The Foxhole Court (All for the Game Book 1)

The Foxes weren’t scheduled to start their practices until Monday, June 10th, but they were required to move into campus the day before so they had time to get settled in the athletes’ dormitory. Neil found their estimated arrival times on a list hanging on Wymack’s fridge. The first of them wasn’t expected to arrive until two in the afternoon and the last not until five. Neil was impatient to have the whole team together at last. Once they were here, Kevin would have an entire team to yell at and would have to leave Neil alone.

Kevin was successful so far in keeping his cool in front of Andrew. Neil attributed it to years of smiling at the press and pretending things were fine when he was living with abusive gangster rejects. That stress needed an outlet, though, and Neil was the most convenient target. The two weeks between the ERC’s vote and the official start of summer practices were so hard to tolerate that Neil almost learned to hate both Exy and Kevin. Kevin had gone from impossible to please to completely horrible to be around. For the most part, the cousins let Kevin do as he wished with Neil and pretended there was nothing wrong with it.

Neil was much better at instigating fights than winning them, but it’d be worth losing if he could just put a fist through Kevin’s face once. Starting a fight was too out of character for who he portrayed ‘Neil’ to be, though. As much as Neil hated coming across as a pushover, he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t let Kevin or Andrew see the real him. So he gritted his teeth and tried as hard as he could to behave.

Now he only had to survive a few more hours. He and his duffel bag caught a ride with Wymack to the stadium, where Wymack collected a package of dorm keys for the team. Neil took his and the paperwork regarding appropriate dormitory behavior. He skimmed over it before signing all the dotted lines. Wymack traded the papers for a school catalogue. Neil had missed the athletes’ early registration window because he signed so late, so he’d have to register with the rest of the freshmen class in August. Neil wasn’t in any rush; he still didn’t know what he was supposed to declare his major as. He took the catalogue to the

Foxes’ lounge and curled up in one of the chairs to flip through it. He knew he should just pick one at random, since he wouldn’t even last the semester here, but it was interesting to see how many options Palmetto had. He toyed with the idea of studying something outrageous, but he was too practical to commit. If he wanted something useful, there was only one obvious choice.

Foreign languages were the keys to freedom he couldn’t live without. Neil was fluent in German. He was second-best at French, thanks to eight months in France and ten months in Montreal. His grasp on them was fading with disuse, though he watched and read foreign news online to keep from losing them entirely. Neil could ask the cousins for help with German, but he didn’t want them to know he understood their private conversations. How much French Kevin knew, Neil wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to spend more time with Kevin than he had to.

He perused the modern languages section, debating. There were five languages available as majors and another three that could be minored in. The smart choice was to go with Spanish. Neil’s Spanish had never been good and it was long gone by now, washed out by the German and French that followed. If he could pick it up again, it opened up a world of opportunities in the southern hemisphere.

He wasted an hour going through the list of requisite courses, looking up class times, and figuring out an ideal schedule. As soon as he thought he had a couple classes nailed down, he found a timing conflict and had to backtrack and start over. The problem was in how much time Neil needed open for practices. When the school year started the Foxes would meet for two hours in the morning and for five hours in the afternoon. Neil also needed to fit in the five weekly hours of tutoring time Palmetto required of all their athletes. It took him six drafts before he found a schedule that worked.

He checked the clock, saw he still had half an hour to kill, and considered running laps. He’d just gotten up when Abby walked in.

Neil had seen Abby a couple times this summer, mostly when Wymack was feeling too lazy to cook and wanted Abby to do it for him. Neil never sought her company of his own volition, since seeing her meant seeing Andrew’s lot. How she could stand having them under her roof, he didn’t know.

‘Hey, Neil,’ Abby said. ‘You’re a little early for the meeting.’
‘Coach won’t let me into Fox Tower until Matt gets here.’
She checked her watch. ‘He’ll be here before you know it. Since you’ve got time to spare, we might as well get your physical over with.’
‘Physical?’
‘Just a general check-up: weight, height, all that good stuff. We have to do it today instead of tomorrow because there’s blood work involved. I can’t let you on the court until you’ve slept it off. When’s the last time you saw a doctor?’
‘A long time ago.’
‘Don’t like doctors?’
‘Doctors don’t like me. Is it necessary?’
