Chapter Text
It figured that the end of Neil Josten’s life would come like this: in a locker room, cigarette smoke still in his clothes, betrayed by his own stupid wanting. He’d joined Millport’s underwhelming exy team knowing full well that it made him more of a target. Anything which attracted attention to him was dangerous, and his mom had warned him to obsess from a distance. Maybe she had known that it would end up like this, with Neil Josten alone and burning out, and a ghost from his past standing in front of him with a smile.
He knew it was a bad idea. He just hadn’t cared.
From the moment Mom died, Neil knew he was going to follow, sooner rather than later. For all her preparations, for the rules he repeated back to her as she bled out, it hadn’t been enough. He couldn’t run forever. And without her to beat him into line, he’d spun out and broken her rules, one by one. He’d stayed too long in Millport. He’d approached Coach Hernandez with a plea to play striker. And now he was standing still as Riko Moriyama looked at him.
And for what? The foolish desire to be somebody for once? The thought that maybe, just maybe he could have this too? Had it been worth it? After graduation, Neil Josten would cease to exist. Someone new would take his place, swear off exy entirely, and go south. Run forever, never having a home, never having friends, until the inevitable happened. All of his time in Millport had simply been an indulgence that he knew he couldn’t afford and had allowed himself anyway. It was never going to mean anything.
But it had been fun, Neil thought. They’d barely scraped by in this game, and next week would likely see them knocked out of finals. And then it would be over, and his time on court would be a brief blip in the downward spiral of his life. Fun while it lasted.
He’d stuck around after the game, not in any hurry to scamper back to the abandoned house he was squatting in. He was still riding the high off of their victory, chewing his cheek in the stands and letting a cigarette burn to the filter. He felt lighter after a game. Like he could briefly forget who he was. Like Neil Josten was real.
And then Coach Hernandez had found him and pushed those old bruises—where are your parents?—and said the words that no one on the run ever wants to hear. There was somebody here to see him.
He hadn’t recognized the man who’d approached. But that was a fleeting relief as soon as the man began talking. He’d introduced himself as Frederico Rossi, an assistant coach for the Edgar Allen Ravens. That had been enough to send a bolt of ice down Neil’s spine.
He knew the Ravens. He had a binder in his duffel bag devoted to two in particular. Eight years ago, he had played for a day on their court with Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day, before their juvenile puppy play had been interrupted by Neil’s father. In the east tower, surrounded by men Neil had never seen before, the three of them watched as the Butcher of Baltimore tore a man into bloody pieces. And then that night, Neil’s mother had sneaked him out of his father’s house, five million dollars in cash in hand. They’d been running ever since.
The Butcher had never let them go. He and his people pursued them with ruthless, violent persistence. Last year, they had caught up to them in Seattle. He hadn’t realized how badly his mom had been injured until miles later, when she finally wasn’t able to keep her grip tight enough on the steering wheel.
It was a series of events which he’d never managed to parse through. Why had Riko and Kevin been there that day? Why had the Butcher made them watch, when witnesses were a liability? Why did Riko and Kevin get to live out their lives after, while Neil moved from city to city, country to country, name to name? Riko and Kevin were the known as the Sons of Exy, due to Riko’s uncle and Kevin’s late mother founding the sport. They were champions on international teams while they were still in high-school, and their fame had only continued to skyrocket. Neil was obsessed with them.
So as soon as Rossi had said he was from Edgar Allen, Neil’s heart had stopped. Kevin Day may have absconded from their ranks after his hand had been shattered in a terrible accident, but Riko Moriyama was still their Captain. And Neil could not afford to be recognized, no matter how slight the risk. Prison wouldn’t hold his father forever, and Neil wouldn’t survive a rematch.
He’d turned Rossi down and then spun on his heels to leave, breaking into a run in the locker room. He’d been too mind-numb with panic to realize he wasn’t alone.
Neil had only made it a few feet before he was bodily stopped, arms wrenched behind his back. Jean Moreau, a backliner and number three of the Ravens, had caught him as if he were nothing more than a child. Neil slammed the heel of his foot into Jean’s shin, bucking wildly, but Jean was immovable. He had nearly a foot on Neil.
“Stop struggling, you cretin,” Jean hissed in his ear.
“Let go,” Neil said.
