Free Ability (Omnibus) by Travis Hill Page B

Brian while they sat on the bench, waiting for their next shift.
    “Don’t sweat it,” Brian said with a chuckle. “All of them told us that there was something about hockey that would make us aggressive. They weren’t kidding either. I kind of want to kill that guy in the red jersey. He and I don’t see eye-to-eye about things.”
    Derry burst into laughter. She knew where he was coming from. Green Helm talked more shit than he skated. Most of them treated her like one of the boys, but not Green Helm. She imagined he was the type of loser who had to get campus girls drunk before they would sleep with him. He was rude, crass, sexist, and knew at least ninety different ways to insult her vagina.
    Garret skated by their side of the bench, tossing out a colorful insult about her vagina that he must have learned from Green Helm. Garret had ended up on the Colors team. Brian and Derry were Whites. She wanted to make Green Helm bleed red.
    “I think I’m going to slash him across the shoulder blades,” she told Brian as she jumped over the boards and onto the ice when one of her teammates came to the bench.
    “Don’t kill him, dear!” Brian shouted after her.
    Derry didn’t kill Green Helm, but after exchanging increasingly violent body checks into the glass, she finally caught him with his head down in an open-ice hit. Green Helm was still for a couple of minutes before he was able to sit up. He looked around, a bit dazed, and saw Derry skating toward him. She pumped her legs hard for a few more strides before digging her skate blades into the ice as hard as she could, showering Green Helm’s face with a thick cloud of ice shavings.
    “Cool your shit, asshole,” she warned him, “or next time I’ll remove your fucking head.” She skated away, banging her stick on the ice to let everyone know it was time to resume the game.
     
    *
     
    “You guys were right,” Derry told them on the ride back to their apartment. “That was a complete blast!”
    “Jesus, Derry, you nearly killed that guy,” Garret said, exaggerating his concern for Green Helm.
    “Fuck that guy! I would have fought him if Bri would’ve let go of my fucking jersey!” she yelled, the anger of the moment filling her again.
    “You probably would have kicked his ass too,” Brian smiled. “You needed to calm down a little.”
    “The skill needed to play that sport is absolutely incredible,” Garret announced from the back seat. He’d been worried when Mr. Stiles let them out onto the ice before flashing. Brian and Derry had fallen down every two steps. “All I could think of was ‘no way in hell.’ No way in hell we were even going to be able to skate across the ice to the bench.”
    “Those guys were scary,” Derry said, nodding her head. She nearly did bolt as she stood on the other side of the glass, watching the men on the ice buzz around, pass with laser accuracy, stop on a dime, and shoot the puck hard enough to make the glass waver. “I didn’t think we were going to be able to keep up. You two aren’t the most athletic, you know.” Her admonishment hit home, but was delivered with a smile.
    “Yeah, now you know why we got on the whole ‘get physical’ kick,” Garret said. “We’ve tested all kinds of mental learning stuff, but never really anything that combined a learned physical skill that had to be practiced repeatedly. I kind of figured we could do it because I’ve been messing around with a Taekwondo module, and after I flash it, I can do most of the moves as if I’ve been doing them all my life. Except I can’t stretch as far as I’m supposed to, but I’m getting a lot better. Plus, when I first started, my stamina was practically zero.
    “But I watched you pick up that guitar every single day and play. I listened to you whine about how your hands and fingers hurt, how they would bleed, how thick the calluses were growing.” Derry made a face at him. “But every day you played again, usually for a few