The Raven King
THE RAVEN KING
Nora Sakavic
ALL FOR THE GAME
The Foxhole Court
The Raven King
The King's Men
Copyright 2013 Nora Sakavic
Smashwords Edition
CHAPTER ONE
It looked like Halloween outside, only two months too early. Last week Palmetto State University was covered in orange and white streamers to celebrate the start of the school year. Over the weekend someone had replaced all of the white ribbons with black ones. It gave the impression the campus was in mourning. Neil Josten thought it a cheap tribute, but that might have been his cynicism talking.
He forgave himself for being jaded. At eighteen years old, he'd seen more people die than he could comfortably count. Death was unpleasant, but it was a familiar and tolerable ache in his chest. Seth Gordon's unexpected overdose Saturday night should have meant something more to Neil since they'd been teammates and roommates for three months, but Neil felt nothing. Keeping himself alive was hard enough most days; he had no time to linger over others' misfortunes.
Rock music blared to life, temporarily filling the silence in the car, but it vanished as quickly as it'd come. Neil dragged his attention away from the streamers and looked up front. Nicholas "Nicky" Hemmick let his hand fall away from the dashboard with a quiet curse. Across the backseat from Neil, Nicky's cousin Aaron Minyard shoved the back of the driver's seat. Whether it was admonition for trying to pretend things were okay or a silent show of support, Neil wasn't sure. The cousins' relationship was a tangled mess he wouldn't live long enough to figure out.
Nicky reached for the radio again. Kevin Day was sitting shotgun, so he saw Nicky move first. He pushed Nicky's hand away and said, "It's fine. Let it go."
"I don't want to do this," Nicky said, low and miserable.
No one else answered him, but Neil thought they all agreed. None of them were looking forward to today's practice, but they could only take so much time off when the season was already underway. At least Coach David Wymack was calling them back to the court on a Wednesday afternoon. Andrew Minyard, Aaron's twin brother, had his weekly therapy sessions on Wednesdays.
Generally Andrew's wild mood wasn't a problem, but Andrew's cheer didn't make him at all friendly. An excitable Andrew confronted with the death of his least-favorite teammate was a recipe for disaster. The team should have come together Sunday morning to grieve their loss, but Andrew and Matt got into an ugly brawl instead.
Wymack forcibly separated the team after that. The upperclassmen moved in with team nurse Abby Winfield, and the cousins and Kevin were banned to the dorm. Neil would have stayed at the dorm, too, but Wymack didn't want him alone in the room he'd shared with Matt and Seth. Instead Neil spent a couple nights sleeping on Wymack's couch. Neil thought Wymack's concern was misplaced but he knew better than to argue.
Seth died Saturday night and was cremated Monday afternoon. From what Neil heard, Seth's mother signed off on everything but didn't even show up at the crematorium to collect her son's ashes. Allison Reynolds, Seth's on-again off-again girlfriend and the Foxes' defensive dealer, kept his urn instead. Neil didn't know if she planned on burying it or keeping it in her dorm room the rest of the year. He wasn't going to ask. He still didn't know what to think about the role he might have played in Seth's death. Until he sorted that out he'd rather avoid Allison altogether.
Allison wouldn't be at practice today, but the others would. Neil hadn't seen the upperclassmen since Sunday morning and he knew the reunion was going to be rough. They were only two days away from the second game of the season, though, and they had to pull together somehow. The Foxes had never had particularly good odds, but this upcoming year was looking bleak. They were already the smallest team in NCAA Class I Exy. Now they were the smallest a team could be and still qualify to play. They'd lost their only fifth-year senior, and their remaining offense team consisted of an injured national champion and an amateur.
Orange glinted at the edge of his peripheral vision. Palmetto State's Exy stadium was hard to miss, built to seat sixty-five thousand fans and painted with the brightest orange and white paints the school could find. Giant fox paws marked each of the four outer walls. The black ribbons extended all the way here: every lamp post in the parking lots and every one of the twenty-four gates was covered in streamers. The Foxes' locked entrance was covered in silent tribute. Pictures of Seth with friends and scribbled notes from teachers were taped to the door.