To his surprise, Jean did. Neil dropped to the ground, feeling the crack of his knees on the tile reverberate through his body. He scrambled back to his feet, intent on getting out—disappearing immediately, no more graduation, no more Neil Josten—but then Jean had a vice grip of the back of his sweatshirt, yanking him back so that the collar briefly choked him, and clamped his hand on the nape of Neil’s neck.
Coach Hernandez and Rossi had caught up with them.
“Jesus, Neil,” Hernandez said. “Can’t you hear them out?”
Neil, scuffed like a dog, bit back the instinct to bare his teeth. Jean’s hand was a sure weight, and his chest brushed against Neil’s back. A subtle reminder that it wouldn’t be so easy to escape them.
Rossi laughed good naturedly. He was holding a thin manilla folder with Neil’s name on it. “You weren’t kidding about the flight risk.”
“I’m not playing for the Ravens,” Neil said.
Coach Hernandez sighed. He had been good to Neil this past year. He’d looked the other way whenever Neil broke in to sleep in the locker room. He’d asked after his parents but always backed off when Neil refused to give in. He’d taken on a chance on the new kid, and Neil had, despite himself, grown to like him. And then he’d betrayed Neil’s trust by secretly sending tapes of Neil’s gameplay to an assortment of coaches of collegiate level exy teams.
Hernandez ran a hand through his short hair. “Come on, Neil. People would kill for a chance to be on the Ravens. You’re never going to get an opportunity like this again.”
“We’re offering a full scholarship,” said Rossi. “You can sign the contract now. We’ll make all the arrangements.”
“No,” said Neil.
He felt Jean tense behind him.
“Why not?” Rossi asked.
There was no easy way to answer that. It was one thing to play on a nowhere, no good high-school team like Millport. It was another entirely to join the first ranked collegiate team in the nation. Neil’s face would be visible, and West Virginia was entirely too close to Baltimore for comfort. But he could hardly explain to these men that Neil’s serial killer father would kill him the first chance he got.
Instead, Neil squared his jaw and said, “There are a thousand strikers out there that are better than me. I’m no one.”
“True,” said another voice. “But irrelevant.”
Dread dropped low in Neil’s stomach. He knew he shouldn’t turn to face him, but his body moved without his conscious decision. He’d been so focused on leaving, and then shocked by Jean’s sudden presence, that he hadn’t looked for anyone else in the room. He really was falling apart without Mom.
Leaning on the wall next to the entertainment console was Riko Moriyama. As children, he and Kevin had hand-drawn the numbers 1 and 2 on their cheekbone. Now, it was professionally inked into his skin, an unmistakable reminder that Riko Moriyama would always be the best. His eyes were as dark as Neil remembered. The slight curve to his lips an echo of the smile he’d once turned on Neil, that day on the field. You’ve got potential, he had said. It had meant more to Neil than any praise he’d ever received.
That day, when the Butcher was killing, Neil had squeezed Kevin’s hand until his fingers went numb. Kevin had tried to back out of the room, but Neil had known that would make it worse. Running made you prey in the Butcher’s eyes. Kevin had been unable to look away from the viscera. Riko had been unable to look away from Neil.
His cool gaze, assessing and deep as night sky, caught onto Neil again. For a second, Neil saw in double-vision, the past and present colliding together. Riko’s pose was purposefully insouciant, but Neil saw the predator behind the mask.
Neil’s appearance had changed in the eight years since they’d seen each other. His hair was dyed brown, he rarely took out the colored contacts he wore, and surely puberty had done its work in disguising him further. If Riko recognized him, he kept that revelation locked behind the inscrutable tilt of his head.
“By all rights, I should have burned the file your coach sent the second it crossed our door,” Riko said. Fame had exacerbated the arrogant quality Riko had as a child. But it was, Neil could admit, earned.
He felt pinned in place. Even without Jean behind him, he wasn’t sure if he would have been able to pull himself away at that moment. “So why didn’t you?”
“Curiosity.” Riko’s eyes flicked toward the coaches. “Out. I want to speak to Josten alone.”
Hernandez hesitated, but Rossi clapped his shoulder and nodded toward the exit. Alone, apparently, did not preclude Jean Moreau. Rossi’s easy acquiescence made Neil nervous, but he supposed it made sense. Riko was here to recruit a striker, and if Hernandez had warned Rossi about Neil’s distrusting nature, maybe he thought a fellow student would do a better job of convincing him to sign.
