Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn't want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother. If he inhaled slowly enough, he could almost taste the ghost of gasoline and fire. It was at once revolting and comforting, and it sent a sick shudder down his spine. The jolt went all the way to his fingertips, dislodging a clump of ash. It fell to the bleachers between his shoes and was whisked away by the wind.
He glanced up at the sky, but the stars were washed out behind the glare of stadium lights. He wondered—not for the first time—if his mother was looking down at him. He hoped not. She'd beat him to hell and back if she saw him sitting around moping like this. A door squealed open behind him, startling him from his thoughts. Neil pulled his duffel closer to his side and looked back. Coach Hernandez propped the locker room door open and sat beside Neil.
"I didn't see your parents at the game," Hernandez said.
"They're out of town," Neil said.
"Still or again?"
Neither, but Neil wouldn't say that. He knew his teachers and coach were tired of hearing the same excuse any time they asked after his parents, but it was as easy a lie as it was overused. It explained why no one would ever see the Jostens around town and why Neil had a predilection for sleeping on school grounds.
It wasn't that he didn't have a place to live. It was more that his living situation wasn't legal. Millport was a dying town, which meant there were dozens of houses on the market that would never sell.
He'd appropriated one last summer in a quiet neighbourhood populated mostly by senior citizens. His neighbors rarely left the comfort of their couches and daily soaps, but every time he came and went he risked getting spotted. If people realized he was squatting they'd start asking difficult questions. It was usually easier to break into the locker room and sleep there. Why Hernandez let him get away with it and didn't notify the authorities, Neil didn't know. He thought it best not to ask.
Hernandez held out his hand. Neil passed him the cigarette and watched as Hernandez ground it out on the concrete steps. The coach flicked the crumpled butt aside and turned to face Neil.
"I thought they'd make an exception tonight," he said.
"No one knew it'd be the last game," Neil said, looking back at the court.
Millport's loss tonight booted them from state championships two games from finals. So close, too far. The season was over just like that. A crew was already dismantling the court, unhinging the plexiglass walls and rolling Astroturf over the hard floor. When they were done it'd be a soccer field again; there'd be nothing left of Exy until fall. Neil felt sick watching it happen, but he couldn't look away. Exy was a bastard sport, an evolved sort of lacrosse on a soccer-sized court with the violence of ice hockey, and Neil loved every part of it from its speed to its aggression. It was the one piece of his childhood he'd never been able to give up.
"I'll call them later with the score," he said, because Hernandez was still watching him. "They didn't miss much."
"Not yet, maybe," Hernandez said. "There's someone here to see you."
To someone who'd spent half his life outrunning his past they were words from a nightmare. Neil leaped to his feet and slung his bag over his shoulder, but the scuff of a shoe behind him warned him he was too late to escape. Neil twisted to see a large stranger standing in the locker room doorway. The wife beater the man wore showed off sleeves of tribal flame tattoos. One hand was stuffed into his jeans pocket. The other held a thick file. His stance was casual, but the look in his brown eyes was intent.
Neil didn't recognize him, which meant he wasn't local.
Millport boasted fewer than nine hundred residents. This was a place where everyone knew everyone's business. That ingrained nosiness made things uncomfortable for Neil and all his secrets, but he'd hoped to use that small-town mentality as a shield. Gossip about an outsider should have reached him before this stranger did. Millport had failed him.
"I don't know you," Neil said.
"He's from a university," Hernandez said. "He came to see you play tonight."
"Bullshit," Neil said. "No one recruits from Millport. No one knows where it is."
"There's this thing called a map," the stranger said. "You might have heard of it."
Hernandez sent Neil a warning look and got to his feet. "He's here because I sent him your file. He put a note out saying he was short on his striker line, and I figured it was worth a shot. I didn't tell you because I didn't know if anything would come of it and I didn't want to get your hopes up."Neil stared. "You did what?"
"I tried contacting your parents when he asked for a face-to-face tonight, but they haven't returned my messages. You said they'd try to make it."
"They did," Neil said. "They couldn't."
"I can't wait for them," the stranger said, coming down to stand beside Hernandez. "It's stupid late in the season for me to be here, I know, but I had some technical difficulties with my last recruit. Coach Hernandez said you still haven't chosen a school for fall. Works out perfectly, doesn't it? I need a striker sub, and you need a team. All you have to do is sign the dotted line and you're mine for five years."
It took Neil two tries to find his voice. "You can't be serious."
"Very serious, and very out of time," the man said.