‘You’re not playing until I sign off on you, so yes,’ Abby said, unlocking the medical room door and pushing it open. She flicked on the light on her way inside, seemingly oblivious to the way Neil hadn’t moved. It took her a couple minutes before she came looking for him. ‘Sometime today, preferably. I’ve got a lot of you to get through.’
Neil eased off the chair, grabbed his bag, and went into her office. He left his duffel on the ground at his feet and sat on the bed. The first part of Abby’s test was easy like she’d said it would be. He weighed in and let her run through a series of tests from reflexes to blood pressure. She took two vials of blood from his left arm, labeled them, and locked them in a drawer. Then she motioned at him and said, ‘Shirt off.’
Neil stared at her. ‘Why?’
‘I can’t check track marks through cotton, Neil.’
‘I don’t do drugs.’
‘Good on you,’ Abby said. ‘Keep it that way. Now take it off.’
Neil looked past her at the closed door and said nothing. Abby looked at him and said nothing either. After five minutes of this, she was the first to give in. ‘I want to make this as painless as possible, but I can’t help you if you can’t help me. Tell me why you won’t take off your shirt.’
Neil looked for a delicate way to say it. The best he managed was, ‘I’m not okay.’
She put a finger to his chin and turned his face back toward her. ‘Neil, I work for the Foxes. None of you are okay. Chances are I’ve seen a lot worse than whatever it is you’re trying to hide from me.’
Neil’s smile was humorless. ‘I hope not.’
‘Trust me,’ Abby said. ‘I’m not going to judge you. I’m here to help, remember? I’m your nurse now. That door is closed, and it comes with a lock. What happens in here stays in here.’
‘You won’t tell Coach?’
‘This isn’t his business,’ Abby said, gesturing between them with her free hand. ‘I only report to him if I think it’ll affect your performance on the court or if you’re breaking the law and I need an intervention.’
Neil stared at her, wondering if he could believe her and knowing he didn’t have a choice. His skin was already crawling in anticipation of her reaction. ‘You can’t ask me about them,’ he said at last. ‘I won’t talk to you about it. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Abby agreed easily. ‘But know that when you want to, I’m here, and so is Betsy.’
Neil wasn’t going to tell that psychiatrist a thing, but he nodded. Abby dropped her hand, and Neil pulled his shirt over his head before he could lose his nerve.
Abby thought she was ready. Neil knew she wouldn’t be, and he was right. Her mouth parted on a silent breath and her expression went blank. She wasn’t fast enough to hide her flinch, and Neil saw her shoulders go rigid with tension. He stared at her face as she stared at him, watching her gaze sweep over the brutal marks of a hideous childhood.
It started at the base of his throat, a looping scar curving down over his collarbone. A pucker with jagged edges was a finger-width away, courtesy of a bullet that hit him right on the edge of his Kevlar vest. A shapeless patch of pale skin from his left shoulder to his navel marked where he’d jumped out of a moving car and torn himself raw on the asphalt. Faded scars crisscrossed here and there from his life on the run, either from stupid accidents, desperate escapes, or conflicts with local lowlifes. Along his abdomen were larger overlapping lines from confrontations with his father’s people while on the run. His father wasn’t called the Butcher for nothing; his weapon of choice was a cleaver. All of his men were wellversed in knife-fighting, and more than one of them had tried to stick Neil like a pig.
And there on his right shoulder was the perfect outline of half a hot iron. Neil didn’t remember what he’d said or done to irritate his father so much. Likely it was after another one of the local police’s visits. The police and feds had nothing concrete to pin on his father, but they came around as often as they could in hopes of finding something. Neil’s job was to stay quiet and still until they left again. Neil guessed he’d twitched a little too much, because as soon as they were gone his father ripped the iron from his mother’s hands and smacked Neil with it. Neil still remembered how his skin looked as it peeled off with the metal.
Neil twisted his hands in his shirt and lifted his arms, baring his forearms to her. ‘Do I have track marks?’
‘Neil,’ Abby said softly.
‘Do I or don’t I?’
Abby’s mouth thinned to a hard line as she forcibly redirected her attention back to his physical. The second she gave him the okay to put his shirt on again, Neil yanked it over his head. Abby filled out the rest of her forms in silence.
