MISCONDUCT | HS |

TWELVE

Dalton

"Please!"

My body jerks awake sending the duvet to rest around my hips while sweat covers my chest under the old, threadbare cotton shirt that covers my torso.

I glance to my left at the clock sitting on the nightstand, groaning when the blue numbers tell me that it's barely after three in the morning.

Sliding out from between the sheets, my feet carry me into the kitchen where I can grab a cold bottle of water and drink it as fast as possible.

Another night, another nightmare.

Sleep has always come easy for me up until the last couple of weeks.

Up until that night.

Where I'd always been able to sleep like the dead, now it felt like I'd seen the same film over and over and I hated the ending.

Every dream ended the same.

Every single one.

Water drips down my chin and onto the Wolves hockey shirt, one that never belonged to me in the first place. Squeezing my eyes shut to block out the images of the dream, my hands grip the counter as I blow out a long breath.

This time confetti rained down in the arena as players dressed in green and white celebrated in the middle of the ice, the score on the board enough to lead us into the Stanley Cup finals.

A smile stays on my face and it only grows wider when Harry turns around, scanning the crowd and his own smile growing ten times wider when he sees me. Leaving his teammates, his powerful thighs push him across the ice towards me as he mouths three words I've longed to hear from him since we were young.

Only when he gets close enough to me and I can see the lights shining in those jade eyes does it happen.

It's always the same person.

With a menacing look underneath the visor of his helmet, Austin Stevens skates from across the ice at full speed and doesn't even try to slow down before checking him from behind.

My voice never seems to work as I try to warn him— to tell Harry to get out of the way.

Instead, his head jerks backwards as he gets slammed into the glass and the pieces fall between the rubber beneath my feet and the ice. I never move fast enough when trying to get the door open and by the time I've dropped to my knees next to him, there's nothing that can be done.

Laying on the ice motionless while everyone around us celebrates, their attention focused on anything but the nightmare in front of them.

No matter how loud I scream— nobody seems to hear me.

They never do.

After rinsing my glass and placing it in the sink, I slide onto one of the barstools at my kitchen counter and open my computer. It would take me at least another hour before I'd be able to go to sleep so I might as well put it to good use.

The same email sits in my inbox, the one that I've read at least a hundred times since it was sent to me this afternoon, reminding me of my meeting with the coaching staff as well as the medical staff first thing in the morning.

As if I needed a reminder.

For the last week it had been haunting me.

Instead of dwelling on that, I do what I do best.

Shop.

Before long I've added way too many books and way too many candles to my shopping carts and didn't even think twice when I confirmed my orders.