He tossed his file onto the bleacher where Neil had been sitting. Neil's name was scrawled across the front in black marker. Neil thought about flipping the folder open, but what was the point? The man this coach had researched so carefully wasn't real and wouldn't exist much longer. In five weeks Neil would graduate and in six he'd be someone else somewhere very far away from here. It didn't matter how much he liked being Neil Josten. He'd stayed here too long as it was.
Neil should be used to this by now. He'd spent the last eight years on the run, spinning lie after lie to leave a twisted trail behind him. Twenty-two names stood between him and the truth, and he knew what would happen if anyone finally connected the dots. Signing with a college team meant more than standing still. It meant he'd be stepping into a spotlight. Prison couldn't stop his father for long, and Neil wouldn't survive a rematch with him.
The math was simple, but that didn't make this any easier.
That contract was a one-way ticket to a future, something Neil could never have, and he wanted it so badly he ached. For a blinding moment he hated himself for ever trying out for Millport's team. He'd known better than to step on a court. His mother told him he'd never play again. She'd warned him to obsess from a distance, and he'd disobeyed her.
But what else was he supposed to do? He'd run aground in Millport after her death because he didn't know how to go on without her. This was the only thing he had left that was real. Now that he'd had a taste of it again, he didn't know how to walk away from it. "Please go away," he said.
"It's a bit sudden, but I really do need an answer tonight. The Committee's been hounding me since Janie got locked up."
Neil's stomach hit his shoes at that name. He snapped his gaze from the folder to the coach's face. "Foxes," he said. "Palmetto State University."
The man—who Neil now knew had to be Coach David Wymack—looked surprised at how quickly he put it together. "I guess you saw the news."
Technical difficulties, he'd said. It was a nice way of saying his last recruit Janie Smalls tried to kill herself. Her best friend found her bleeding out in a bathtub and got her to a hospital just in time. Last Neil heard, the girl was on suicide watch in a psychiatric ward. Typical of a Fox, the anchorman had said in crass aside, and he wasn't exaggerating.
The Palmetto State University Foxes were a team of talented rejects and junkies because Wymack only recruited athletes from broken homes.
His decision to turn the Foxhole Court into a halfway house of sorts was nice in theory, but it meant his players were fractured isolationists who couldn't get along long enough to get through a game. They were notorious in the NCAA both for their tiny size and for getting ranked dead-last three years running. They'd done significantly better this past year thanks to the perseverance of their captain and the strength of their new defense line, but they were still considered a joke by critics. Even the ERC, the Exy Rules and Regulations Committee, was losing patience with their poor results.
Then former national champion Kevin Day joined the line. It was the greatest thing that could happen to the Foxes and it meant Neil could never accept Wymack's offer. Neil hadn't seen Kevin in almost eight years, and he'd never be ready to see him again. Some doors had to stay closed; Neil's life depended on it.
"You can't be here," Neil said.
"Yet here I stand," Wymack said. "Need a pen?"
"No," Neil said. "No. I'm not playing for you.""I misheard you."
"You signed Kevin."
"And Kevin's signing you, so—"
Neil didn't stick around for the rest.
He bolted up the bleachers for the locker room. Metal clanged beneath his shoes, not quite loud enough to drown out Hernandez's startled query.
Neil didn't look back to see if they were following. All he knew, all that mattered, was getting as far away from here as possible. Forget graduation. Forget "Neil Josten". He'd leave tonight and run until he forgot Wymack ever said those words to him.
Neil wasn't fast enough.
He was halfway through the locker room when he realized he wasn't alone. There was someone waiting for him in the lounge between him and the front door. Light glinted off a bright yellow racquet as the stranger took a swing, and Neil was going too fast to stop.
Wood slammed into his gut hard enough to crush his lungs into his spine. He didn't remember falling, but suddenly he was on his hands and knees, scrabbling ineffectually at the floor as he tried to breathe. He'd puke if he could only manage that first gasp, but his body refused to cooperate.
The buzzing in his ears was Wymack's furious voice, but he sounded a thousand miles away. "God damn it, Minyard. This is why we can't have nice things."
"Oh, Coach," someone said over Neil's head. "If he was nice, he wouldn't be any use to us, would he?"
"He's no use to us if you break him."
"You'd rather I let him go? Put a band-aid on him and he'll be good as new."
The world crackled black, then came into too-sharp focus as air finally hit Neil's tortured lungs. Neil inhaled so sharply he choked, and every wracking cough threatened to shake him apart. He wrapped an arm around his middle to hold himself together and slanted a fierce look up at his assailant.
Wymack already said the man's name, but Neil didn't need it. He'd seen this face in too many newspaper clippings to not know him on sight.