‘We’re done,’ Abby said. ‘Neil —’
‘No.’ Neil grabbed his duffel and escaped her office as quickly as he could.
He half-expected her to follow him, but Abby stayed in her office and left him alone. Neil flipped through his catalogue, trying to work off his agitation. He wanted a cigarette so bad his fingers ached. He wanted something that would make him feel a little less alone. He shoved his catalogue aside again and checked himself, making sure everything was covered under his shirt. All of his shirts were at least a size too big, since baggy clothes hid his scars better, but Neil still felt raw and exposed.
Neil shoved the catalogue into his bag, hooked the strap over his shoulder, and went down the hall with every intention of waiting the rest of the afternoon in the inner court. He made it as far as the foyer when a door opened behind him. Neil hesitated at the exit and looked back as someone stepped into the lounge at the other end of the hall.
The new arrival seemed startlingly tall compared to the Foxes Neil had put up with so far this summer. Nicky was almost six feet and Kevin was an inch or two taller, but this man looked halfway to seven. Part of the illusion Neil blamed on his black hair, which he’d gelled up in short spikes around his skull.
The hairstyle was also what kept Neil from recognizing him immediately, as the man hadn’t sported such a brazen look last year. By the time he put a name to the man’s face, the stranger had crossed the hall to him and put a hand out. Neil accepted his hand and did his best to keep his stare on Matthew Boyd’s face. It was difficult; Matt’s short sleeves did nothing to hide the faded but obvious track marks on both arms. No wonder Abby was so adamant about that part of the check-up.
‘Matt Boyd,’ the man said, giving Neil’s hand a firm shake. ‘I’m a junior this year, and I’m the Foxes’ starting backliner. You must be Neil.’
Neil was saved the trouble of answering. Wymack had heard Matt’s arrival and he came out of his office to hurl a key ring at Matt’s head. The jangling got Matt’s attention and he turned in time to get smacked on the cheek with the keys. Matt snagged the ring as it fell and made a face at his coach.
‘Jesus, Coach, good to see you too. When did we move past a simple ‘hello’?’
‘I could say the same for you, stomping past my open door like that without so much as a by-yourleave,’ Wymack said.
‘You looked busy.’
‘I’m always busy. That’s never stopped you pricks from interrupting me before.’
Matt shrugged and looked around. ‘Where are the monsters?’
‘Probably razing Fox Tower to the ground as we speak. You met Neil?’
‘I was trying.’ Matt sent Neil a knowing look. ‘I can’t believe you put up with Coach this long. How did you survive?’
‘I wasn’t around much,’ Neil said.
‘Neil’s been training with Kevin and Andrew every day,’ Wymack said.
‘Oh god,’ Matt said with feeling.’You’re awful, Coach.’
‘He knows it,’ Abby said, stepping in her office doorway and propping her shoulder against the doorframe. ‘Welcome back, Matt. Did you have a safe drive?’
‘Safe enough, but I drank so much coffee I probably won’t sleep for a week.’ Matt looked to Neil again. ‘Already settled?’
‘Coach wouldn’t let me move in without you,’ Neil said.
‘Way to keep him waiting,’ Wymack said. ‘Take him and get out of here.’
‘Come on,’ Matt said. ‘I’ll swing you past Coach’s place to get your things.’
‘This is it,’ Neil said.
Matt looked at his bag, then around the room for suitcases that didn’t exist. He flicked a questioning look at Wymack, who shook his head, and turned back on Neil. ‘That’s a joke, right? You should see how much I crammed into my truck—and how much I had to leave behind—and you expect to last a year with one bag? That thing have magical expanding powers I don’t know about or something?’
‘You get to take him shopping later this week,’ Wymack said. ‘On your time, not mine. I’m sick of seeing him in the same clothes over and over. Just let me know when you’re going and I’ll give you the pcard so we can expense it.’
Neil was mildly offended. ‘I have money.’
‘Good for you,’ Wymack said. ‘I thought you two were leaving.’
‘Didn’t miss you at all,’ Matt said, but there was no heat in his voice. ‘Let’s go, Neil.’
