"He could have broken your nose with a hit like that," Abby said as she dabbed blood off his upper lip.

"But he didn't," Neil said. "Can I play now?"

"The referees won't let you play if you're bleeding out your face," Abby said, unrushed by his obvious impatience. She curled her fingers around his chin and tilted his head this way and that. Neil felt a trickle of blood and sniffed it back. The sour heat of it was a familiar burn on his tongue. Abby didn't look convinced, so Neil sniffed again. Finally she sighed and gave his helmet an encouraging pat.

"I'll check on you again in a minute," she said, and followed the referee off the court.

Everyone else was already set up for Neil's penalty shot, so Neil took his place and caught the ball the Raven dealer tossed him. Neil liked penalties because they were easy points, but because they were easy he usually found less satisfaction in them. Against the Ravens he'd take what he could get. It was just him, the goalkeeper, and an oversized goal. He was only allowed two steps for momentum, but Neil didn't take them. He feinted and fired the ball home against the bottom corner of the goal. Matt thumped his shoulder hard enough to set Neil's nose bleeding again.

"Maybe you should get your face smashed in a couple more times if it means you can score on it," Matt said.

"Not a fan of that strategy," Neil said.

Matt laughed and jogged to first-fourth. The last minute of first half was over in a heartbeat and the teams left the court to the screams of a rowdy crowd. Neil looked back at the scoreboard as he followed his teammates into the locker room. They were standing at six-three, an amazing start considering who they were up against, but an impossible score to come back from.

Second half was a downward tumble. The Foxes were on their second wind against an entirely new line-up and Andrew couldn't hold his ground much longer. Neil knew they were losing him the first time he saw Andrew stumble. It could have been that Andrew was just moving too fast in an effort to clear the ball away, but Neil knew better. Andrew was fast running out of steam. It was early for him to be getting this sick, but the Ravens were accelerating the process by running him into the ground.