All-Star Pride by Sigmund Brouwer Read Free Book Online Page B

Frankenstein’s monster to Klomysyk, with my hands outstretched, my cheek slashed wide open, and blood on my mouth and neck and shoulders. Or it could have been my eyes. The guys told me later it looked as if my eyeballs had rolled into the back of my head and I was a man totally out of control.
    Which I was.
    Klomysyk backpedaled a few uncertain steps.
    I was still roaring, still gaining speed, throwing my gloves off as I closed in on him.
    Klomysyk turned his back on me and skated as fast as he could.
    I chased, fueled by absolute rage.
    Klomysyk took a peek over his shoulder and picked up speed. I might have been mad, but he was afraid for his life.
    Fear proved to be faster than anger.
    I chased him all the way to their end, all the way to his net.
    He hid behind the goalie, who had moved a little way up the ice.
    I threw the goalie aside as if he were made of Styrofoam.
    Whatever Klomysyk saw in my eyes, it told him to do one thing.
    With the goalie gone, he raced the few steps back to the net, grabbed the crossbar and fell to his knees at the same time. He pulled the entire net down on himself.
    I couldn’t stop my dive in midair, so I tumbled into the netting, trying to rip through the mesh to get at him.
    That’s where both linesmen and the referee finally managed to capture me—on top of the net trying to punch my way through the mesh to get at Klomysyk.
    They pulled me away and dragged me back toward our players’ box. Sanity finally returned, time slowed and I felt as stupid as I must have looked.
    My bleeding didn’t slow down, though. And there was a thin line of red splotches the length of the ice where I’d chased Klomysyk.
    As they led me off the ice, Klomysyk finally decided it was safe to crawl out from beneath the net. The entire crowd whistled at him. A part of me wondered whether they whistled at him for the dirty shot he had given me or for hiding in the net.
    The major part of me, however, was just trying to keep my balance as weakness hit me. During the intermission between the first and second periods, a doctor worked quickly on my face, taking thirty stitches to close the cut. Before the second period had even begun, the side of my face had ballooned so badly I couldn’t see out of my right eye.
    As much as I tried, I couldn’t convince the coach or doctor to let me play the rest of the game. I was forced to sit in the stands,just above our players’ box. More than a few Russian fans made a point of stopping by to shake their heads with sympathy, saying angry words that I guessed meant they were as disgusted with Klomysyk as I was.
    It also made me feel a little better that my thirty stitches helped us during the second period. Klomysyk received a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. It meant we had a man advantage for all five minutes, and our team scored three goals while the Russians were shorthanded.
    It didn’t make me feel better, however, to see the guy with the goatee and the eyepatch again, here in St. Petersburg, six hours of high-speed travel away from Moscow. And it made me feel even worse to see him with Nadia. They were on the opposite side of the arena, high up in the stands where they were nearly invisible among the crowd of people.
    I wondered why I felt so jealous to see him playing with her long hair and whispering in her ear. After all, I was nothing to her. And it was becoming obvious she was someone not to trust in any situation, let alone in acountry where I could easily get lost and never be found again.
    As the second period continued, however, I couldn’t keep my eyes from constantly looking in her direction. We were up 4–1 with nine and a half minutes of play left in the second period when I glanced in her direction again.
    The eyepatch guy had taken her by the elbow and was leading her up the aisle. At the top of the aisle, it looked like she tried to pull away from him.
    He yanked her toward him.
    She pulled