Page 59 of Bro Code

He flung open the door at the bottom and sprinted out into the tunnel into absolute chaos – everyone seemed to be running for the ice.

When he reached the end of the tunnel, the fight had broken up – linesmen were holding back Okafor and Rodriguez, who seemed to be trying to hit each other, which was insane because weren’t they on the same team? Arsenault and Harris were standing over Riley with Volcheck and Marks, and medics were hustling onto the ice with a stretcher.

Riley wasn’t moving.

“Oh no,” Louis murmured, “nonononononono.”

The rest of the team who’d been sitting on the bench were all over the place – some leaning over the dashers, yelling at Tampa players, some just standing there staring at Riley. Louis threw himself at the gap between two sweaty shoulders and tried to squeeze through it to get closer, but everyone was like six four and weighed a thousand pounds and he couldn’t get close enough to the ice to see.

He glimpsed Riley being lifted onto the stretcher, and the medics carrying him back. People stepped backward to let them through, and Louis was forced back too, his toes trampled, his shoulders bumped and shoved. He saw Riley’s face between two jerseys as the stretcher went by – white as a sheet with his eyes closed and bleeding from the chin – and his stomach went cold.

“Let me through!” he cried, desperately pulling at people’s shoulders. “Let me through, I’m his–”

What? His what? Nothing: you’re his nothing.

Coach Myers and the assistant coach were hurrying after the stretcher, and as it went out into the tunnel, Louis finally managed to fight through the wall of hockey players and ran after them. He came up behind Myers and walked fast with his heart pounding, not seeing anything in front of him but Riley on the stretcher.

An ambulance was already waiting in the freezing dark at the loading dock, and now more people were passing Riley around, efficient people in medical gear, red and blue and red and blue under the lights, speaking briskly to each other and to Coach Myers.

“Stand back, please.”

Louis tried to get past a woman with a black ponytail as she stepped in front of him. “Is he okay?”

“Sir, stand back.”

“I told him nothing would happen to him! I told him nothing bad was gonna–”

Louis’ voice broke as the woman put her forearm across his chest to keep him back, and then Riley was going into the back of the ambulance and the doors were closed and he was gone. Louis stood watching the ambulance pull out of the dock, and as the taillights shrank and quiet settled around him, he realized he was clutching something in his left hand. He looked down.

It was the tablet, still streaming biometric data. He’d brought it all the way down from the press box and hadn’t even realized. He swiped it open and tapped frantically through the numbers and diagrams until he found Riley’s heart rate.

Normal.

He was so relieved he nearly sat down on the concrete. He gripped the tablet and stared at the number. It ticked up. He was alive. It ticked down. He was alive.

Louis stood gripping the tablet and staring at that number until the ambulance went around the corner and out of range and the number disappeared and then all it said was Error.

He’d told him nothing bad would happen.

He’d told him everything was going to be fine.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Riley

“He’s awake,” said someone, and Riley opened his eyes.

His head was pounding and his jaw was stiff; his chin felt freezing and he could feel blood running onto his neck. He was surrounded by flashing lights and beeping and a lot of medical equipment jostling around. A sharp acidic smell went up his nose; his eyes watered and he blinked.

Ambulance. He was in an ambulance.

“Don’t move please,” said a woman’s voice, and then her face appeared above him as she pinned one of his eyes open with gloved fingers and shone a light into it.

He couldn’t have moved even if he’d wanted to: his head was strapped in place. His heart spiked as he discovered his legs were strapped down too. He started to panic.

“Don’t move, Riley,” the woman repeated.

“Am I okay?” he said, as her fingers pinned open his other eye and shone the light in there. His jaw clicked as he said it and a new wave of pain went through his head.