Matt’s truck was parked two spaces down from Wymack’s and Abby’s cars, a monstrous blue thing that looked like it could eat a hole through the stadium without slowing. Matt hadn’t been joking about how many things he owned: the truck bed was stuffed with furniture and only a dozen taut cords kept anything from falling out. The back seats in the extended cab were also full of suitcases and crates. Matt took a backpack out of the passenger seat and tossed it in back with the rest so Neil could fit. The truck came to life with a quiet roar Neil felt more than heard, and the radio blasted to life a halfsecond later. Matt cut it off and yanked his door closed.
‘We’re not all bad, just so you know,’ Matt said as he pulled out of the parking lot. ‘Dan hated that your first impression of us would be the do-nothings. She was pretty sure you wouldn’t stick around long enough to meet the rest of us. She thought about coming back to campus early to be a buffer, but Coach told her not to bother. Said you had to deal with them eventually.’
‘They’re interesting,’ Neil said.
‘Interesting,’ Matt repeated. ‘That’s the tamest description of them I’ve ever heard. Seriously, though. If they give you any trouble, just let me know. I’ll kick Kevin’s ass for you.’
‘Thanks, but I can handle them on my own.’
‘I thought I could handle them, too.’ Matt raked a hand through his hair, skewing his spikes every which way. ‘Andrew made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to be handled by anyone. You change your mind, you know where to find me. My offer’s good through graduation.’
Neil wouldn’t need Matt’s help, but he said, ‘Thanks.’
Matt pointed out the windshield. ‘There it is.’
Most of Palmetto State’s buildings, offices, and dormitories were inside the giant loop known as Perimeter Road. Fox Tower was one of the few exceptions, but only because a stray hill forced Perimeter to hug the campus green near the clock tower. The hill might have been a nice spot for students to picnic between classes, except someone thought to build the athletes’ dormitory on the peak. It stood four stories tall and had its own computer lab and parking lot.
The parking lot was out back, and Andrew’s car was the only one parked there. Matt skipped all the lined spaces in favor of pulling up at the curb. It took both of them to unload the truck onto the sidewalk, and Neil waited with the pile while Matt parked. Getting everything inside and up to the third floor was a nightmare, especially since several pieces of furniture wouldn’t fit in the elevator. The stairwell was too narrow to make it easy on them, and the handrail kept getting in their way as they tried to turn corners at the landings. It was made only more difficult by the serious height difference between them and the fact Neil had his duffel bag on him. He didn’t want to leave it either in their room or Matt’s truck, so he carried it up and down on every trip.
Their suite was room 321. A kitchenette was off to one side right inside the door and the front room was a spacious living room. Three bare desks lined the walls, waiting to be covered in schoolwork and books. A short hall dead-ended at the bathroom and branched off into the bedroom. Two beds were bunked against one wall and a third bed was raised chest-height against the other to fit shelving and dressers under it. There was only one closet, but hanging dividers hung off the empty pole.
It was trial and error to make everything fit. Eventually they pushed all the desks to the wall by the window, almost close enough to be touching, so Matt could put his couch against one long wall and a coffee table in the middle of the living room. He’d taken the shelves out of his entertainment center for the drive, but most of the bolts were still in place. It took only a couple minutes to put it together again, and Matt promptly filled it with a TV and game systems. Neil left him to organize his movies and went back to the bedroom.
The mattresses were bare, which meant Neil was going to have to buy sheets. He hadn’t slept in a real bed since he left Seattle. He’d broken into cars to borrow backseats in California, slept on the bus to Nevada, and dozed in passenger seats while hitchhiking with truckers to Arizona. His house in Millport had been unfurnished, so he’d slept on the floor with shirts as his pillow. Wymack’s couch was the nicest thing he’d had in over a year, but now he had a bed.
Sleeping alone would be disorienting. He’d gotten in the habit of sleeping in his mother’s bed, as her paranoia didn’t want him out of her reach. They slept back to back, guarding each other, the guns under their pillows uncomfortable but reassuring lumps.
‘I’m heading out to get Dan and Renee from the airport,’ Matt said from the doorway. ‘Want to come with?’
‘I’ve got to run by the store,’ Neil said. ‘Do you care which bed you sleep in?’
‘I’m too tall to sleep up top,’ Matt said, ‘and Seth keeps weird hours, so unless you’ve got a thing with heights you’re better off in the loft. I’ll be back in an hour or so, and you can hitch a ride with us to the court when the girls are settled. Dan won’t believe you’re okay until she sees you with her own eyes.’