“You’re abysmal,” Riko said, as soon as they were alone. “A waste of my time, honestly.”
Neil rankled. He most certainly wasn’t. He had made a show of learning how to play, reading how-to books on the bleachers, fumbling his way through elementary drills. But even holding himself back, he knew he was a good player. Not the best, not anywhere close to Riko Moriyama’s level, but good. Learning striker was different from his little league past as a backliner, and the years spent off court had taken a toll on his skill, but abysmal was stretching it.
“Then why are you here?” Neil asked. “You don’t want me on your team. Great. I don’t want to be on your team either. Let me leave.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Riko said. “I do want you on my team. You’re an amateur. Your file is almost completely barren. If I hadn’t known Kevin was sniffing around you, I would have never looked twice.”
“Kevin,” Neil repeated, mouth dry.
Riko shrugged. “He’s got tickets to come see you next week. But by the time he gets here, you’ll already be a Raven. You should be thanking me for getting here first and saving you from a team as pitiful as the Foxes.”
Neil couldn’t help the incredulous laugh that broke free. “I’m still not signing a contract. Not with you, not with Kevin.”
There was a flash of indignation on Riko’s face before he wiped it clean again. Neil could guess that he wasn’t used to hearing the word no. In fact, the only person he could think of that had turned down a position on the Raven’s lineup had been Andrew Minyard, the current freshman goalie on the Foxes. When Kevin had left Edgar Allen for an assistant coach position at Palmetto, Neil had researched every single person on their team in search of a reason why. The Foxes were the very definition of troubled. Their team was a halfway house for students from broken families and abuse. The fact that Kevin Day apparently thought Neil Josten would be a good fit for their team was just as horrifying as Riko’s presence.
“You,” said Riko, “don’t get to say no. I’ve seen the way you play. I know why Kevin wants you.”
“And you, what? Only want me because Kevin does?” Neil turned to look at Jean, to see if this sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to Neil. But Jean’s face was grim.
“I want you because you are an enigma,” Riko said. “You forget yourself when you play. Your file says you’ve only been playing for a year, but your progress is far beyond that of a nobody amateur, and when you get into it, you play well. Neil Josten. Neil Josten, who showed up out of nowhere, with a flimsy faked transcript.”
Neil could taste bile. His stomach roiled.
“Neil Josten,” Riko continued, “whose parents are mysteriously never available, never come to games, never come to parent-teacher conferences. Neil Josten, who sleeps at his school and flinches from attention. Neil Josten, who doesn’t exist.”
“Shut up,” Neil said, pulse racing.
“But who are you running from? Are Mommy and Daddy mean to you?” Riko’s faux concern was saccharine. His features twisted. “You are no one. You are nothing.”
Riko had pulled at a loose thread of his manufactured identity, and now the whole thing threatened to unravel. He thought again of his father, of the way struggling had always amused him to greater cruelties. The more Neil resisted, the more interested Riko became. He forced himself to take a breath. If Riko knew who he was—no. No, he couldn’t think that. Not yet.
“What does it matter to you?” Neil asked.
“It matters because you don’t have to be nobody,” Riko said. “You are an idiot, throwing away your own potential because you’re too busy jumping at shadows to become great. Kevin’s wasting himself at Palmetto. I’ll be damned if he ruins you too. I’ll be damned if he gets anything he wants after abandoning us.”
Jean leaned in close to his ear, the lilt of his accent turning his words softer than they should have been. “Just say yes. It is better if you agree.”
He was a microsecond away from digging his elbow in Jean’s stomach when Riko suddenly crossed the fragile no man’s land between them. His fingers caught Neil’s chin, holding his face still, while Riko peered dispassionately at him. Inspecting him for something, maybe. “What will it take to make you say yes?” Riko mused.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Neil said.
“You’re a runaway with nowhere left to run,” Riko said. “Playing for the Ravens guarantees you a home for the next five years. You could be Court. You’ll be playing on the best team in the nation, under the best coaches, under me. Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.”
“You can’t.”
“Try me.” Riko released his chin and took a step back. He was serious, Neil realized. For whatever reason, whether it was true Riko saw something in Neil he could foster or whether it was as simple as spiting the brother who had abandoned him, Riko was serious.
