The Foxhole Court (All for the Game Book 1)

Neil woke up in a bed he didn’t recognize in an equally unfamiliar room. He knew that disorienting feeling by name after moving so often, so it wasn’t cause for immediate alarm. The weight of arms around him was one his body knew, but somehow it was confusing. There was something wrong with it that his hazy mind wasn’t ready to process and he blinked hard against the headache pounding at his skull. He felt halfdead, though he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

His first attempt at moving sent a stab of pain down his spine, so he relaxed against the sheets. The hold on him tightened a little in response to his shifting.

‘Mom?’ he said, but it came out slurred at best and barely intelligible.

The person behind him still understood, judging by the amused, ‘Not quite.’

Neil knew that voice. Suddenly the events of the previous night slammed awake in his mind, flickering laser lights and music and bodies and Andrew’s voice at his ear. He bolted upright but didn’t make it far. The resulting pain had him collapsing against the mattress once more. Nicky caught at his hair to push his head off the side of the bed. There was a trash can there that Neil barely registered before he was throwing up into it. Nicky murmured reassurances Neil couldn’t really hear.

As soon as Neil could breathe again, he twisted and shoved at Nicky as hard as he could. He was too sick and weak to push Nicky off the other side of the bed, but the boots he was still wearing would leave bruises on Nicky’s arms and chest.

‘Hey, hey,’ Nicky said, trying to deflect him. ‘It’s fine. Ouch! Relax, will you?’

‘Don’t you fucking touch me,’ Neil said savagely.
Nicky retreated from Neil and sat on the edge of the bed instead. Neil struggled to get up, using the headboard and nightstand as support. Standing took so much out of him he had to stop and catch his breath once he made it there.
‘He’s awake?’ someone asked from the door.
Neil snatched the alarm clock up and hurled it at the new arrival, who ducked out of the way just in time. It crashed off the doorframe. Aaron waited until it had fallen to the floor before stepping back into the doorway. Neil meant to look for another weapon, but moving so fast turned his stomach inside out. He grabbed at the trash can again and choked so hard he almost fell over.
‘Where’s Andrew?’ Nicky asked, climbing off the bed and coming around to Neil’s side.
‘He and Kevin went to get us brunch.’
‘I don’t think Neil can eat anything.’
‘He can watch.’
Nicky laid a careful hand on Neil’s shoulder. ‘Come on. I’ll get you some water.’
Neil shook him off, but his legs didn’t want to carry him. Nicky let him try standing twice before looping an arm around Neil’s back and steadying him. ‘Easy, now. I’m just going to help you to the kitchen, okay? No funny stuff, I promise.’
‘Like I trust you.’
‘Like you’ve got a choice,’ Aaron said, and left ahead of them.
Nicky helped Neil down the hall to the kitchen and set him up at the table with a glass of water. Neil’s throat burned, but he refused to drink it. He settled for glaring at Nicky. Nicky looked to Aaron for help. Aaron stared back over the top of his coffee mug, unsympathetic and unhelpful. Nicky sighed and turned to Neil again.
‘Can I check on your head, or are you going to bite me if I touch you?’
‘What did I say last night?’ Neil asked.
‘Nothing to me besides an admirably creative death threat.’ Nicky’s mouth quirked in the start of a smile but he suppressed it, maybe understanding Neil would punch him for it. ‘I don’t know how your conversation with Andrew went, but it didn’t end well. Rumor has it you paid a busboy a hundred bucks to knock you out. Way to cut our night short.’
Neil didn’t remember that, and the gaps in his memory left him cold all over.
‘Drink up,’ Nicky said. ‘You’ll need all the water you can get today. Crackers’ll dehydrate you like no one’s business.’
Neil answered by upending his glass onto the floor.
‘That’s mature,’ Aaron said.
Neil threw the glass at him. Aaron smacked it away and let it shatter on the ground.
Nicky sighed. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You can have the shower first, okay? By the time you’re out Andrew will be back and you can ask him about last night.’
Nicky guided Neil to the bathroom. He started to say something else, but Neil shut the door in his face and locked it. Neil took advantage of the privacy to seethe, giving himself a full thirty seconds to silently rage over last night’s stupidity. Then he balled it up and shoved it deep. Anger wasn’t going to help him right now, and it wouldn’t erase whatever did or didn’t happen last night.
