Chapter 99 The Winning Streak

Chapter 99 The Winning Streak


We stopped counting after eight.

Twelve wins in a row did not happen in hockey by accident. Not in a league like this, not against teams that studied your habits, your lines, your weaknesses, and still came out trying to take your head off every night.

But it happened.

We made it happen.

And every game, without fail, Cassian found me like the ice belonged to just us for a few seconds at a time.

That was the part no one could game plan for.

Cassian leaned against my stall after practice one morning, sweat still on his neck, tape half peeled from his fingers. He had that look he got when he was tired but still not done.

“You realize they are starting to hate us,” he said.

I tightened the laces on my skate and did not look up. “They already hated us.”

“Now it is personal.”

That made me glance at him. “It was always personal.”

He smiled like that was exactly the answer he expected.

We had become a problem for other teams in a way that showed up on film before it showed up on the scoreboard. They tried matching lines, they tried shutting down passing lanes, they tried isolating us.

It did not matter.

Cassian adjusted before they could finish the adjustment.

I reacted before he even moved.

It stopped feeling like strategy and started feeling like instinct.

On the ice, it was worse for them.

Better for us.

Game after game, it looked the same from the outside. Fast starts, physical second periods. Tight third periods where someone always thought they had us, until they did not.

But inside it was never the same.

There were shifts where Cassian would not even look at me before sending a pass because he already knew I would be there.

There were moments I would move into space before he created it, because I could feel the play forming in his body before it left his stick.

One night in Chicago, he faked a shot at the blue line, pulled two defenders towards him, and slipped the puck backward without looking.

It landed perfectly on my stick.

I scored.

I did not celebrate right away, I just turned my head towards him.

He was already looking at me.

That was the thing that stayed with me more than the goal.

The connection.

After the game, the media started calling us it again.

The Ice Breakers.

This time there was no hesitation in their voices, there was no question mark at the end, there was no attempt to turn it into controversy. It came with highlights and statistics and clips of goals that looked almost rehearsed even though they were anything but.

Cassian read it on his phone in the locker room and snorted.

“They are really committing to that name now.”

I pulled my jersey over my head and glanced at him. “You do not like it.”

“I did not say that.”

“You did not have to.”

He looked up at me then, and there was something in his expression that lingered a fraction too long. The room was loud around us. Music, showers, laughter. But he still lowered his voice.

“I liked it before, but now, it sounds like a brand,” he said.

I paused. “We are a brand.”

That got a short laugh out of him. “That is depressing.”

I sat beside him on the bench. “It is accurate.”

Cassian leaned back, stretching his arms over the top of the stall. “Twelve wins.”

“Yeah.”

He turned his head towards me. “You feel different?”

I considered it. “No.”

That made him smile slightly. “Liar.”

I met his eyes. “Do you?”

He did not answer immediately.

That was answer enough.

The streak changed things in small ways first.

Extra cameras at morning skates, more questions in interviews. Longer lines of reporters outside the arena doors and people starting to expect us to win instead of reacting when we did.

Then it changed things in bigger ways.

Opponents started talking about us differently. Not just as threats, but as systems to break. Plans to solve, problems to isolate.

That was the part they kept missing.

We were not separate problems.

We were the same one.

One night after a win in overtime, we got stuck outside the locker room for media. Cassian stood beside me, still in full gear except for his helmet, which he held loosely in one hand. A reporter shoved a mic towards us.

“Twelve straight wins,” she said. “Do you think this chemistry is sustainable or just a hot streak?”

Cassian did not even blink.

I felt him shift slightly beside me before he spoke.

“We are not trying to sustain anything,” he said. “We are playing.”

The reporter turned the question towards me.

I answered without thinking. “It is not a streak if it becomes your standard.”

Cassian looked at me then.

We walked away before they could ask anything else.

In the tunnel, he spoke again.

“That sounded dramatic.”

“It was true.”

He bumped my shoulder lightly with his. “You are getting worse.”

“Better,” I corrected.

He smiled. “Worse.”

The next game, we scored four points together.

A pass from him, a shot from me, a rebound he buried, and another assist I barely had to look for.

By the third period, the crowd was already restless because they could feel it ending before it ended.

When the final buzzer went, I did not even remember the last shift clearly.

Only Cassian beside me on the bench, breathing hard, turning his head slightly towards me like he always did after games like that.

“You see that coming?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

He laughed. “You never do.”

We started noticing something else during the streak.

The way other teams started watching us longer after whistles.

The way coaches started talking to each other instead of just shouting instructions.

The way commentators ran out of new ways to describe what was happening without sounding repetitive.

One analyst called it synchronization.

Another called it instinct.

Cassian called it what it was in the locker room one night after a game in Boston.

He leaned back against the wall, towel over his shoulders, and said, “We are ruining other teams’ defensive systems.”

I looked at him. “We are winning games.”

“That too,” he said. Then he smiled slightly. “But mostly ruining systems.”

The streak reached twelve on a cold night in a building that did not like us from the moment we stepped off the bus.

They booed us during warmups.

They booed harder after the first goal.

By the second period, they were quiet in a way that felt more honest than anger.

Cassian got two assists that game. I scored once, then again.

After the final buzzer, we did not celebrate.

We just stood there for a second.

Breathing.

Cassian skated closer and tapped my stick with his.

“Twelve,” he said.

I nodded. “Twelve.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Still not a streak?”

I looked at him. “Still just hockey.”

He smiled like that was exactly what he wanted to hear.

We headed off the ice together while the arena processed what had just happened. 

In the tunnel, a staff member passed us and said under his breath, “Ice Breakers again.”

Cassian heard it.

He glanced at me.

“You think they are going to keep calling us that?” he asked.

I thought about it.

Then I answered honestly.

“Yes.”

Cassian nodded once, like he had made peace with that.

“Good,” he said. “Means we are doing something right, because for a while, they didn’t call us that, for a while we were just Cassian and Torin.”

I looked at him as we reached the locker room doors.

Twelve wins in a row should have felt like pressure building.

Instead, it felt like something else entirely.

Like proof.

And when Cassian held the door open and waited for me to go in first, like he always did without thinking about it anymore, I understood something simple.

The streak was not the story.

We were.