Andrew Minyard didn't look like much in person, blonde and five feet even, but Neil knew better. Andrew was the Foxes' freshman goalkeeper and their deadliest investment. Most of the Foxes were self-destructive, whereas Andrew seemed keen on collateral damage. He'd spent three years at a juvie facility and barely avoided a second term. Andrew was also the only person to ever turn down the first-ranked Edgar Allan University.
Kevin and Riko themselves set up a meet-and-greet to welcome him to the line, but Andrew refused and joined the dead-last Foxes instead. He never explained that choice, but everyone assumed it was because Wymack was willing to sign his family as well—Andrew's twin Aaron and their cousin Nicholas Hemmick joined the line the same year. Whatever the reason, Andrew was blamed for Kevin's recent transfer.
Kevin played for Edgar Allan's Ravens until he broke his dominant hand in a skiing accident this past December. An injury like that cost him his college contract, but he should have recuperated where he'd have his former team's support. Instead he moved to Palmetto to be Wymack's informal assistant coach. Three weeks ago he was officially signed to next year's starting line-up.
The only thing a dismal team like the Foxes could offer Kevin was the goalkeeper who'd once spurned him. Neil spent this spring digging up everything he could find on Andrew, wanting to understand the man who'd caught Kevin's eye. Meeting Andrew face to face was as disorienting as it was painful.
Andrew smiled down at Neil and tapped two fingers to his temple in salute. "Better luck next time."
"Fuck you," Neil said. "Whose racquet did you steal?"
"Borrow." Andrew tossed it at Neil. "Here you go."
"Neil," Hernandez said, catching Neil by his arm to help him up. "Jesus, are you all right?"
"Andrew's a bit raw on manners," Wymack said, coming around to stand between Neil and Andrew. Andrew had no problems reading that silent warning. He threw his hands up in an exaggerated shrug and retreated to give Neil more room. Wymack watched him go before looking Neil over. "He break anything?"
Neil pressed careful hands to his ribs and breathed, feeling the way his muscles screamed in protest. He'd fractured bones enough in the past to know he'd gotten lucky this time. "I'm fine. Coach, I'm leaving. Let me go.""We're not done," Wymack said.
"Coach Wymack," Hernandez started.
Wymack didn't let him finish. "Give us a second?"
Hernandez looked from Wymack to Neil, then let go. "I'll be right out back."
Neil listened to his footsteps as he left. There was a rattle as he kicked the door prop out of its spot and the back door swung closed with an agonizing creak. Neil waited for it to click before speaking again.
"I already gave you my answer. I won't sign with you."
"You didn't listen to my whole offer," Wymack said. "If I paid to fly three people out here to see you the least you could do is give me five minutes, don't you think?"
The blood left Neil's face so fast the world tilted. He took a stumbling step back from Wymack, a desperate search for both balance and room to breathe. His duffel banged into his hip and he knotted a hand around its strap, needing something to hold onto. "You didn't bring him here."
Wymack stared hard at him. "Is that a problem?"
Neil couldn't tell him the truth, so he said, "I'm not good enough to play on the same court as a champion."
"True, but irrelevant," a new voice said, and Neil stopped breathing.
He knew better than to turn around, but he was already moving.
He should have guessed when he saw Andrew here, but he hadn't wanted to think it. There was no reason for a goalkeeper to meet a potential striker. Andrew was only here because Kevin Day never went anywhere alone.
Kevin was sitting on top of the entertainment center along the back wall. He'd pushed the TV off to one side to give himself more room and covered the space around him with papers. He'd watched this entire spectacle and, judging by the cool look on his face, was unimpressed by Neil's reaction. It'd been years since Neil stood in the same room as Kevin, years since they'd watched Neil's father cut a screaming man into a hundred bloody pieces.
Neil knew Kevin's face as well as he knew his own, the consequence of watching Kevin grow up in the public eye from a thousand or more miles away. Everything about him was different. Everything was the same, from his dark hair and green eyes to the black number two tattooed onto his left cheekbone. Neil saw that number and wanted to retch.
Kevin had that number back then, too, but he'd been too young to have it done permanently. Instead he and his adopted brother Riko Moriyama wrote the numbers one and two on their faces with markers, tracing them over and over anytime they started to fade. Neil didn't understand it then, but Kevin and Riko were aiming for the stars. They were going to be famous, they promised him.
They were right. They had professional teams and played for the Ravens. Last year they were inducted to the national team, the US Court. They were champions, and Neil was a jumble of lies and dead-ends.
Neil knew Kevin couldn't recognize him. It'd been too long; they'd both grown up a world apart. Neil had further disguised his looks with dark hair dye and brown contacts. But why else would Kevin Day be here looking for him? No Class I school would stoop so low, not even the Foxes.