Neil swallowed. The truth was that he did want it. The future Riko was laying out in front of him, the promise he’d glimpsed briefly as a child and then been denied by the horrifying circumstances of his life, the idea that Neil Josten could exist outside of Millport… He was so, so tired. He had never understood suicide, but that was essentially what Riko was offering. Suicide with a side of temporary happiness.
Riko said, “I’m not going to beg. I want you because I think, despite your lousy performance, that you could actually be something. God forbid someone care about you. Say yes or don’t. Jean.”
Jean released his hold on Neil’s neck and took a step back.
“Tell me you don’t want it,” Riko said, “and make me believe you. I’ll rip up your contract, and you can run, run away again.”
Jean added, “We protect our own. You will be one of us.”
Neil was silent. Suicide. It was utter suicide.
But there had been that day, with Riko laughing as he pulled Neil into a headlock, ruffling his hair. Kevin’s eyes jumping between the two of them, something like awe coloring his smile. Riko’s consuming gravity as a man was butchered in front of them. Why, Neil wanted to ask. Why do you get to have everything, and I get nothing?
This must have been how Odysseys felt when he heard the sirens’ song. Absolute assured destruction, and the reckless need to throw himself straight into it.
Fuck. He really, really wanted it.
He wanted to play exy. It was the only time he felt like a real person; the court was the only place he mattered. He wanted a team. He wanted Riko to teach him. He wanted to be more than a walking corpse, biding his time until his father found him and finished the job. He wanted to not be alone.
“Do you really see potential?” Neil asked. His voice sounded strange and alien to himself.
“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t,” Riko said.
It was, without a doubt, a mistake. But his mother was gone, bludgeoned to death then burned then buried. She had done everything right, and his father had still killed her in the end. If Neil ran now, nothing would truly change. He’d be found again eventually. Or he could sign a contract and play in the stadium he had always dreamed of, at least for a little while. Death now, or death later. But only one answer allowed him to have even the barest delusion of happiness.
Neil craned his neck to look at Jean Moreau. Jean, with his number three on his cheek, looked back with cool gray eyes, a winter coastline. “And you,” Neil said, “you think this is a good idea?”
“It does not matter what I think,” Jean said. “The King wants you.”
It was a heady statement. It was everything he wanted, and it was everything he couldn’t have.
“Say yes,” said Riko.
And Neil said, “Yes.”
-
Jean followed Neil into the bathroom while Riko went to retrieve the contract. He had half a mind to shove Jean out and demand privacy, but the clench of his stomach was too insistent. He barely made it to the bowl of the toilet before he was heaving. The acid of his own stomach burned his throat.
I’m sorry, Neil thought. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
He was signing his own death warrant. If his mother could see him now, she would have beat him senseless. She had given up so much, her entire life, to keep him safe, and now he was throwing it away. But even as the decision had him shuddering over the toilet, he couldn’t imagine it any other way.
The past eight years, he had obeyed. The few times he’d pushed back against his mother’s rules, she had been swift and stern to correct him. How many nights did she go hungry to feed him? How many days did she stay vigilant while he slept? Bridges burned, families pushed aside, all for his sake. His mother’s violence had never been without reason, never cruel for its own sake, and without it, he had no idea how to keep himself in line.
He wiped his sleeve across his mouth like he might rescind his agreement along with the vomit. “Fuck,” he said.
All through this, Jean Moreau stood still and silent. Neil wasn’t sure what the purpose of his presence was. A striker to recruit a striker, sure. Riko’s personal recruitment made even more sense based solely upon who he was: the captain of the highest ranked team in the NCAA and one of the best, if not the best, exy players in the world. But Jean was different.
Jean Moreau was a backliner. He’d emerged on the Raven’s court with the number three inked on his face, and that was when the supposed “Perfect Court” thing really took off. According to rabid exy fans and the media, Riko Moriyama was assembling a full court of exy players—the very best of the best—to take with him onto the professional stage. He’d never outright said as much, but sly remarks and knowing grins revealed the truth. First had been Riko and Kevin, and then apparently Jean Moreau. He’d been plucked from obscurity and given a family, according to the Raven press runs. But he was also notoriously shy and thus sheltered from the media scrums that Riko and Kevin had been exposed to since childhood.
This Jean did not seem shy to Neil. Quiet, yes, but there was nothing shy about the way he was staring at Neil now. From Neil’s kneeling position, Jean stood backlit by the incandescent glow of the ceiling lights, haloed like a saint in supplication, his expression vaguely distressed. His nose wrinkled.