Neil checked his head in the mirror and found a sizeable lump near his left ear. He felt it out with careful fingers, then drank handfuls of water from the sink. When the buzzing in his head died a little and his throat wasn’t burning quite so bad he took stock of the room. There was a pile of new clothes on the closed toilet lid. The shower was stocked, and a clean towel hung from a hook on the back of the door. A window between the mirror and the shower had white translucent glass to block the outside world.
Right now, the window was the only thing that really mattered. Nicky wanted Neil to wait for Andrew, but Neil couldn’t stick around that long. There was no way he was getting in the car with them for the long ride back to Palmetto. He’d get the answers and explanations he needed, but not in unfamiliar territory with all of them against him.
In the zippered coin section of his wallet was an emergency pair of contacts. Neil ripped open the foil packets and put them on, then changed out of his club clothes and into the jeans and tee. The outfit was almost a perfect fit. Remembering how they’d figured out his size only ignited his anger further. Neil stuffed his discarded club clothes into the toilet, shoving them as deep into the water as he could and closing the lid on them. He rattled the shower curtain open, cut on the water as high as he could, and pulled the curtain closed again. The sound of the water was almost enough to hide the sound of Neil opening the window. Getting out took some serious wiggling since it wasn’t quite big enough for him, but desperation was a valuable lubricant.
Lingering sickness from the drugs kept him from moving as quickly as he wanted to, but he’d traveled in far worse shape and he refused to give up. He cut through the subdivision without knowing where he was going and thumbed through his wallet to count bills. He’d taken to carrying several hundred dollars on him at a time, preparations for the worst-case scenario of not having his binder around. He had more than enough to get back to the upstate.
Following the larger streets brought him out onto a main road at last. He only had to go a few blocks before he could flag down a taxi. It took him to the nearest gas station at his request. There was a decrepit pay phone at the edge of the parking lot. Neil pushed coins into the slot and dialed Matt’s number from memory. Matt answered after a couple rings with an incoherent mumble.
Neil checked his watch. It was almost ten. ‘Matt, it’s Neil. Did I wake you?’
‘Nah, I’m up,’ Matt said, but Neil heard the yawn in his words. ‘Where’ve you been? I didn’t hear you come back last night.’
‘I’m in Columbia with Andrew.’
‘You’re—what?’ Matt went from half-asleep to wide awake in a heartbeat. The alarm in his voice only made Neil feel worse. ‘Jesus, Neil, what the hell did you do that for? Did he—’ Matt aborted that and asked again, ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Neil lied.
He thought he sounded convincing, but maybe Matt wasn’t really listening, because Matt said, ‘I’m going to fucking kill him.’ A girl’s voice said something in the background, too muffled for Neil to understand. Neil guessed Matt turned the phone away from his ear to answer, because Matt’s voice was quieter when he said, ‘He’s in Columbia.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ That was definitely Dan, loud and furious.
Matt was back on the line in a heartbeat. ‘Seriously, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Neil said again, ‘but I need a favor. I think Andrew’s going to come looking for something of mine today. If I’m not there, can you keep him out of our room? I’ll owe you one.’
‘You won’t owe me anything,’ Matt said. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’m good for it?’
‘Thank you,’ Neil said. ‘We should be heading back soon, I think.’
‘You be careful, okay?’ Matt said. ‘We’ll see you in a couple hours.’
Neil hung up and went inside the gas station. He stocked up on water bottles and a map, but he ran through the conversation a couple times as he walked the aisles. Matt’s reaction to Neil’s whereabouts was telling. Matt had been through this already; he knew what sorts of things Andrew got up to in Columbia. This was what Matt meant when he said Andrew put him in his place last year. This was what Andrew and Abby had argued about on Neil’s first day. Apparently it took the team’s psychiatrist to patch Matt up after Andrew was through with him. Either Andrew listened to Abby’s warning and toned Neil’s party back, or Neil avoided the worst of it by getting himself knocked out.