‘I’ll be back by then,’ Neil said, so Matt left.
Neil waited until the door closed behind him before shrugging his bag off his shoulder. He walked laps around the dorm room again, this time with a sinking feeling in his gut. His locker was on the other side of campus, and Wymack’s locked cabinet was even further away. The only quasi-secure place in the entire room was his dresser, and that was just because the drawers closed all the way. Nothing had a lock on it except the front door.
He could bring the duffel with him, seeing how it was only two miles to the store, but he needed to buy so many things he knew he couldn’t carry it all back. He ran through the timing in his head instead, adding up Matt’s drive to the airport, the wait for the girls’ luggage to show up at the belt, and the trek back. Even if Matt was only gone an hour, he and Neil should get back to the dormitory around the same time. The suite’s lock was going to have to be enough for now. Neil could look for a better solution at the store.
He dug his wallet out of the duffel’s end pocket and stuffed the bag into his dresser’s bottom drawer. It barely fit, but at least it closed. He pressed his fingers to the wood for a second, looking for the courage to walk away, and triple-checked the lock on his way out.
The next room down was the girls’, and the cousins’ room was after that. Nicky was lounging in his doorway. He smiled when he saw Neil.
‘Hey, stranger,’ Nicky said. ‘What’d you think of Matt?’
‘He seems fine,’ Neil said, not slowing on his way by.
‘He is fine,’ Nicky called after him with a laugh.
Neil took the stairs down, checked his watch at the front door, and ran to the store. The conditioned air felt like heaven on his warm skin as he paced the aisles, taking what he needed without lingering long over the details. He stocked up on everything from bed sheets to hair dye and groceries, and then backtracked for a messenger bag. His duffel bag was the perfect size for everything he owned, which meant there was no spare room for schoolbooks and notepads. He checked the small hardware section, didn’t find a lock he thought he could install on anything in his room, and went back to the office and school supplies.
At the end of the row were fireproof safes: too small to fit his bag, definitely too small to fit his clothes, but large enough for what he needed to hide most. Neil lugged one with him to checkout and piled everything onto the belt. The safe made his trip back to the dormitory more than a little awkward, since it was too heavy fit into a bag without tearing it.
He knew he made good time, but the girls’ flight must have landed ahead of schedule, because Matt’s truck was in the parking lot when Neil returned. Neil detoured past it and put a hand to the hood, but he couldn’t tell if the heat was from the sun or the engine. He shouldered his way inside and ran upstairs with his heart hammering in his chest.
Nicky’s door was closed, but now the girls’ was partly open. Neil heard voices on his way past but didn’t slow to say hello. He hurried to his room. Only when he tested the knob and found it still locked could he breathe a little easier.
He dumped his bags on the bedroom floor to sort through his new things. The sheets went up onto his loft still in their packaging and he piled his scant groceries on top of the dresser. He ripped the cardboard padding off his small safe, skimmed the directions and warnings, and pushed everything else aside to get his bag. It took work to get the drawer open, since his duffel was such a tight fit, but he finally pried the duffel loose and dropped it in front of him. He unzipped it in one long move, folded the flap out of the way, and froze.
On first glance, his bag looked undisturbed. Everything was still in there in the same order he’d left it in, folded but crinkled from recent rough treatment. But Neil got his paranoia from his mother and he packed his clothes in a very specific way. Even a cautious thief would be fooled, since Neil folded everything the same. Neil’s code was in the tags. He always bent the tags twice on a shirt in the top layer.
Someone had gone through Neil’s things and put it all back—the same order, the same layers, the same neat folds—but the tags were all pressed flat by a too-careful hand.
Neil yanked his clothes out and threw them, digging frantically for the binder buried underneath it all. From cover to cover it looked like a stalker’s journal. Plastic sheet protectors were stuffed full of newspaper clippings, photographs, and anything else he could find on Kevin and Riko. The clippings were glued to computer paper, which Neil put back-to-back in the plastic slips to create a hidden inner pocket. In those pockets were Neil’s most important possessions.
