Page 84 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
Everly’s hand tenses around mine.
“Set the backpack on the ice. Now.”
Everything we survived throughout the night. Every ceiling crawl and closet and kiss and trap. All for this.
No. No way.
“Would it be inappropriate for me to ask him if I can back up my computer onto a thumb drive?” Everly says softly.
I look at her. “What?”
“My story?—”
Oh wow, she’s serious.
“You’re not going to lose your story.” Then my brain does what my brain does. It reads the ice, finds a play.
In my left hand—the hockey stick, clutched with frozen, white knuckles.
And there, on the edge of the rink, the puck I left. A sentimental goodbye to the old rink. It sits exactly where I left it, silent and lonely, about three feet away from me.
The man with the gun looks about sixty feet away. The doable distance for a wrist shot. A distance I’ve been hitting since I was twelve years old, half asleep, with my eyes closed.
This is literally the only skill I have that applies to this situation.
“Beckett,” Everly whispers. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t?—”
I release her hand.
“You want those files?” I shout, pushing Everly back, positioning her behind me—distracting from what my other arm is doing.
I’ve lunged for the puck while my other arm shrugs off the backpack. It slides down, and I toss it onto center ice. It smacks hard, the sound masking the much smaller one of the puck hitting the ice.
“Come and get it!”
The man eyes me suspiciously, his gun unwavering as he makes his way toward the ice.
“Beckett,” Everly whispers, her voice more afraid than I’ve heard it all night.
The Zamboni stands in the center of the ice, an obstacle set like a mammoth, perfectly blocking his path between the files and the gate. He sees it, his eyes meeting mine with an unspoken threat as he steps out of sight: Move and you’re dead.
I have one second, maybe two, to line up the shot.
My dad was an enforcer. He hit people with his fists, and he was good at it. Me? I’m the Blue Line. I’m the defense. I hit the puck with everything I’ve got because nothing else is standing between it and defeat.
There will be no defeat today.
He steps back into view, straight into the line of fire.
I take the shot. One motion. Muscle memory.
The puck crosses the rink in a line drive. Point A: Me. Point B: Center side, left of the Zamboni.
It hits. Ricochets.
And then the crack of vulcanized rubber on bone carries across the arena. I didn’t mean to, exactly, but it looks like a head shot.
The gun flies from his grip, spinning, arcing, skittering across the flooded surface. The guy goes down, hard.