Neil snagged a notepad and pen last and checked out. The cashier loaned him a phonebook so Neil could look up the number to a taxi service. The cab came by five minutes later and Neil took it to the nearest truck stop on Interstate 20. There were a dozen or so bigrigs parked across the giant parking lot, most of them collected around the gas pumps. Neil was comforted by the number and sat on the sidewalk to unfold his map. He found three combinations of major roads that would get him to the northwestern region of the state and tucked his map away. He swallowed against the edges of nausea and approached the nearest trucker with a smile on his face.
‘Good morning. I’m a sociology major, working on my summer project. Can I ask where you’re headed?’
It took four tries before Neil found a northbound driver. The rig was taking 77, which wasn’t Neil’s first choice, but at least it crossed I85 near Charlotte, North Carolina. That was the interstate Neil needed if he wanted to get back to Palmetto. Finding a truck was only half the problem. Convincing a driver to take a stranger along was the other.
He offered the driver his politest smile. ‘Would you be willing to give me a lift as far as Charlotte? I can pay you fifty dollars for the ride and for answering a couple questions about what it’s like working this job.’
‘I’m not into taking on passengers,’ the driver said.
Neil accepted that without argument and moved on. None of the other five were going where he needed them to, so he waited off to one side as the twelve trucks were slowly replaced. When the set was complete, he tried again. This time he struck gold on the third try. Not only was the woman willing to take him, but she was going northwest on I-26. It was a faster route to 85. Neil only had to wait until the tank was full and then they were off.
Neil had hitchhiked like this before from New Mexico to Phoenix. Remembering the interview he’d made up was easy. He took notes on everything the driver said, careful to play the part of an interested student, and the drive passed relatively easily. She left him at a truck stop outside Spartanburg and pulled away with a honk of her horn.
It was easier to catch a ride from there. Neil went through the interview all over again. The driver had questions for him as well, and Neil made up his answers as he went. It took some work to convince the driver that yes, he was fine getting dropped off on the interstate, but Neil got what he wanted. The truck pulled off onto the shoulder a quarter-mile from Neil’s exit. Neil paid him and climbed out onto the grass.
It was a little after noon by then. The queasiness had faded, but his head still ached. Neil took his exit on foot and walked to the nearest gas station. He bought a couple bottles of water, sat outside on the sidewalk to drink them, and bought a few more. While he waited for the pounding to die down he studied his map. It was about eleven miles to campus from here. The road was small enough he wouldn’t likely catch a ride, but Neil was okay walking it. It’d be faster to run that far, but he wasn’t feeling well enough to try it.
Without truckers to distract him Neil could use the walk to think. The only clear memory he had of last night was Andrew’s accusation. He didn’t know what else Andrew had asked him or what he’d said in response. Hopefully he’d been smart enough to lie through his teeth despite the drugs.
One thing was for sure, though. Neil couldn’t afford another night out like that. If Andrew really thought Neil was a threat to Kevin, how far would he go to prove it? Neil didn’t want to see what came next, but avoiding that meant compromising. He had to tell Andrew something. The truth was out of the question, but Andrew would smell a lie a mile away. What Neil needed was something inbetween that could explain everything: his money, his appearance, and his obsession with Kevin.
Neil spent the entirety of the three-hour walk sorting out a perfect half-truth. The details he was going to give up made his blood run cold, but if he could get Andrew to keep quiet about them somehow, Kevin couldn’t use them to identify him.
Neil wasn’t quite ready to face Andrew yet and he didn’t want to deal with his teammates’ curiosity over his prolonged absence, so he went to Wymack’s apartment instead. By the time he arrived it was half past four. Wymack had made Neil keep the spare key, but Neil knocked on his door anyway. Wymack wrenched the door open like he wanted to take it off his hinges, but surprise washed out the fury on his face when he saw Neil.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ Wymack demanded, looking Neil up and down. ‘Andrew got back from Columbia hours ago. Matt called me to say you weren’t with them.’
‘I took a different route.’
‘Yeah?’ Wymack gestured at his drenched clothes and sweaty skin. ‘What’d you do, run here?’
‘Walked,’ Neil said, and Wymack stared at him. Neil realized too late Wymack was being sarcastic. He couldn’t take it back, so Neil traced his path in the air with a finger. ‘I hitchhiked to Spartanburg, then to Northlake, and I walked here from there. I know it’s kind of sudden, but can I stay here for a little while?’
