Page 154 of Knottingley Ever After
Three of my men move first. Matteo. Rémi. Jude. The precise small unhurried captain-and-pack triangle of Alphas closing on me with the small careful hands of men who are not, in fact, going to compromise the small private chamber of my rage but are, on the small inner accounting of the small wet broken clavicle on the floor, going to extract me from the small mechanical hold before the small wet broken clavicle becomes the small wet broken everything else.
Coach Declan moves at the same time.
Four pairs of large adult-Alpha hands. The small careful peel. Matteo at my right elbow. Rémi at the small bracket of my upper back. Jude at the small clean angle of my left wrist, gently breaking the lock. Coach Declan, very quietly, under my right shoulder, sliding one steady hand between my ribcage and Petrov’s clavicle, and lifting.
They peel me off.
I do not, in the small dry accounting of how this becomes the small private bench of the empty assistant-coaching change room across the hall, fully understand the connecting transit between the small wet wood-snap of a clavicle and the small precise plastic bench on which Rémi has just deposited me.
Outside the door, through the small smoked-glass panel, the locker room behind us is going through the precise unhurried small ambient pandemonium of a roster discovering that the small post-OT-loss debrief is, in fact, now also the small wounded-collegiate-Alpha medical event.
Voices. The crackle of a small first-aid radio. The small assistant-coach voice of Coach Whitlock asking for a clean towel, three times, in three different timbres.
Coach Declan walks into our change room. His eyes flick, fast, over me. He turns to the three men around me.
“Damage control,” he says, level. “All three of you. Now.”
They nod, in unison.
Then they all turn and look at me with the precise small inner-pack worry of three adult Alphas who are, frankly, not certain I am, in the present tense, mentally stable.
I roll my eyes.
“I,” I announce, with the small dignified posture of a small bloody-knuckled Omega whose right-hand wraps are, in fact, currently soaking through with the precise small coppery iron of another man’s nose blood, “will be, for the duration of this damage-control window, a perfectly behaved Omega on the small bench Rémi has just deposited me on. I will not, structurally, move. I will not, structurally, escalate further. I will simply sit. However.”
“However,” Jude says, mild, his own small uplifted captain corner-mouth visibly fighting the small uplifted captain corner-mouth.
“I,” I declare, into the cold air of the assistant-coaching change room, “REGRET. NOTHING.”
Rémi’s mouth, against every visible defenseman professional restraint of the man, smirks.
“Iris,” Rémi observes, mildly, “I knew. The Tanaka certificate is on the wall of your nest.”
Of course you knew. You built the wall.
“Now,” Matteo announces, brightly, in the small unrepentant register of a winger executing the small comedic transition of the room, “that is OUR Omega. Coach Declan, you are not, on the public record of this room, going to punish her. She is a fucking BLACK BELT.” He winks at me. “Pinky. The small twister-nonsense Sankukai hold you ran on Petrov. You and me. Bed. Tonight. Live demo. I have been a good winger for two months and I am, in fact, in the market for the small physical reward.”
I groan. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Santori.”
“Yes, Pinky.”
“Go. Away.”
“Okay,” Matteo says, agreeably, and laughs. He kisses the top of my head, light. Rémi follows with a precise small kiss to the crown of my hair. Jude, on his way past, lays the small careful pressure of his palm against the small bracket of my shoulder for one beat, presses a small soft kiss to my temple, and follows the other two out into the small ambient locker-room pandemonium across the hall.
The door closes behind them.
The small smoked-glass panel goes still.
The small assistant-coaching change room, on my side of the small smoked-glass panel, is, in the small precise unhurried way the universe occasionally does this, suddenly and without warning, only me.
And Coach Declan O’Rourke.
He is standing in the centre of the small floor. His arms are crossed against his coaching jacket. His grey-green eyes are on me with the precise small low captain-coach steadiness of a man who has, in the past seven minutes, watched his goalie execute an unauthorized assault in his locker room and is, in the present tense, holding very, very still.
He sighs.
“Okay, O’Shea.”