“Why did you come here?” Neil asked. His voice was shot.
The answer might have been as simple as Riko not wanting to come alone. But Jean said, “Riko thought maybe I would persuade you, if he could not.”
Another lurch of his stomach had Neil spitting into the toilet.
“I do not understand,” Jean said softly. At Neil’s backward glance, he shook his head, lost in thought. “You do want to sign? Or you do not? If you left now, maybe Riko would not…” He sighed. “Nevermind. It is too late now anyway.”
“Too late,” Neil confirmed. He stood, still woozy, and went to wash his hands. He was acutely aware of Jean’s lingering confusion, the rhythmic clenching of his hands as if he wanted to reach out and touch Neil. There was an abortive movement to his mouth. Whatever it was Jean wanted to say died within him.
They left the bathroom, Jean an uncanny shadow that matched him step for step, and Riko victoriously waved the contract in front of him. Rossi and Hernandez were back, both grinning at each other as they made light conversation. The print of the contract blurred before Neil’s eyes. Lines of black and white, his promised future, all right there. He signed Neil Josten without reading a single word.
“Excellent,” Riko said. “You’ve made the right decision. Do you have anything to pack or is that it?”
He nodded at the duffel bag that Neil still clutched.
“What?” Neil asked.
“We’re leaving tomorrow,” said Riko. “You can stay our hotel room tonight. Jean doesn’t mind.”
“I have—” Neil floundered, looking to Hernandez, but all he received back was a shrug and a chagrined smile. “I have school. I haven’t graduated yet. There are still classes, and we’ve got a game next week.”
“You can finish your classes online, and it hardly matters what the Millport Dingos are doing. You’re a Raven now, and you need all the extra practice you can get.”
“I can’t just…”
But he could. There was nothing tying him down to Millport.
Riko laid his hand on Neil’s shoulder. The warmth of his palm sunk through Neil’s sweatshirt.
“Let’s go,” said Riko.
“Good luck, Neil,” Coach Hernandez said. “I’m proud of you, kid. To think—one of Millport’s own, a Raven. I’ll be catching your first game!”
Neil knew he should have said thank you or really anything at all as a goodbye, but everything was happening so quickly that he didn’t know what to say. Hernandez didn’t look like he held it against him though, only nodding at Coach Rossi as Riko led them all out of the building. Riko’s hand never wavered from where it came to rest in the middle of Neil’s back, pushing him forward.
Rossi asked no questions regarding Neil accompanying them to the hotel. He had been expecting the assistant coach to offer to speak to Neil’s parents or dive by his house, and he wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed or grateful that the glaring absence of Neil’s parents went unremarked upon. Instead, Rossi spoke blithely about what Neil could expect at the Nest.
“Edgar Allen takes a lot of pride in our Ravens,” he said. “We were the first university to start an exy program, and we continue to be the best. We spare no expenses when it comes to our athletes. Your tuition, boarding, and books will be paid for. You’ll have a full meal plan, approved by a registered dietician, full access to our medical and gym facilities. All of the Ravens live together as part of our program. Teamwork is very important to us. All Ravens have partner for the duration of their career—”
“Enough,” Riko said. “Leave some mystery, won’t you?”
Rossi laughed. “Fair enough. You’ll see when you get there.”
“As long as I can play,” Neil said. “I don’t care about the rest.”
“Then you’ll fit right in,” said Rossi.
The hotel they were staying at was an hour drive from Millport, on the outskirts of Tucson. Riko and Jean had a suite on the upper floor, with Rossi in the room next to them. It was a far cry from the roach motels he’d stayed in before. The room was nearly a small apartment. They’d walked into the main room, which had a couch and television set, along with a bed pressed up against the small wall and a small dining table. A large bathroom branched off to the left, and to the right was another room with a second bed.
“You’ll share with Jean out here,” Riko said. “I have the private room.”
Neil shook his head. “I’ll take the couch.”
He hadn’t shared a bed with anyone since his mother. They used to sleep back to back, with her between him and the door. Sometimes he still woke up reaching for a gun under his pillow, but they’d had to ditch their handguns after a shootout with some of his father’s people. He missed the security of it, the safety he felt when his mom was in arm’s reach. He couldn’t imagine feeling safe now, sleeping next to a stranger. Even being in the same room as Riko and Jean would be difficult.
