Chapter 1 Chapter One: The Name on the Roster

WREN

"Wren?"

"Right here, Eli."

"No. Where's Mom? I need Mom."

I keep my hand flat on his back so he can't see my face. The blackout curtains are drawn and the fan hums on low. My brother is six-foot-three, the guy who used to toss me over his shoulder like a bag of pucks. Right now he's curled on his side with a pillow crushed over his head, like it's the only thing holding his skull together.

"She's not here, buddy."

"When's she coming?"

Three years. She's been gone that long, and every time his head goes bad, he asks for her like it's day one.

"Soon," I lie.

"Tell her to hurry." His voice cracks. "It's so loud, Wrennie. Why is everything so loud?"

"I know. I'm turning it down."

There's nothing to turn down. The house is silent except for the fridge and my own heartbeat. My apartment is fifteen minutes from here, and I have slept in my old room four nights this week. I wring out the washcloth in the bowl of ice water and lay it across the back of his neck.

"Breathe with me. In for four."

"Can't."

"You can. You taught me this before my first skating competition, remember? In for four."

He drags in a breath. It shudders on the way.

"Out for six. Good. Again."

We do it eleven times. I count. I always count.

Around fifteen minutes, he peels the pillow off and squints at me.

"Shit," he rasps. "I did the Mom thing again, didn't I?"

"Little bit."

"How bad?"

"You told her to hurry."

He groans and drops an arm over his eyes. "Humiliating. Don't tell Dad."

"I never tell Dad."

"That's what worries me." He peeks out from under his elbow. "You've got the face."

"I don't have a face."

"You have the face. The one where you're doing math about what this is costing."

On the nightstand, between his pill organizer and a stack of get-well cards nobody has added to in two years, sits the brochure. It's glossy, with a mountain on the cover: Front Range Neurological Recovery Institute, Denver, Colorado. The program runs twelve months and costs eighty-four thousand dollars. Our insurance company literally laughed on the phone.

I pick it up.

"Wren. Don't."

"You're going."

"With what money? Dad remortgaged the house. You're selling your skates online. Yeah, I saw the listing."

"They don't fit anymore."

"They fit fine. You just can't afford your dream and mine at the same time."

He says it gently, which is so much worse.

I fold the brochure and shove it in my hoodie pocket, like a promise I can carry. "Watch me."

He studies me. Eli used to read plays three passes before anyone else on the ice. Some days I think the hits took that from him. Days like this, I know they didn't.

"Stop looking at me like it's your fault," he says quietly.

I smile. It's a good smile. I've practiced it.

Because it is my fault. And he doesn't remember why.

---

Dad is at the kitchen counter at 6:10, already in his Wolves quarter-zip, staring into a coffee he hasn't touched.

"How is he?"

"Better. Migraine. It passed."

"Did he ask for—"

"No," I say. Two lies before sunrise. New record.

Dad nods too many times. Frank Castellano used to fill a room. Now he takes up less space every month, like he's trying to shrink small enough to fit inside the problem. He's been head coach at Northbridge University for fourteen months. Last season we finished second to last, and at the year-end meeting the athletic director said "trajectory" the way doctors say "options."

"You're at the rink today?" he asks.

"I'm on the schedule. Doc has me with the team all year for my clinical."

"Right. Right." He finally drinks the coffee and winces. It's cold. "New guy's coming in. Transfer. You'll probably be on his shoulder rehab."

"Okay."

"Wren." He sets the mug down hard. "I need this season."

"I know, Dad."

"No. I need you to hear me. I need this season. For Eli's coverage. For all of it."

The back of my neck prickles. "Who's the transfer?"

His phone buzzes. He looks at it like it just pulled him out of a burning building.

"AD. Gotta take this. Be there by seven."

The door bangs behind him before I can ask again.

---

Harlow Arena at seven a.m. smells like rubber mats, Zamboni exhaust, and a thousand bad decisions. I love it more than anywhere on earth.

"Castellano!" Theo Santangelo swings out of the locker room in half his goalie gear, blocker on one hand, iced coffee in the other. "My favorite trainer. My sunshine. My only true friend."

"I'm not taping your ankles for free again, Saint."

"Wow. Brutal." He falls into step beside me, then glances back at the locker room. Then at me. Then at his coffee.

Theo stares down ninety-mile-an-hour slapshots without blinking. Theo does not do nervous.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Theo."

He lowers his voice. "Has your dad talked to you? About the new guy?"

"He said shoulder. Transfer."

"That's it? That's all he said?"

"Why? Is he a serial killer?"

Theo laughs, too loud and all wrong. "Ha. No. I mean… depends who you ask."

"Wren!" Doc Pruitt leans out of the training room and waves a clipboard. "Roster. Check it against the physicals before they hit the ice. Your dad added a line last night."

Theo grabs my wrist before I can move. "Hey. Whatever happens out there, I'm on your side. Okay?"

"You're seriously freaking me out."

"Good. Not good. I mean…" He lets go and backs away. "I'm gonna go stand in front of pucks now."

I take the clipboard. Marcus Oyelaran, our captain, passes me in the tunnel, stops, and gives me a strangely careful look.

"Morning, Wren. You good?"

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

He hesitates. "Talk to Coach."

"Marcus—"

But he's already clomping toward the ice.

I head to the bench, pen in hand, and start checking names while the Wolves spill out for warmups. Oyelaran. Santangelo. Lindqvist. Kincaid. Everything matches.

At the very bottom, below the typed list, is a line in my father's messy block capitals:

#19 — HOLLIS, KNOX — C — SR. — TRANSFER (CARVER COLLEGE)

The pen snaps in my hand.

Ink bleeds blue across my palm, and I don't even feel it.

Because suddenly I'm eighteen again, at the glass at the junior championship final. A black jersey launches shoulder-first. My brother's head snaps sideways. His helmet skitters across the ice without him, and he doesn't move.

I'm climbing the glass. Somebody is screaming, and I'm pretty sure it's me, and then my father's arms are around my waist, hauling me back into the tunnel. Above us, seven thousand people have gone silent, and the jumbotron plays the hit on a loop.

Hollis. The broadcast said the name over and over. By morning, the internet had a better one.

The Butcher.

It's a common name. There are other Hollises. There have to be.

At the far end of the rink, the Zamboni door rolls up.

A player steps onto the ice alone. He's big, maybe bigger than Eli was at twenty. He skates the way some people breathe, without thinking about it. At center ice, he pulls off his helmet to fix the strap and turns his head toward our bench.

Dark hair. Sharp jaw. A white scar splitting his left eyebrow.

The last time I saw that face, it was twenty feet tall on a jumbotron while my brother lay on the ice and didn't move.

"Wren."

Dad is at the bench door. I don't remember walking to him, but I'm there, clipboard crushed against my chest.

"Tell me that's not him."

"Let's go to my office."

"Tell me there's another Knox Hollis, Dad."

"There isn't."

My voice comes out wrong, thin and high. "Did the AD force him on you? Did Carver dump him here? Did someone—"

"No."

For the first time all morning, my father looks straight at me and doesn't look away.

"I recruited him, Wren. I drove to Carver myself and asked him to come."

Behind him, out on the ice, Knox Hollis has gone completely still.

He's looking right at me.

And he doesn't look away either.