SWNOVELS The Raven King: Chapter 16
‘Passengers for flight 227 to Las Vegas, please report to Gate A19. Boarding will begin momentarily.’
Neil didn’t remember falling asleep, but he blinked blearily awake and stared at the florescent lights overhead. Cold glass rattled against his shoulders and hair where he sat propped against a window. He heard the muted roar of a jet engine as it hurtled down the runway. The glass stilled before the noise faded. He rubbed his eyes with gloved hands and regretted it immediately. The gloves hid his bandages but did nothing for the pain. He made his hands into fists, hissing through his teeth at how much it hurt. Satisfied his fingers were all accounted for, he dropped his gloved hands to his lap.
‘Passengers for flight 1522 to Atlanta, please be advised: there has been a gate change. We will now board this flight from Gate A16. I repeat: flight 1522 to Atlanta, Georgia will now board from Gate A16. Please report to your new gate immediately for an expeditious departure.’
The announcement came on again a couple seconds later, this time in Spanish. For a moment Neil was baffled that it wasn’t in French. He’d spent so much time with Jean he’d forgotten any other language existed. Jean was technically forbidden to use French, since Riko couldn’t understand it, but he’d whispered it to Neil when Riko wasn’t close enough to hear. Jean would mock him for his current confusion, except Jean wasn’t here. Neil looked at the seat beside his and saw only his duffel. Jean was nowhere in sight.
He was at an airport, so Jean must be on the other side of the security checkpoint. Neil would have to go back and tell him he’d slept through his flight. When he looked around for a sign to Departures, though, he recognized the tacky furnishings of Upstate Regional Airport.
Upstate was in South Carolina, but Neil didn’t remember leaving West Virginia. He didn’t even remember leaving Castle Evermore. Neil gripped the armrests of his chair to ease himself upright and looked over his shoulder. It was dark out; night had fallen and he hadn’t even noticed. He pawed at his uncooperative memory, then let it slide. It didn’t matter how he’d gotten here so long as he was here.
Getting here was only half the battle. The other half was getting to his feet. Neil held his breath as he painstakingly hoisted himself out of the chair. For a moment he was sure his legs would give out from under him. Somehow they held. It hurt to clench his hand around his duffel bag’s strap but he held on anyway. He couldn’t feel the weight of it against his hip. He needed to know it was there with him.
He trudged for Arrivals. It should have been a short walk, but he moved with the speed and grace of someone six times his age. Every inch of him felt like it’d gone through a meat grinder. He made it as far as baggage claim before he realized he had nowhere to go and no way of getting there. Neil stared stupidly at the conveyer belts, then limped to the wall. He followed it around until he found an outlet. His hands screamed in pain as he rummaged through his duffel, but he finally found his phone. It was dead, of course. It probably died two—three?—weeks ago. Neil plugged it in and waited.
When it had enough juice to turn on, it immediately started loading every missed message from his vacation. Neil tried thumbing through his contacts, but the alerts kept popping up to interrupt his progress. He gave up and watched names flash by. Unsurprisingly most of the texts were from Nicky. Even Aaron and Allison’s names came up. The only name missing was Andrew’s.
At last his phone had downloaded everything from the server, and Neil could get into his contacts list. Neil saw Andrew’s name first, then Kevin’s, and finally hit the third speed dial Andrew programmed into his phone.
Wymack answered on the fourth ring. ‘You have a good reason to be bothering me on a holiday?’
‘I didn’t know who else to call,’ Neil said. He barely recognized his own voice. The last time he’d spoken he’d been screaming; apparently his vocal cords still hadn’t recovered. Neil pressed his forehead to the wall and tried to breathe. He couldn’t remember when breathing wasn’t a chore.
‘Neil?’ All the gruff posturing left Wymack’s voice; that sharp edge was all alarm. ‘Are you all right?’
Neil smiled. It felt like it tore his face open. ‘No. No, I’m not. I know it’s kind of sudden, but can you come get me? I’m at the airport.’