Wymack grabbed his elbow and hauled him inside. He slowed just long enough to slam the door behind Neil. ‘Are you stupid or just crazy? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you between here and there? What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking I wasn’t going to ride back with them,’ Neil said.
‘You should have called me,’ Wymack said. ‘Me or Abby or any of the upperclassmen. All you had to say was you didn’t want to stay with Andrew. Any of us would have come and gotten you.’
Neil stared at him, too startled to respond. Wymack threw his free hand up in exaggerated disgust and dragged Neil down the hall to the kitchen.
‘Stretch out and drink some water,’ he said, letting go of Neil.
Neil did as he was told but watched as Wymack stormed out of the kitchen again. Wymack paced up and down the hall with angry, heavy footsteps. On his second pass he had his phone out and at his ear. He was out of sight when someone picked up on the other end, but Neil heard his furious voice loud and clear.
‘You have five seconds to get your retarded psycho ass to my apartment! You even think about telling me no and I swear to god I’ll throw Kevin’s contract down a garbage disposal.’
Neil didn’t think Wymack stayed on the line long enough to get an answer, because he was off the phone when he came back a couple seconds later. He was carrying a towel and an armful of clothes, all of which he shoved at Neil.
‘You’re a sopping mess. Get out of my sight and clean up before I wring your neck.’
Neil took everything down the hall to the bathroom and locked himself in. He kept the water tepid as he washed away the day’s heat and sweat. The clothes Wymack leant him were ridiculously big on him, but at least they covered his scars. Neil bundled his dirty clothes into the wet towel and left the bathroom with them. He felt relaxed for the first time all day, but that faded at the sound of Wymack’s angry voice. Neil crept down the hall toward the living room.
Andrew was standing silent in the middle of the room as Wymack went up one side of him and down the other. Judging by the impatient look on his face, Andrew was still sober. He was also facing the door, which meant he spotted Neil first.
‘Have a nice stroll?’ he asked, interrupting Wymack’s tirade.
Neil returned his cold stare with a heated, ‘Fuck you.’
Wymack snapped his fingers in front of Andrew’s face, trying to get Andrew to look at him instead of Neil. ‘I don’t know what the beef is between you two, but it ends here and now. Abby and I made it clear we wouldn’t tolerate a repeat of last year, Andrew.’
‘This isn’t a repeat.’ The edge in Andrew’s voice said he’d already argued this point several times. ‘We only gave him crackers. You think he’d have made it back here on his own otherwise?’
‘Don’t ‘only’ me. What the fuck were you thinking?’
‘What were you thinking, bringing him here?’ Andrew returned.
Neil decided to cut in before Andrew shared any of his theories. ‘Coach, I need to talk to Andrew for a minute. Can we use your office?’
‘No,’ Wymack said. ‘I don’t trust you two not to kill each other, so you’re staying right here until this is resolved.’
That left only one option, but Neil hated losing his wild card so early in the game. He hoped Wymack couldn’t speak German and switched languages to lay into Andrew. ‘What the hell is your problem? How can you threaten Nicky for coming onto me but condone drugging me out of my mind against my will? Why can’t you just leave me alone?’
That wiped the irritation off Andrew’s face. It was forever before Andrew answered in German. ‘That’s unexpected. Did no one tell you I hate surprises?’
‘What makes you think I care?’
‘How many languages do you speak, runaway?’
Neil ignored that. ‘Tell me why you did that.’
‘I already did,’ Andrew said. ‘I’m still waiting for your answer.’
‘I answered you. I told you I’m not a mole. You’re insane if you think I am.’
‘Then correct me.’
‘Give me a reason.’
‘Besides the obvious?’ Andrew said. ‘If I can’t get an answer from you, I’ll get it wherever I can. How about I start with your parents?’
‘Good luck,’ Neil said, feeling cold all over. ‘They’re dead.’
‘Did you kill them?’
He said it so casually, like he was asking for the time, that Neil could only stare at him for a minute. It was such an unreasonable leap of logic Neil didn’t understand how he even thought to ask it. Then he remembered who he was talking to and asked, ‘Did you kill yours?’
Andrew gave a dismissive flick of his fingers. ‘I don’t have parents.’