Neil's records said he'd only been playing Exy for a year. He'd been very careful this year to act like a know-nothing, even loading up on and lugging around How-To books last fall. It was easy to pretend at first, since he hadn't picked up a racquet in eight years. The fact he was playing a different position now than he'd played at little league helped, since he had to relearn the game from a new perspective. He'd had an enviable and unavoidable learning curve, but he'd still fought hard to not shine.
Had he slipped? Had it been too obvious that he had past experience he wasn't talking about? How had he caught Kevin's eye despite his best attempts to stay hidden? If it was that easy for Kevin, what sort of beacon was he sending to his father's people?
"What are you doing here?" he asked through numb lips.
"Why were you leaving?" Kevin asked. "I asked you first."
"Coach already answered that question," Kevin said, a tad impatiently. "We are waiting for you to sign the contract. Stop wasting our time."
"No," Neil said. "There are a thousand strikers who'd jump at the chance to play with you. Why don't you bother them?"
"We saw their files," Wymack said. "We chose you."
"I won't play with Kevin."
"You will," Kevin said.
Wymack shrugged at Neil. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but we're not leaving here until you say yes. Kevin says we have to have you, and he's right."
"We should have thrown away your coach's letter the second we opened it," Kevin said. "Your file is deplorable and I don't want someone with your inexperience on our court. It goes against everything we're trying to do with the Foxes this year. Fortunately for you, your coach knew better than to send us your statistics.
He sent us a tape so we could see you in action instead. You play like you have everything to lose."
His inexperience.
If Kevin remembered him, he'd know that file was a lie. He'd know about Neil's little league teams. He'd remember the scrimmage interrupted by that man's murder.
"That's why," Neil said quietly.
"That's the only kind of striker worth playing with."
Relief made Neil sick to his stomach. Kevin didn't recognize him and this was just a horrible coincidence.
Maybe it was the world's way of showing him what could happen if he stayed in the same place for too long. Next time it might not be Kevin. Next time it might be his father.
"It actually works in our favor that you're all the way out here," Wymack said. "No one outside of our team and school board even knows we're here. We don't want your face all over the news this summer. We've got too much to deal with right now and we don't want to drag you into the mess until you're safe and settled at campus.
There's a confidentiality clause in your contract, says you can't tell anyone you're ours until the season starts in August."Neil looked at Kevin again, searching for his real name on Kevin's face. "It's not a good idea."
"Your opinion has been duly noted and dismissed," Wymack said. "Anything else, or are you going to start signing stuff?"
The smart thing to do was bail. Even if Kevin didn't know who he was, this was a terrible idea. The Foxes spent too much time in the news and it'd only get worse with Kevin on the line. Neil shouldn't submit himself to that sort of scrutiny.
He should tear Wymack's contract into a thousand pieces and leave.
Leaving meant living, but Neil's way of living was survival, nothing more. It was new names and new places and never looking back. It was packing up and going as soon as he started to feel settled. This last year, without his mother at his side, it meant being completely alone and adrift. He didn't know if he was ready for that.
He didn't know if he was ready to give up Exy again, either. It was the only thing that made him feel real. Wymack's contract was permission to keep playing and a chance to pretend at being normal a little while longer.
Wymack said it was for five years, but Neil didn't have to stay that long. He could duck and run whenever he pleased, couldn't he?
He looked at Kevin again. Kevin didn't recognize him, but maybe some part of him remembered the boy he'd met so many years ago. Neil's past was locked in Kevin's memories. It was proof he existed, same as this game they both played. Kevin was proof Neil was real. Maybe Kevin was also the best chance Neil had at knowing when to leave again. If he lived, practiced, and played with Kevin, he'd know when Kevin started to get suspicious. The second Kevin started asking questions or looking at him funny, Neil would split.
"Well?" Wymack asked.
Survival instincts warred with need and twisted into an almost debilitating panic. "I have to talk to my mother," Neil said, because he didn't know what else to say.
"What for?" Wymack asked. "You're legal, aren't you? Your file says you're nineteen."Neil was eighteen, but he wasn't going to contradict what his forged paperwork said. "I still need to ask."
"She'll be happy for you."
"Maybe," Neil agreed quietly, knowing it was a lie. If his mother knew he was even considering this, she'd be furious. It was probably a good thing she'd never know, but Neil didn't think "good" was supposed to feel like a knife in his chest. "I'll talk to her tonight."
"We can give you a lift home."
"I'm fine."
Wymack looked at his Foxes. "Go wait in the car."
Kevin gathered his files and slid off his perch. Andrew waited for Kevin to catch up and led him out of the locker room.
