open she sent the puck back to me, and I was getting close enough to the net that I had to start thinking about my shot.
There was just one more obstacle, a defender who’d been skating backwards ahead of me, just waiting for me to get closer so she c
ould take a jab at the puck. Knowing I had to pull some kind of move to go around her, I did the one that I’d practiced tons of times during scrimmage games. As I neared her, I led with the puck and faked going around her to the right, but at the last second I brought the puck in between her stick and body over to the left, and pushed it forward with my backhand while my body continued right. The normal reaction to the move was for the defender to become momentarily flustered, giving me a chance to get by and score a goal. Only this defender didn’t seem fazed. She followed my body, and when I tried to skate around her to the right, she stepped right in front of me, putting a glove on my chest so she could block my path.
I was going to try and backtrack to see if I could skate around her before the other team’s second defender had a chance to pick up the puck, but I paused at the sound of a thunderous thud against the boards, followed by a familiar voice shouting, ‘fucking bitch!’ At the sound of a few whistles I turned to catch sight of the refs trying to separate a very angry Holly from number eighteen, and I instantly rushed over to lend a hand. I put my arm in front of Holly, who was still charging an equally pissed off forward, and tried to lead her away, while the girl who’d just stopped me from scoring tried to get her own teammate away from the fight.
When Holly realized she wasn’t getting anywhere near the girl, she turned her rage to the referees. “Hey asshole, you didn’t see her trip me? What fucking game are you watching?”
My head shot up at the sound of her talking back, and I wished she wasn’t wearing a face cage so I could shove a hand over her mouth. The Misconducts’ defender looked just as shocked, because her brown eyes met mine, and they shot me a hard look as if to say ‘keep her in line’.
I tugged the side of my mouth into an apologetic half-smile at the defender, and pulled Holly harder toward the bench. “Dude, calm the hell down.”