It was only a half-lie. The twins didn’t know who their father was, and only Aaron grew up with their biological mother. Andrew was surrendered to foster care when he was just a few days old. He spent thirteen years in the system and three at juvie. It wasn’t until he was released on early parole that his mother let Andrew move home. Five months later she died in a car accident. Neil doubted Andrew attended the funeral.
‘I didn’t kill my parents,’ Neil said, but he couldn’t go on. Fear was an iron grip around his lungs, making it impossible to breathe. Neil trusted the story he’d patched together on his walk, but he didn’t want to say it aloud. The words came out in jagged pieces and he hoped his struggle added realism to the lies. ‘Riko’s family did.’
That got Andrew’s attention. Neil swallowed hard, trying to clear the tightness from his throat, and forced himself to explain.
‘My father was a gopher for a group who did business with the Moriyamas. In the grand scheme of things he wasn’t worth much, but he knew a lot of names and he knew how to move product. He did some business out of Edgar Allen, which is how I met Kevin and Riko. I didn’t know who they were back then. I was just excited to meet kids my age. I thought we were going to be friends.
‘Then my father started getting cocky, started getting stupid, and tried skimming from payments. He took Moriyama money that was meant for his boss. They found out, of course. The Moriyamas executed him and my mother before his boss could get to him. I took what he’d stolen and ran. I’ve been running ever since.’
Andrew wasn’t smiling anymore, but Neil was. He felt it as it curved across his lips and knew it was a sick, ghastly expression. He dug his fingernails into his mouth, trying to claw the look off his face, but it was frozen in place.
‘I’m lucky Kevin doesn’t recognize me,’ Neil said. ‘I don’t know if he even remembers meeting me, but I remember him. Seeing him helps me remember my parents. He’s all I have left of my real life. But if Kevin or Riko recognizes me and word makes it back to my father’s boss, I know what will happen to me.’
Andrew said nothing for so long Neil thought he’d blown it, but finally Andrew moved. Wymack shifted his weight, ready to intervene if things turned violent, but Andrew only came to stand right in front of Neil.
‘Then why did you come here?’ Andrew asked.
‘Because I’m tired,’ Neil said, trying to sound defeated. It didn’t take much effort. ‘I have nowhere else to go, and I’m too jealous of Kevin to stay away from him. He knows what it’s like to hate every day of his life, to wake up afraid every day, but he’s got you at his back telling him everything’s going to be okay. He has everything, even when he’s lost everything, and I’m —’ Neil didn’t want to say it, but the word was already there, broken and pathetic between them, ‘— nothing. I’ll always have and be nothing.’
Andrew reached up and forcibly uncurled Neil’s fingers from his mouth. He pushed Neil’s hand out of the way and stared Neil down with nothing between them. Neil didn’t understand the look on his face. There was no censure over Neil’s crooked parents or pity for their deaths, no triumph over having backed Neil into admitting so much, and no obvious skepticism for such an outlandish story. Whatever this look was, it was dark and intense enough to swallow Neil whole.
‘Let me stay,’ Neil said quietly. ‘I’m not ready to give this up yet.’
That strange look left Andrew’s eyes. His expression cleared to stony indifference and he let go of Neil. ‘Keep it if you can. You and I both know it won’t last long.’
Neil’s stomach gave a nauseating flip. He’d been lying since he’d first learned to speak. What he’d just told Andrew was fifty percent truth, the most honest thing he’d ever tell someone about his life, and Andrew took it without batting an eye. Neil didn’t know how to feel about that. He should be relieved, because it meant Andrew might be done asking him questions, but it went deeper than that. He wondered for a moment if Andrew could handle the entire truth so calmly, but that was too dangerous and stupid to consider.
‘I’ll be gone by our match against Edgar Allen,’ Neil said. ‘I don’t look now how I looked then, but I can’t risk Riko’s family recognizing me.’
‘Such an unexpected will to survive from someone who has nothing to live for. Next time we have a little heart-to-heart like this, maybe I’ll ask you to justify that.’
‘Let’s not talk like this ever again.’
‘Let’s not,’ Andrew agreed.
Neil hesitated, then asked, ‘Are you going to tell Kevin?’
‘Don’t ask me stupid questions.’
