My brother was just a little bit of a badass. Not the magic thing. Everyone knew he was a badass with magic.

And if they didn’t, they would as soon as they watched one of the dozens of recorded videos of me gone wild and beating the hell out of the magic he had pulled around himself like a violet and steel shield.

They’d know it if they watched his eyes, which were never once afraid of having an unhinged second-marked slamming fists into his head, his stomach, his neck.

They’d know it when they realized those eyes were ferocious, and focused, and angry.

And oh-so calm.

He knew me. He knew my limits.

Better than that, he knew magic. And while he still might not know his limits with it, he was able to manipulate magic to make it tough enough to withstand my onslaught and still permeable enough to let him breathe while inside it.

While all hell had been breaking out around us, shifters and players and the general frenzy of West Hell.

He insisted I watch the video as we walked away from the hospital at a quick pace in the pre-dawn darkness.

I didn’t want to, but he was relentless, and so I’d watched, my heart beating wrong rhythms in my throat and ears as I watched myself on the screen do the one thing I’d never wanted to do. Do the one thing I’d promised I’d never do to him.

I went wild. Insane. I became nothing but howling hatred and I aimed it at him with everything in me.

And that…was not enough to break him.

Wasn’t even enough to hurt him.

Not enough to touch him.

My brother? Man. He could peel the world apart with his fingertips and tear the pulpy core of it out with his teeth.

Still, watching that video was hard.

I got all the way to the end of it, then shoved his phone back at his chest.

“What?” He fumbled, but caught it before it fell.

I staggered to the bushes beside the sidewalk and barfed my guts up.

Random waited until I was empty, breathing hard and spitting to try and get the sour acid out of my mouth. Then his hand landed between my shoulder blades and my entire body shuddered.

Contact. I was still needy for it.

“You okay?” he asked.

I wiped my sleeve over my eyes, and my mouth and nodded. “Just so fantastic, all around.”

His palm lifted and he patted me on the shoulder. “Keep moving. We don’t have all day.”

I straightened and fell into step next to him.

“You going to tell me yet why we escaped the hospital?”

“Nope.” He was watching his screen, and sent off a text.

“Who?” I asked.

“Your mom and dad. Don’t want them to freak.” He was typing again, then sent again.

“And that?”

“Just some guy I know.”

Some guy he knew turned out to be Scott Dart, the journalist who covered local sporting events and the WHHL in particular. He, Random told me, out of all the press who had hassled him when he got dropped out of the NHL and thrown down into the stew pit of West Hell, had been the most interested in what Hazard actually said and did, rather than the sensationalism of what he had been through.

Not that Scott was a guy I’d want to get to know very well. He was built too tall and gangly, all legs and overly long arms, his hair gray, but long, swept back, his actual rose-colored glasses perched on the end of his nose.

He reminded me of that comedian who had played the Grinch in the creepy version of the Christmas show.

Also, he fit right in with the whole vibe of the tattoo shop where we agreed to meet him.

So did Random, who was all cool and easy as he sat in the chair, his right arm and shoulder bare, the buzz of the tattoo machine stopping and starting.

It was taking everything I had to remain still. And the artist who had the needle in my right arm, had been smart to give me a stress ball to squeeze with my left hand.

“You don’t mind if I snap a few shots?” Dart asked, holding up his phone.

“Go ahead,” Hazard said.

Dart pushed off the wall and got close enough to catch different angles of both of us. I worked hard not to let the discomfort show on my face. Because, yeah, I got hit for a living, but these were needle stabs. A billion little needle stabs.

“And you’re okay with me recording this conversation?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hazard said. Dart shot me a glance.

“Sure.”

He thumbed his phone and cradled it in his palm, holding it so as not to block the microphone. “So when did you two decide to get ink?”

I glanced at Random. He was looking at me too. “About two hours ago?” I said.

He nodded. “’Bout that, yeah. But I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while.”

“You have?” I asked. “Since when?”

“Training camp.”

“NHL or West Hell?”

“NHL.” He ticked his eyes away for a second and I chuckled.

“No. No, no, no,” I chortled. “You did not expect me to get your number permanently inked on my arm did you? With a little Colorado Avalanche swoop?”

“No.” But his color had gone pink. Plus, I was second-marked. I could smell the embarrassment on him.

“Oh, yes you did! Oh my god, Ran, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t know…you know, if it was gonna last.”

“Being an Avalanche?”

“Yeah. I thought maybe after training, if I got put on one of the lines.”

I snorted. “Dude, I would have totally gotten your number, whether you made a line or not.”