‘Wait right there,’ Wymack said. ‘I’m on my way.’
Neil nodded, knowing Wymack couldn’t see it, and hung up. He didn’t have the strength to stay standing, so he knelt and set a timer on his phone for fifteen minutes. When it went off, he yanked the charger from the wall and carried his bag outside. He sat on the curb with his feet in the gutter, ignoring the way irate drivers honked warnings at him. Neil was so out of it he didn’t realize Wymack had pulled up to the curb a short ways down until a heavy hand wrapped around his arm.
‘Up,’ Wymack said. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
Neil twisted his hand in Wymack’s sleeve and let Wymack haul him to his feet. Wymack got the passenger door open for him and watched as Neil climbed in. When Neil was safely tucked inside Wymack slammed the door and went around to the driver’s side. Neil steeled himself for questions, but Wymack said nothing to him. Neil watched the airport disappear, watched signs blur outside the window, and let his eyes close.
When he opened them again, he was flat on his back on Wymack’s couch. Wymack had dragged his desk chair into the living room to keep watch over him. A bottle of scotch sat almost empty on the coffee table between them. The lid was on but Neil could still smell it. Neil pushed himself up, wincing the entire way, and returned Wymack’s guarded expression with one of his own.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He sounds like Neil,’ Wymack said, ‘but he doesn’t look like him. I’ll take your explanation from the top and without a side order of bullshit, thanks.’
Neil looked at him, not understanding. The answer was there, just out of reach, a flash of blue and panic and shattered glass. Neil clawed desperately at his memory, but his body caught on before his mind did. He reached up to touch his hair, and Neil remembered. Dread was acid in his veins, eating him alive from the inside out, and Neil lurched to his feet.
‘No,’ he said, but it was too late to change things.
Wymack got up when Neil stumbled for the door, but he didn’t try to stop him. Neil threw the bathroom door open and cut the light on. The face waiting for him on the mirror was horrible enough to take his legs out from under him. Neil scrabbled at the sink as he crumpled to his knees but wasn’t strong enough to hold himself up.
Neil had dyed his hair brown from time to time, but never this shade, never anywhere near this shade. This was his natural color, and those were his real eyes, and this was his father’s face. The bandages and bruises weren’t enough to disguise the man he’d seen in the mirror. Neil thought he’d throw up but he was too weak to manage it.
‘Breathe,’ Wymack said.
Neil didn’t realize he’d stopped until Wymack’s fist on his back pounded the air back into his lungs. He clawed at the cabinet door and choked on the first breath he managed. He had to grit his teeth against a cry he didn’t dare voice. It was too late to tell Wymack not to look. It was too late for Wymack to pretend he hadn’t seen. Wymack didn’t know who he was looking at but that didn’t matter.
The click of a lighter pulled him back right before he went over that edge, and Neil took the cigarette Wymack offered him. He cradled it close and breathed in as deep as he could. It hurt to breathe but he did it anyway. Each successive breath pulled hard at his stitches and the bandages taped to his skin. He pressed his free hand to his coat, trying to feel the gauze through thick wool. He finally inhaled so deep he choked on it. He coughed so hard he thought he’d break something, but on the tail-end of his coughing he was laughing.
It sounded twisted and wrong in this suffocating space, but Neil couldn’t stop. He bit his hand to muffle the sound, but it didn’t help. Hysteria was one hard blink away from taking over.
‘Neil,’ Wymack said. ‘I need you to talk to me.’
‘I think I pulled my stitches,’ Neil said. ‘I feel blood.’
‘Where?’ Wymack asked.
‘Everywhere?’ Neil guessed, and tried undoing his coat buttons one-handed.
Wymack pushed Neil’s hand out of the way. Neil let Wymack fight with the buttons and zipper, but it took both of them to get Neil’s coat off. Neil caught the fingertip of one glove in his teeth and tugged, only to wince at the way his cheek twinged. Wymack noticed the expression and reached for Neil’s face. Neil hadn’t realized he had bandages on his face until Wymack pried gauze and tape off.