“Suit yourself,” said Riko. “Have you eaten?”
“No,” said Neil.
Riko pulled a menu from the coffee table and handed it to Neil. “We’ll order room service then. Order anything you want. We’ll put it on our P-Card.”
The menu was exuberant. High dollar steak dinners, chicken parmesan, hamburgers and milkshakes. The only time Neil reliably ate a semi-balanced meal was at school lunch. Squatting meant he didn’t have access to electricity or gas, so he didn’t have a way to cook for himself. Most of the time, he survived off dry ramen packets and vending machine bags of chips.
“None of this is on our meal plan,” Jean hissed, reading over Neil’s shoulder. Neil glanced at him, surprised by the legitimate distress he heard.
Riko gave him a flat stare. “I said it was okay, didn’t I?”
Jean’s jaw clenched. He said, “Yes, King.”
“You’re so picky sometimes,” Riko said. “Big baby. Kevin spoiled you too much. Do I need to pick out your dinner for you?”
If he hadn’t been watching as closely as he was, Neil never would have noticed the way the question landed. Jean’s flinch was so miniscule that it would have been easy to dismiss, but every inch of him went tense. There was an odd quality to Jean’s voice when he said, “Yes, please.”
“Fine,” Riko said. “You’ll have the chicken alfredo, then. Neil?”
“I’m fine with a burger,” said Neil.
Riko’s brows furrowed. “I’ve literally just said you can have anything, and you want diner food? No. You’ll have the steak.”
With their meals unilaterally decided, Riko went to make the call from the inn table phone next to Jean’s bed. Neil sat on the couch, feeling out of place and disorientated. He hadn’t been able to calm his nervous system yet, and it kept his heart beating at a rabbit’s pace. Every time Riko looked at him, he expected to hear his real name fall out of Riko’s mouth. Years of being on the run had trained him to expect the worst from everyone. It was an assumption that had kept him alive more times than he could count, and now he didn’t know what to do with it. Every instinct in him was telling him to run.
Instead, he counted to ten in his mind. First in French, then German, then French again. But all the while, his mind kept wandering. It wasn’t just Riko that unnerved him. It was the way in which Neil obviously didn’t fit. He had money—stolen money, stashed in the binder at the bottom of his duffel—but he dressed inconspicuously on purpose. Standing next to Riko and Jean, who wore outfits which were obviously tailored and expensive in quality, he was glaringly exposed by the same tricks which had once made him invisible.
Jean shifted his weight from foot to foot. His eyes tracked Riko’s movements across the room, but he made no move to sit down or otherwise make himself comfortable. When he moved to scratch awkwardly at his arm, the sleeve of his shirt rose just enough for Neil to catch a glimpse of his wrist, and the thin circle of red, angry skin that cinched around it.
Then Riko was back, throwing himself onto the couch next to Neil with an aggravated sigh. “I’ll be glad when we’re back in the Nest,” he muttered. “What a dump. Sit down, Jean.”
Jean folded his knees under him, sitting on the floor in front of them both. He clasped his hands together in his lap, gaze lowered, as if he were a child being reprimanded. It was a disquieting image. The tall and broad man who had easily caught Neil was somehow so small like this. Riko didn’t even blink at the display.
Riko crossed one leg over the other and turned to face Neil. “You’ll see when you get there. I’m sure it’ll be leagues better than what you’re used to.”
Probably, but that didn’t mean Neil appreciated the reminder.
“I’m curious, though,” Riko said, “over exactly what you’re running from. Was I right? Your parents? Oh, you’re so quiet, Neil. You can tell Jean and I, we won’t share. Besides, once you’re a Raven, you’re basically our family.”
“I don’t believe in family,” Neil said.
The couch cushions shifted as Riko leaned in to him. Neil knew that he and Kevin were both teenage heartthrobs, and as burgeoning adults, a non-insignificant amount of their fans liked them for more than their exy skills. While Neil had never understood attraction that way, he knew factually that Riko was handsome. But it wasn’t his fey beauty that caught Neil’s breath then. It was his unfettered attention. All of his mind turned toward Neil in that moment, instead of being half-bound in his own machinations or divided between everyone in the room.
Something dark and dangerous lived in Riko Moriyama. His lips curled into a humorless smile. “You wouldn’t be the only one,” he said.