Most slips hid money: certificates for five-digit amounts he could cash out when he needed them, numbers detailing where he and his mother had hidden money while on the run, and rubberbanded stacks of bills. A list of emergency contacts, coded as an immature nursery rhyme, was toward the back. Only one of them lived in the United States. His mother married into an American crime family, but she’d been raised in a British one. Her brother, Stuart Hatford, gave her the list when she ran away from her husband. She in turn gave it to Neil when she died.
Stuart’s phone number was on the next page, buried in a sheet covered top to bottom with random numbers. Neil could only find it using his birth name. It was down as many rows as there were letters in his first name and over as many as there were in his last. Neil had never called it, and he hoped he never had to. There was no point in running away from a murderous family if he just ran into the arms of another one.
The last slip in his binder contained a forged optometrist’s note. Neil didn’t need a prescription, but he couldn’t buy colored contacts without a measurement of his eyes’ diameter and curvature. Tucked in with it was a box of brown lenses.
Neil thumbed through the money and did the math in his head. He came up with the right amount, but that didn’t make him feel better. If someone had gone through his things and found this binder, then found what it was hiding, how was he supposed to explain himself? Just in cash and certificates Neil was carrying a quarter of a million dollars.
The fact someone had deliberately come in here and dug through his bag made his stomach hurt with hot anger. The smart thing to do was pretend to not notice anything amiss and wait for the thief to come to him. That was what his mother would do. Unfortunately, Neil had inherited his father’s temper, and he’d finally had enough.
It could have been Matt, but Neil doubted it. It wasn’t that he trusted Matt; Neil didn’t trust anybody, especially not a man he’d just met. Timing cleared Matt because there was no way he could get to the airport and back, help the girls get their things upstairs, and still have time to unpack and repack Neil’s bag. That left one obvious suspect.
Neil slipped a finger into the spine of his binder and pulled out the two thin needles that remained of his mother’s set of lock picks. He held them between his lips so he wouldn’t lose them and set the lock on his safe. He stuffed his binder inside, slammed it closed, and hooked a second lock through the safe’s handle. He gave the handle a couple fierce yanks to make sure the locks caught and shoved the safe under his pile of clothes. He spit the picks into his palm and stormed out of his room, slowing just long enough to lock the door behind him.
Neil checked Andrew’s door and was unsurprised to find it locked. Neil crouched and got to work, but it didn’t take long. It was a cheap lock and easier to handle than the one at his old locker room. Whoever built the dormitory hadn’t counted on people like Neil and Andrew, it seemed. Neil rose to his feet, stuffed his picks in his pocket, and shoved the bedroom door open.
Andrew’s group was scattered around the living room. Aaron and Nicky were half-sunk into matching beanbag chairs as they played a video game, Kevin was reading a magazine at one of the desks, and Andrew was sitting on the desk closest to the window so he could smoke. They all went still when the door opened and stared at Neil.
Andrew was the first to react. He flicked his cigarette out the window and smiled. ‘Try again, Neil. You’re in the wrong room!’
Aaron paused the game with a stab of his finger and looked at Nicky. ‘We locked that,’ he said in German, not quite a question.
‘Last I checked,’ Nicky answered. He switched to English to offer Neil a friendly, ‘Hey, sounds like Matt’s back. You meet Dan and Renee yet?’
The double deceit in their words and Nicky’s smile just further infuriated Neil. If the cousins were going to keep using German thinking they could go behind everyone’s backs with it, Neil would keep his fluency a secret until the last possible moment. That didn’t mean Neil couldn’t hit back, so he switched to French and focused his anger on Kevin.
‘Stay out of my things,’ he snapped. He wished he could take some satisfaction in the shellshocked looks the language and his furious tone earned, but he felt nothing. ‘The next time one of you goes where you don’t belong I swear I’ll make you regret it.’
It was an age before anyone responded. Nicky was too busy gaping at Neil to say anything, and Aaron was staring at Kevin as he waited for a translation. Andrew’s surprise gave way to what a fool might mistake for delight, and he leaned forward on the desk.
‘Wow, another one of Neil’s many talents. How many can one man have?’
Neil ignored him in favor of Kevin. ‘Tell me you understand.’
‘I understand,’ Kevin said in French, ‘but I don’t care.’
‘Start caring. I’ve let you push me around for two weeks because I know how scared you are about the district change, but I’ve had enough. Andrew’s going to find out about it at tonight’s meeting. You should be prepping to handle that explosion instead of harassing me.’