Nicky pulled up to the curb but didn't kill the engine. Neil climbed out of the backseat and looked over the hood of the car to count squad cars. Kevin's presence on the team meant the Foxes needed full-time security, but the numbers had doubled over the summer when Kevin's former team transferred to the southeastern district. Neil was getting used to seeing campus police everywhere he went, but he would always hate the sight of them.
Nicky pulled away as soon as Aaron and Kevin got out. There was no point in him changing out for practice yet, since he'd have to get Andrew from Reddin Medical Center in a half-hour. Neil watched his car turn out of the parking lot onto the road, then looked to his teammates.
It was no secret everyone in Andrew's four-man group hated Seth, but Aaron and Nicky were still human enough to be rattled by his sudden death. Kevin's initial reaction to the news had been heartless, but he'd also been completely wasted at the time. Neil didn't know if he'd scrounged up any remorse since sobering up.
Neil was curious which one of them would cop to apathy first, but he was only so patient. When thirty seconds passed and neither had moved, Neil gave up on them and went to the Foxes' entrance. The code was supposed to change every couple months, but with the Ravens in their district Wymack now changed it every week. This week it was the last four digits of Abby's phone number. Neil was starting to think his teammates were right about Wymack and Abby's invisible relationship.
They filed down the hall to the locker room. That door was unlocked, and the lights were on inside, but the lounge was empty. Neil went to investigate while Aaron and Kevin got settled. A hallway connected the lounge to the foyer, the official meet-and-greet room where the Foxes could speak to the press before and after games. The door on the foyer's back wall, which led into the stadium itself, was still locked. Neil backtracked to the hall where the changing rooms and offices were. Wymack's office door was closed, but if Neil listened for a minute he heard Wymack's muffled voice through the wood. Satisfied no one was here who shouldn't be, Neil went back to the others.
Aaron and Kevin were rearranging the furniture when Neil walked in. Neil watched as they pushed the chairs and couches into a V-shape, then asked, "What are you doing?"
"Finding a new way to make us fit," Aaron said, "unless you want to stare an empty chair in the face all season."
"It's the same number of cushions," Neil said.
"Four people barely fit on a couch. Five is out of the question."
"Five?"
Kevin looked at him like he was stupid. Neil was painfully familiar with that look by now, but even after four months working with Kevin he still didn't appreciate it.
"You do know your place, don't you?" Kevin asked.
Until Saturday night, Neil had never been stupid enough to think he had a place. Andrew promised he could change that, but his protection had a price tag. Andrew would protect Neil from his past if Neil helped him keep Kevin at Palmetto State. It sounded easy enough, but Nicky warned him there was more to it. Neil was supposed to do it from the inside of Andrew's dysfunctional group. He couldn't hide on the fringes anymore.
Neil looked at the new arrangement in the lounge again and understood. This summer Andrew's four had all squished onto one couch. Now they could spread out, three on the couch and two to the chairs on either side. The remaining upperclassmen got the couch and chair opposite them.
Neil started for the chair on the end, since he'd always had the outside seat, but Aaron sank into it first. Neil hesitated a second too long, and Aaron finally spelled it out for him. "You're on the couch with Kevin and Andrew. Sit down."
"I don't like being boxed in," Neil said, "and I don't want to sit next to your brother."
"Nicky put up with it for a year," Aaron said. "You can deal with it."
"You're his family," Neil said, not like it meant a thing to them. Wymack only recruited athletes from broken homes. At the Foxhole Court "family" was a fantasy invented to make books and Hollywood movies more interesting. Neil knew it was a lost cause even as he said it, so he took the seat Aaron had assigned him.
Kevin sat after Neil did, leaving space between them for Andrew. Neil looked around the room again and wondered how the upperclassmen would adjust to the new layout. His stare fell on the oversized schedule hanging above the TV and his stomach knotted as he read down the list. Friday, October 13th was the day the last-ranked Foxes went up against the first-ranked Edgar Allan University Ravens. It was bound to be a disaster.
Wymack's door opened down the hall, but a half-second later the phone started ringing. Wymack didn't bother to close his door again before answering. From what Neil could hear, someone was harassing Wymack about the team's tiny line-up. Wymack's obvious irritation made his reassurances less than convincing, but Neil knew he believed every word he was saying. Wymack didn't care if he had nine Foxes or twenty-five. He'd stand behind them until the bitter, bloody end.