Wymack went so still Neil thought he’d turned to stone. ‘Neil, the fuck is on your face?’
Neil wrested his glove free and touched bare fingers to his skin. He didn’t feel anything, so he caught at the sink and tried to get to his feet. Wymack let him try once on his own, then got up and hauled Neil upright. Neil wasn’t ready to see his reflection again. He was less ready to see the ‘4’ tattooed on his left cheekbone.
Wymack wasn’t expecting his violent reaction. That was the only reason Neil succeeded in throwing him out of the bathroom. Neil dove past him and ran for the kitchen. By the time Wymack caught up with him he’d already pulled a knife from the wooden block on Wymack’s counter. Wymack seized his wrist before Neil could take the knife to his own face. Neil fought like a caged beast, but Wymack slammed his hand down on the counter until Neil lost his grip. Neil scrambled for the knife, but Wymack dragged Neil to the floor with him. He got both arms around Neil and held on tight, and there was nothing Neil could do but exhaust himself trying to get free.
‘Hey,’ Wymack said at his ear, sharp and insistent. ‘Hey. It’s all right.’
It’d never been all right. It’d come close in fleeting patches, in stolen moments with his teammates and in their last-second wins, but it’d always been overshadowed by this awful truth. Every time Neil blinked he remembered a little more of his Christmas vacation. Every time he moved he felt Riko’s hands and blades and fire on his skin. He’d let Riko take him apart time and time again because it was the only way to survive, because bending should have kept him from breaking, but Neil didn’t know if he could pull himself back together one more time. He wasn’t strong enough for this. He never had been. His mother had held him up but she was gone now.
‘Neil,’ Wymack said.
Neil, Wymack called him, even when he looked like this, even with his father’s face and his father’s eyes and the Moriyamas’ number on his face. Neil, Wymack called him, and more than anything Neil wanted it to be true. He stopped fighting to get free; the hands that had been trying to wrench Wymack’s arms off him now held on for dear life.
‘Help me,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘Let me,’ Wymack shot back, so Neil closed his eyes. Wymack said nothing else until Neil’s labored breathing finally smoothed out. ‘What the fuck happened? Last I heard you were spending Christmas with your uncle.’
‘I lied,’ Neil said. ‘Andrew’s coming back to us on Tuesday, all right? If Easthaven hasn’t called Betsy yet to arrange his ride they will soon.’
‘They called yesterday,’ Wymack said. ‘What does Andrew have to do with this?’
‘Everything that matters,’ Neil said.
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Shut up,’ Wymack said, so Neil subsided. They sat in silence for a couple minutes more before Wymack said, ‘Can I let go of you and trust you to behave, or are you going to try and cut your face off again? I want to check on your stitches.’
‘I’ll behave,’ Neil said.
‘Forgive me if I don’t trust you,’ Wymack said, but he let go.
They got back to their feet. Wymack meant it when he said he didn’t trust Neil, because he took Neil back to the living room and out of eyesight of the knives. Wymack gestured at Neil to shed his shirt, but Neil couldn’t move well enough to get it off. Wymack eyed him for a moment, then left to get his cooking scissors. He brandished them at Neil in a question, and Neil nodded. He held perfectly still while Wymack cut his shirt off of him.
Wymack didn’t say anything about the scars. He didn’t say anything about how many bandages Neil had wrapped around his chest and abdomen or how many bruises showed around the gauze. He just checked Neil over with a clinical eye and poked at every line of stitches for weaknesses. Neil stood silent and still and let him work. He’d ripped threads loose on his side, down near his waist, but that gash was almost healed anyway. Wymack pushed at Neil’s skin to see if it would bleed and came back with clean fingers.
