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The Cousins' Freshman Year Through Renee's eyes (Part 4)

#3 - ANDREW JOSEPH MINYARD, GOALKEEPER
November 4, Scorpio

Renee kept her knives in a shoebox on the top shelf of her closet, behind the empty boxes she'd brought her photographs and fragile decorations to school in. A set of five, finger-length and thin, were in a folding mesh case with a protective plastic layer. The others were stored either in sheathes and heavy cloth. Renee hadn't handled her blades since she signed Wymack's contract to play for the Foxes, but she did now what she had done that night: she knelt in the middle of her bedroom and carefully unwrapped each and ever one. Dan was at Abby's again, and Allison had fallen asleep in Seth's bed last night, so there was no one to see her with her weapons and no one to make excuses for.

Renee turned her knives over in her hands one at a time, checking for blood she'd washed off years ago. She had expected to feel something—disappointment over how easily she'd been talked into this fight or a bit of sickness at how familiar the knives felt in her hands so many years later—but she felt nothing at all. She considered that for a minute, knowing she had the time to spare before she was supposed to be downstairs. Was it a good sign that her past wasn't haunting her now, or was it too soon for her to be done atoning?

It was something to think about, for sure, but her minute was up. Renee chose her weapon after a little more consideration and put the rest away. The shoebox was tucked safely out of sight again and Renee strapped her sheath to the side of her calf. She tugged the hem of her pants back down and tugged on a pair of well-worn sneakers. A glance around found her keys on her pillow. Renee collected them and took the stairs to the basement.

There were only a hundred-odd students on campus for summer school and only one other team checked into Fox Tower already, but Renee checked all of the study rooms for witnesses. She found Andrew in the last room. He'd already folded up the tables' flimsy legs and stacked the tables against the walls. The chairs were pushed to the corners, stacked upside-down on top of each other. Renee gauged the room they had to work with, judged it to be sufficient, and hesitated when she got a better look at her opponent.

Andrew had come in a short-sleeved black shirt, but his arms were still mostly covered. What the Foxes had thus far assumed was a long-sleeved undershirt were black wrist-to-elbow bands on both arms. An unsubtle attempt to hide his sheathes, perhaps, except Andrew should only have one. He'd told her Friday he had one more knife on him than she did and he'd assumed she was unarmed. His left arm was strapped; his right was likely covered to make the left less obvious.

"Oh, she came!" Andrew said. "A woman of her word, what a novelty."

"Honesty, or honest women?" Renee asked.

"Yes," Andrew said.

Renee smiled and let it slide. She'd pulled a light zippered sweatshirt on over a tank top so as not to wander the halls with her shoulders showing, but now she eased out of it and set it on the nearest chair. Andrew was rocking on the balls of his feet as she returned to him, and he spun a finger near his head when she stopped.

"How unexpected. Let us have another look."

She obediently turned her back to him. The mottled scars along the top of her shoulder blades were too faded to have caught his eye across the room, so she knew he'd spotted the edges of her tattoo. Last night's stringy shirt would have shown off more of the uneven lines, but she'd left her jacket on the whole time she'd been out with him.

Andrew hooked a finger in her sleeve hole and tugged it toward the center of her back, trying to pull it enough that he could get a better look at her. She'd have to take off her shirt for him to see the whole thing, but she thought he could see enough to understand what he was looking at. The jagged wings were more dragon than angel, consequence of being inked into her young skin by an inexperienced hand. Appropriate, she thought some days—the discrepancy between what she was and what she wanted to be was carved into her skin for all time.