Relief was almost strong enough to bring him to his knees. Neil sucked in a slow, rattling breath and closed his eyes. As the day’s anger and fear ebbed away he was left feeling exhausted and hollow. Maybe Andrew’s night out in Columbia had been awful, and maybe he’d never wanted to say these things out loud, but having the air cleared between him and Andrew to some degree took an enormous weight off his chest. He’d convinced Andrew to back off and leave him alone. The Foxhole Court was his until their match against the Ravens. It wasn’t freedom, and it wasn’t safety, but it was breathing room. That was enough.
‘We’re leaving,’ Andrew said in English.
Neil opened his eyes. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Back to the dorm,’ Andrew said. ‘Your teammates have been annoying us ever since we got back, demanding we return to Columbia and scour the streets in search of you.’
‘He can stay here if he wants,’ Wymack said. ‘I can call Dan to let her know he’s safe.’
Andrew didn’t look at Wymack. ‘Neil wants to come with me.’
A day ago, those words might have been an order or a threat, but today Neil heard only truth. He’d chosen the Foxes. He’d chosen to trust Andrew, whatever that meant and whatever consequences it brought down the road. There was no reason or need to hide behind Wymack now.
‘Thanks for the shower,’ Neil said to Wymack. ‘I’ll wash your clothes and bring them back on Monday.’
Wymack glanced between them, obviously wondering if they’d really settled things that easily, and said, ‘No rush.’
‘Going now,’ Andrew said, and led Neil out.
Wymack must have called ahead anyway, because when they got back to the dorm all of the Foxes were in the hallway waiting for them. Kevin, Aaron, and Nicky were leaning against the wall near their suite door. The upperclassmen stood in a small clump in the middle of the hallway outside Dan’s room. Neil wanted to skip the questions and hide in his room, but as soon as he was close enough Dan caught his shoulders and patted him down for injuries.
‘Are you okay?’ Dan asked.
‘I’m fine,’ Neil said.
‘Andrew?’ Kevin asked.
Andrew paused in his doorway long enough to look at Kevin. ‘I’m washing my hands of this. He’s your problem now.’
He disappeared into his room. Aaron and Nicky exchanged looks before following. Kevin was the last to leave, and not without sending Neil a searching look first. Neil watched the door close behind them, then faced the rest of his teammates. Dan still looked angry, and Matt looked wired for a fight. Seth and Allison were already heading for Neil’s room, likely bored by the peaceful resolution. Renee’s gaze was searching. Neil couldn’t hold her stare for long.
‘Coach said you hitchhiked your way back here,’ Dan said. ‘I’d yell at you for being stupid, but Coach said he handled that already.’
‘Lesson learned,’ Neil said. ‘Next time I’ll call for a ride.’
‘There won’t be a next time.’ Dan gave a heavy sigh and scrubbed her face. ‘Come on.’
They went back to Neil’s suite. Six piles of cards lay face down in the living from an interrupted game and were surrounded by a graveyard of crumpled beer cans. Allison and Seth were rummaging through the fridge when Neil passed. Renee continued to the living room to get her cards, but Dan and Matt followed Neil to the bedroom. They stopped in the doorway and watched as Neil went to his safe. Neil traced the lines of it with his fingers and tugged on the combination lock. It didn’t look tampered with, but he couldn’t check the contents with an audience.
‘You were right,’ Matt said. ‘Andrew tried to get in.’
‘We didn’t let him,’ Dan said. ‘He didn’t make it further than the front door.’
‘Thank you,’ Neil said.
‘Thank Renee,’ Dan said. ‘She doesn’t take sides all that often.’
‘It’s so much easier when she does, though,’ Matt said.
‘Andrew seems to like her,’ Neil said.
‘They’ve got an understanding,’ Matt said, but didn’t explain. ‘We’re between rounds in our game. You should join in. It’ll help clear your head, I think. Spending too much time with Andrew’s lot will rattle anyone.’
‘I’m probably going to crash early,’ Neil said. ‘It was a long day.’
‘We’ll take our stuff to my room,’ Dan said, and they closed the door on their way out.
Neil waited until their voices faded before unlocking his safe. He found everything where it was supposed to be. As he slipped the lock into place again he realized his hand was trembling. He held up his shaky fingers where he could see them better and wondered at the equally weak flutter in his chest.
Hope was a dangerous, disquieting thing, but he thought perhaps he liked it.