Wymack was still going at it when the lounge door opened. Captain Danielle Wilds was the first into the room, but her boyfriend Matt Boyd and best friend Renee Walker were right behind her. They only made it a couple steps into the room before grinding to a halt.
Dan pointed at Neil but stared at Kevin. "What is that about?"
Aaron answered, "You knew what it meant when we took him Saturday night."
Wymack slammed his phone down. Neil wondered if the argument really was over or if he'd used the arrival of more Foxes as an excuse to get off the phone. He strode into the lounge a couple seconds later and followed Dan's finger to Neil. He looked from Neil to Kevin to Aaron, then around the room at the new layout, then back at Neil.
"Last I checked Andrew didn't like you," Wymack said.
"He still doesn't," Neil said, but he didn't bother to explain.
"Interesting." Wymack eyed Neil a moment longer before turning on the upperclassmen. "Sit down, would you? We need to talk."
Wymack leaned against the entertainment center and waited for them to get settled. He folded his arms across his chest and studied each of his Foxes in turn.
"Abby wrote me a speech to give you this afternoon. It sounded nice, had lots of stuff about courage and loss and coming together in everyone's time of need. I tore it up and tossed it in the trash can beside my desk.
"I'm not here to offer you kind words and pats on the back. I'm not here to be a shoulder to cry on. Take that up with Abby or go down to Reddin and talk to Betsy. My job is to be your coach no matter what, to keep you moving and get you back on the court whether you're ready to be there or not. That probably makes me the bad guy here, but we all have to live with it."
Wymack looked at the empty chairs across from him. Palmetto State's Exy team was on its fifth year now. Wymack built the Foxes from the ground up and handpicked Seth for his first starting line. Between the players' personal problems, a faulty original contract that let players walk out, and the option to graduate in four years instead of five, Seth was the only one who'd made it to a fifth year with the team. Seth had been a lot of things, most of them unpleasant, but he'd definitely been a fighter. Now he was gone.
Wymack cleared his throat and scratched a hand through his short hair. "Look. Shit happened. Shit's going to keep happening. You don't need me to tell you life isn't fair. You're here because you know it isn't. Life doesn't care what we want out of it; it's up to us to fight for what we want with everything we've got. Seth wanted us to win. He wanted us to make it past the fourth match. I think we owe it to him to perform. Let's show the world what we've got. Let's make this our year."
"We've lost enough, don't you think?" Dan asked her teammates. "It's time to win."
Matt laced his fingers through hers and squeezed. "Let's take it all the way to finals."
"Words don't mean anything to me," Wymack said. "Prove to me on my court you have what it takes to make it to championships. I want you on the court in light gear in five minutes or I'll sign you all up for a marathon."
Wymack's odd idea of pep talk was missing its usual feigned anger, but his words were familiar enough to get the team moving. The men's locker room was silent as they dressed. Neil carried his things into one of the bathroom stalls to change. A vanity separated the toilets from the shower stalls, and Neil stopped there on his way back to consider his reflection.
Neil had a love-hate relationship with his reflection out of necessity. He was the spitting image of the murderous father he'd run away from eight years ago. Hair dye and contacts were the easiest way to hide his face, but keeping up with it when he lived with the Foxes was exhausting. He checked his roots twice a day every day and slept with his back to the room so he could take his contacts out at night. The case was kept in his pillow case and he had spare lenses in his wallet. It was tricky, but it helped keep him alive and safe. Neil didn't think it was going to be enough anymore.
He didn't realize how long he'd stalled until Matt and Kevin came looking for him. He saw their reflections as they stepped into the doorway behind him but didn't turn around.
"All the way to finals?" Neil asked.
"Miracles happen," Matt said.
"Don't rely on something as insubstantial as a miracle," Kevin said. "You won't win anything by standing around. Finish getting changed and get down to the court."
"One day I want you to look up 'insensitivity' in the dictionary," Matt said, annoyed. "I'm sure it'll do your ego wonders to see your picture printed there beside it."
"No," Neil said before Kevin could respond. "He's right. The chance of Coach finding us another striker when the year's already started is slim. Until he figures something out, Kevin and I are all you've got, and neither one of us is good enough."
"Hear that, Kevin?" Matt said. "Your sub said you're incompetent."