"Cold air burned between us."
Six AM at Ingalls meant the ice belonged to whoever showed up first. Silver had set three alarms to make sure that was her.
The zamboni had just finished its morning pass, leaving that perfect sheen that only lasted about twenty minutes before someone carved it up. She'd already done her stretches in the locker room, careful with the PT exercises Dr. Meyers had prescribed. Now she stood at center ice, running through her edges program. Forward outside, forward inside, back outside, back inside. Basic stuff, the kind of fundamentals coaches drilled into five-year-olds.
But fundamentals were all she trusted right now.
Her bracket turns were getting smoother, the three-turns almost back to normal. She tried a simple mohawk sequence, the kind she could do in her sleep before the injury. Her knee protested on the pivot, not quite pain but that warning tension that meant she was pushing the boundary.
"One more set," she muttered, ignoring it.