Wymack peeled off blood-crusted bandages and dropped them on the coffee table. He surveyed the damage, then left. Neil heard a drawer snick open and closed, and the faucet cut on for a couple seconds. Wymack came back with a wet wash cloth and a small first aid kit. Neil tried to take the cloth from him, but he couldn’t close his fingers tight enough to hold onto it. Wymack pushed his hand out of the way and scrubbed dried blood from Neil’s skin. It hurt, but Neil gritted his teeth and stayed silent.
It made him think of long nights on the road, of catching his breath in safe houses all around the world. For a moment Neil remembered how his mother’s fingers felt on his skin. He remembered the bite of needles moving in and out as she threaded his broken body back together. The new heat crawling up his throat to prick at his eyes was grief. Neil blinked it away as hard as he could.
‘One day we’re going to talk about this,’ Wymack said in a low voice.
‘After finals,’ Neil said without looking at him. ‘After we beat the Ravens. Then I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I’ll even tell you the truth.’
‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’
Wymack carried the dirty bandages and washcloth out of the room. Neil sank onto the couch and looked at Wymack’s bottle of scotch. Wymack’s empty glass sat off to one side. It took no work to fill it and less to knock it back. The heat was familiar, as was the harsh aftertaste.
‘I thought you didn’t drink,’ Wymack said from the doorway.
‘I don’t,’ Neil said, ‘unless I have to. We used alcohol as anesthetics because we couldn’t risk going to the hospital.’ The words burned his lips more than the whisky did. Neil put the glass down and let his fingers linger on the rim. He didn’t let go until he was sure his hand wasn’t trembling, and then he traced the ugliest of his scars with his index finger. ‘Too many questions. Too much lost time. It was safer to drink away the pain.’
He clenched his hand and lowered it to his lap. ‘Is that enough, Coach? It’s a truth on credit to hold you until spring.’
‘Yes,’ Wymack said. ‘It’s enough for now.’
Wymack wrapped up Neil’s wounds with fresh bandages, then reclaimed his chair. The pair sat in silence, Wymack watching Neil and Neil studying his hands. Neil fought with his uncooperative memory, trying to recall his stay at Evermore. When the most important piece clicked into place Neil could finally breathe.
‘I didn’t sign it,’ Neil said, looking up from his hands. He lifted his fingers to his face. He couldn’t feel his tattoo, but he’d seen Kevin’s often enough that he knew exactly where it was. ‘He gave me a contract but I wouldn’t sign it. He couldn’t make me. This doesn’t mean anything. I’m still a Fox.’
‘Of course you are,’ Wymack said.
Neil nodded and looked at the clock. It was five ’til midnight. ‘Are we going to watch the ball drop? I want to make a wish.’
‘You make wishes on shooting stars,’ Wymack said. ‘New Year’s is for resolutions.’
‘That’s okay too,’ Neil said.
Wymack dug his remote out from under a couch cushion and turned on the TV. Noise and music filled the room. Cameras panned across the crowd as a band performed on stage. Neil searched the crowd for his teammates’ faces, knowing he wouldn’t see them but needing to look anyway.
He checked his phone, found the battery blinking critically low, and opened his messages box anyway. He didn’t read them. He didn’t have time and the battery wouldn’t last long enough. He had enough power to compose a group message, though, so he tapped out a simple ‘Happy New Year’ to the Foxes. Betsy had told them Andrew’s phone was confiscated for the duration of his stay at Easthaven, but Neil added his number anyway and pressed SEND.
The response was almost immediate. By the time the midnight countdown started on the screen, by the time Neil looked up and watched the flashing ball start its descent, he’d already heard back from his entire team, most of them in caps-lock and with extraneous exclamation marks. He’d ignored them through Christmas but they seemed excited to hear from him now. He was their family. They were his. They were worth every cut and bruise and scream.
Neil watched the ball hit bottom. It was January. It was a new year. It was two days until Andrew’s release, eleven days until the first championships match, and four months until Finals.
Facing the Foxes on the court this spring would be the last mistake Riko ever made.