Wymack waited until they were gone, then turned a serious look on Neil.
"You need one of us to talk to your parents?"
"I'm fine," Neil said again.
Wymack didn't even try for subtlety with his next question. "Are they the ones who hurt you?"
Neil stared at him at a complete loss. It was blunt enough to be rude on so many levels that there wasn't a good place to start answering it. Wymack seemed to realize that, because he pushed on before Neil could respond.
"Let's try that again. The reason I'm asking is because Coach Hernandez guesses you spend several nights a week here. He thinks there's something going on since you won't change out with the others or let anyone meet your parents. That's why he nominated you to me; he thinks you fit the line. You know what that means, right? You know the people I look for.
"I don't know if he's right," he said, "but something tells me he's not far off. Either way, the locker room's going to be shut down once the school year ends. You're not going to be able to come here during the summer. If your parents are a problem for you, we'll move you to South Carolina early."
"You'll do what?" Neil asked, surprised. "Andrew's lot stays in town for summer break," Wymack said.
"They crash with Abby, our team nurse. Her place is full, but you could stay with me until the dorm opens in June. My apartment's not made for two people but I've got a couch that's a little softer than a rock.
"We'll tell everyone you're there for conditional early practice. Chances are half of them will believe it. You won't be able to fool the rest, but that doesn't matter. Foxes are Foxes for a reason and they know we wouldn't sign you if you didn't qualify. That doesn't mean they know specifics. It's not my place to ask, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell them."
It took two tries to get the word out. "Why?"
Coach Wymack was quiet for a minute. "Did you think I made the team the way it is because I thought it would be a good publicity stunt? It's about second chances, Neil. Second, third, fourth, whatever, as long as you get at least one more than what anyone else wanted to give you."
Neil had heard Wymack referred to as an idealistic idiot by more than one person, but it was hard to listen to him and not believe that he was sincere. Neil was torn between incredulity and disdain. Why Wymack set himself up for disappointment time and time again, Neil didn't know. Neil would have given up on the Foxes years ago.
Wymack gave him a second to think before asking again, "Are your parents going to be a problem?"
It was too much to take a chance on, but too much to walk away from. It hurt when he nodded, but it hurt more to see that tired look settle in Wymack's eyes. It wasn't the pity he thought he could see in Hernandez from time to time, but something familiar that said Wymack understood what it cost to be Neil.
He knew what it was like to have to fight to wake up and keep moving every day. Neil doubted the man could ever really understand, but even that tiny bit was more than he'd ever gotten in his life. Neil had to look away.
"Your graduation ceremony is May eleventh, according to your coach," Wymack said at length. "We'll have someone pick you up from Upstate Regional Airport Friday the twelfth."Neil almost pointed out that he hadn't agreed to anything yet, but the words died in his throat as he realized he really was going.
"Keep the papers tonight," Wymack offered, pushing his folder at Neil again. This time Neil took it. "Your coach can fax the signed copies to me on Monday. Welcome to the line."
"Thank you" seemed appropriate, but Neil couldn't manage it. He kept his stare on the floor. Wymack didn't wait long for a response before going in search of Hernandez.
The back door banged shut behind him, and Neil's nerves broke. He ran for the bathroom and made it to a stall just in time to dry-heave into a toilet.
He could imagine his mother's rage if she knew what he was doing.
He remembered too well the savage yank of her hands in his hair. All these years spent trying to keep moving and hidden, and now he was going to destroy their hard work. She would never forgive him for this and he knew it, and that did nothing at all to help the clenching feeling in his gut.
"I'm sorry," he gasped out between wet coughs. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
He stumbled over to the sinks to rinse his mouth out and stared himself down in the mirrors that hung above them. With black hair and brown eyes, he looked plain and average: no one to notice in a crowd, no one to stick in one's memory. That was what he wanted, but he wondered if it could hold up against news cameras.
He grimaced a little at his reflection and leaned closer to the mirror, tugging hard at chunks of hair to check his roots. They were dark enough that he relaxed and leaned back a bit.
"University," he said quietly. It sounded like a dream; it tasted like damnation.
He unzipped his duffel bag enough to put Wymack's paperwork away. When he returned to the main room, the two coaches were waiting on him. Neil said nothing to them but went past them to the door.
Andrew opened the back door of Hernandez's SUV when Neil passed and gave Neil a knowing, taunting smile. "Too good to play with us, too good to ride with us?" Neil flicked him a cool look sped up to a jog. By the time he reached the far edge of the parking lot he was running.
He left the stadium and the Foxes and their too-good promises behind him, but the unsigned contract in his bag felt like an anchor around his neck.