‘You worry about your incompetence. I’ll worry about Andrew.’
‘You’d better,’ Neil said. ‘Put a leash on your pet monster or I will.’
‘A frightened child like you?’
‘Fuck you, cripple.’
Across the room Kevin’s face went white. ‘What did you call me?’
‘I called you a deadweight hasbeen,’ Neil said.
Kevin was out of his chair so fast he knocked it over. Neil backed out of the room and slammed the door closed between them. He’d only made it two steps back toward his room when Kevin yanked the door open again.
Kevin got his hands on Neil’s neck in an instant and slammed Neil up against the opposite wall. Neil dug his fingers into Kevin’s wrists, trying to loosen Kevin’s grip enough that he could breathe. He tried to knee Kevin, but Kevin crushed him against the wall with his own body.
‘What the fuck did you call me?’ Kevin demanded again.
Neil didn’t have the breath to answer. It didn’t matter; Kevin’s angry voice and the loud smack of Neil’s body against the dormitory’s concrete walls was enough to fill the hall with Foxes. Andrew was the first to show up in the cousins’ doorway, but Matt was the one who went for Kevin. He wrapped an arm around Kevin’s throat and wrenched Kevin’s head back at a dangerous angle.
‘Get off him, Day,’ Matt snarled.
‘Whoa, whoa, calm down,’ Nicky said over Andrew’s shoulder. ‘Come on, Matt.’
Kevin let go of Neil with one hand and drove an elbow into Matt’s ribs. Matt grunted and tightened his grip, forcing Kevin to release Neil entirely if he hoped to breathe anytime soon. Matt hauled Kevin away from Neil, but Kevin wiggled free two steps later and swung at Matt. Matt deflected it with one swipe and punched Kevin hard enough to send him sprawling.
The look on Matt’s face said he was just getting started, but Andrew stepped between them before Matt could go after Kevin again. Andrew was smiling and his stance was casual, but Matt knew better than to try his luck against the short psychopath. Matt took a step back, silently conceding the fight, and shot Neil a worried look. Kevin got to his feet behind Andrew and glared at Neil. Neil refused to look at anyone at all and pretended the far wall was the most interesting thing he’d seen in years.
The girls chose that moment to step in. One moved up alongside Matt, expression tight with anger. She swept a dark look between Andrew’s group and Neil and said, ‘What do you think you’re doing? It’s our first day back. Why are we fighting already?’
‘Technically we never left,’ Andrew said, ‘and Neil’s been here a couple weeks, so it’s your first day back, not ours.’ He leaned to one side, looking past her to her roommate. ‘Hello, Renee. About time!’
The first girl didn’t give Renee a chance to answer. ‘Explanation now, Andrew.’
‘You’re looking at me like it’s my fault.’ Andrew wagged a finger at her. ‘Look again, why don’t you? Neil’s at our room, which meant he brought the fight to us. Dan, your bias is cruel and unprofessional.’
Danielle Wilds turned on Neil next. The Foxes’ captain was taller than he was, but not by much. Her brown hair was cut mercilessly short and was disheveled from moving in. She swept Neil with a quick head-to-toe, brown eyes narrowed. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘There isn’t one,’ Neil said. When Dan jerked a hand between him and Kevin, Neil shrugged. ‘Just a difference of opinions. Nothing that matters.’
‘We’re getting along splendidly,’ Andrew said. ‘Neil even agreed to ride to the stadium with us.’
‘Oh did he?’ Dan asked, obviously skeptical.
They all looked at Neil. The fact it was suicidal didn’t mean much anymore, not when Andrew’s lot had been through his things. Neil had massive damage control to do.
‘Yes,’ Neil said. ‘I figured Matt’s truck would be full, so I took them up on their offer.’
Dan looked ready to argue, but Matt quieted her with a touch on her arm. Dan sent Andrew a suspicious glare, then shook her head. ‘I don’t know who started this, but the fighting stops now.’
‘Always the optimist,’ Andrew said, and gave Neil his two-fingered salute. ‘See you soon. Don’t run off, okay?’
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ Neil lied.
Andrew vanished into his room. Aaron and Nicky followed. Kevin was the last to move. He sent Neil a chilly look in parting and slammed the door behind him. Neil was left staring after them and wondering how he was supposed to survive that car ride.