Random shook his head. “Good thing I waited, right? Otherwise, wouldn’t you look stupid?”

“Like I’d care. As far as I’m concerned you were NHL, buddy. Doesn’t matter how long it lasted, you were there. You were there.”

“For half a minute, about.”

“Still,” I insisted.

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

“Do you miss it?” Dart asked.

I hadn’t forgotten he was there—it was hard to ignore a guy that tall and limby. Also his cologne smelled like root beer, and I wasn’t sure if it was actually cologne or if he’d just dumped a jug of root beer over his head.

He wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to Random. It wasn’t a question Random had gotten very often. Most people just asked if he was angry, or frustrated at the rules forbidding marked to play in the pros.

And Random was pro level. It would take a blind rock to not see how much talent he had.

He was going to be a great, a name in hockey that got burned into trophies, and written into books and history. Whether he played in the Hell leagues or anywhere else.

I raised my eyebrows at Random. He was doing that sort of inward search thing he did when he was thinking through what he felt and what he wanted to say.

His eyes, dark blue like the middle of the ocean, flicked up to focus on the journalist.

“Yeah,” he said. “I do miss it.”

“Would you go back if they asked you?” Dart asked, biting into the meat of the story he obviously wanted to tell.

He licked his lips. Thinking hard again. “I guess we’ll find out if they ever ask me.” He quirked an eyebrow and Scott chuckled.

“I, for one,” the journalist said, “really hope they do.”

Random’s eyes went a little wide. He had not expected that. Neither had I.

“It would make a grand story, don’t you think?” Dart pressed the rose-colored glasses down his nose so he could look over them at both of us. “Almost as good as you two. Want to tell me what started the fight? Bad blood over the Dead Man pick?”

“No. We’re solid with that, Ran and I.”

“Didn’t look like you were solid out on the ice.”

I stopped squishing the stress balloon thingy and gave Dart my full attention. I could feel Random tense up, knew he was worried I’d throw myself under the speeding train, or slow journalist, for him. For us.

But I didn’t need to do that. I was starting to understand it wasn’t always my job to take the hits. Still, this was on me.

“That was all me,” I said, honestly. “I wasn’t in a good headspace hitting the ice, and I let things get out of hand.”

Dart’s face didn’t change, but there was a shift in his body language. He was suddenly very focused on me and every word I said. I wondered if he was a sensitive.

“You call that getting out of hand? You could have seriously injured Hazard. Those hits were brutal, Spark.”

I bristled, but didn’t dare move because, hey, needle-in-arm. He wasn’t wrong.

“Lucky for me Hazard is smart enough to know when I’m being an idiot.” I said it level, calm. It even came out sounding mature, so, bonus.

“Lucky for me, it’s easy,” Random said. “Because he’s always an idiot.”

“Hey.”

He made a kissy face at me.

I grinned. “And whose idea was the tattoos?”

“Mine,” he said.

“Getting them yes, but deciding what they are?” I pressed.

He closed his eyes and lifted his eyebrows. “Yours.”

“So if I’m so stupid, you are equally dumb, since you agreed to my idea.”

“Just because you’re stupid doesn’t mean you don’t get something right every once in a while.”

“See what I have to put up with?” I asked Dart. “The question you should have asked me is not why I punched him in the face, but why it took me so long to punch him in the face.”

Random’s smile spread, making his eyes do that corner arch thing that meant he was really happy.

Good. Because, honestly I’d thought sneaking out of a hospital to get inked while we talked to a reporter was a terrible idea. But he had insisted and it was making him happy.

I owed him this. I owed him more. A full body tattoo if that’s what he wanted me to do to show I was sorry.

“What did you pick for tattoos?” Dart asked, still recording, both with his phone and with the sharp eyes of a seasoned journalist.

The woman doing my tattoo leaned back and wiped at my shoulder. “Good enough for him to see,” she decided.

I turned my shoulder and knew from the movement I caught at the corner of my eye that Hazard was doing the same.

“His number,” I said, showing the 42 with Hazard’s name under it and the Thunderheads logo. “My brother’s number.”

Dart took in the tattoo, red and angry looking, then glanced over at Hazard’s arm.

“His,” Hazard said, showing off the 9 with Spark beneath it. “Because he’s my brother. On the ice. On the same team, on opposing teams. Doesn’t matter.”

I felt my chest tighten and blew out a breath so I didn’t do something like tear up again.

“Same,” I said.

Dart glanced between the two of us, then nodded. “Let’s get a picture of that ink.”

Random and I leaned in toward each other, holding up our rolled sleeves and smiled for the camera.