Neil recalled that Riko had been raised by his uncle, Coach Tetsuji Moriyama. He had a father and older brother, but for some reason left undisclosed, Riko had grown up at Castle Evermore, surrounded by collegiate athletes his entire life.
“Ravens do not have family,” Jean said. “We have each other. We need nothing else.”
Neil could have counted each of Riko’s dark eyelashes from the small distance between them. “That sounds…”
“Exciting?” Riko asked.
“Codependent,” said Neil.
Riko huffed a laugh. “Oh, ye of little faith. Jean’s telling the truth. Being a Raven is better than family. You don’t have to believe me yet, but you’ll see. When you get your partner, you’ll understand.”
“My partner?”
“Ravens operate on a pair-based system,” said Jean. “You will be assigned another Raven to be your partner, your companion, during your time at Edgar Allen. You will do everything together. You will share a room, meals, schedules. Your success will be their success. Your failure is their failure.”
“It’s a way we ensure teamwork and cooperation,” said Riko. “It also makes the transition easier, to have someone you can depend upon entirely. My uncle put it together years ago with some psychologists he knew. It’s the basis of how we form group cohesion. You’ve seen us play, right?”
“Of course.” Neil obsessively watched the Ravens—he had ever since Riko and Kevin officially joined their lineup. Their team was ranked first for a reason. Each Raven seemed to have a preternatural understanding of their teammates on the court, passing balls off odd angles with nothing but blind trust that their intended recipient would be there to catch it. It made them a deadly hive mind on the Court. In stark comparison were the Foxes. Neil had started trying to watch their games too, once Kevin started doing his assistant coaching there, but their performance was the complete opposite. It was embarrassing in comparison.
Riko said, “Everything we do at the Nest is for a reason. All of it makes us better athletes, champions on and off court. And it shows.”
“Who will be my partner?” Neil asked.
“You’ll be assigned one later,” said Riko. “Likely another freshman, so you can start the same classes together. The M—my uncle will decide.”
Neil hummed. “So was Kevin your partner then?”
Riko froze, his face wiped blank. He heard Jean’s sharp inhale next to him.
He was reminded, bizarrely, of the Californian beach where he had last seen his mother. A stretch of coastline deserted, the acrid smell of burning plastic and rubber and flesh, and the cool salt breeze. He’d spent so long waiting for the fire to do its job, staring out into the dark expanse of the ocean, and had noticed a stretch of water which was unusually still. A rip tide. It was deceptively tranquil, but beneath the calm façade was the strong grip of a riptide. If he had waded out far enough, it would have caught and drowned him in an instant.
“He is,” Riko said, carefully articulating each word as though they hurt to say. He stood, limbs stiff. “I’m going to take a shower. The stench of your high-school is clinging to me.”
The tension didn’t leave, even as the bathroom door clicked shut. Neil turned to Jean. “Was it something I said?”
That remark broke Jean’s dead-eyed stare. “You stupid, ignorant child,” he scathed. He didn’t move from his knelt position, but his hands twitched as if forcibly repressing the desire to throttle Neil. “Do not ever say his name—not to Riko, not to me. Not ever.”
“So Riko’s the only one allowed to bring him up? I’m just supposed to, what, pretend he doesn’t exist?” Neil asked.
“Kevin left,” Jean spat. “If you have any hope of surviving, you will learn quickly when to shut up.”
Neil’s eyes narrowed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Jean blanched, his chest rising and falling in short, rapid bursts. He looked briefly to the closed door of the bathroom and held up one finger. The distant noise of the shower being turned on reached them, and only then did Jean turn his attention back to Neil. There was none of the detached, unreachable Perfect Court Number Three then. This, Neil realized with a spark of interest, was the real Jean Moreau. On the ground, trembling with suppressed violence, becoming real only when he wasn’t looked at.
“You will listen,” Jean said quietly, “and you will listen well. Riko only wants you because Kevin did. Whatever he says about your so-called potential is a lie. You are nothing compared to us. The sooner you learn your place, the better off you will be.”
“My place?” Neil asked. “And what exactly is my place?”
“Beneath him,” said Jean.
Neil said, “And what’s your place then?”
“Beneath him,” answered Jean, but this time with a mocking edge. “You will learn, or you will be taught.”
“You sure know how to sell it,” Neil said. “I don’t know why Riko would have brought you along to convince me. You’re doing a fine job of talking me into making a break for it.”
Jean just looked at him, the blazing inferno inside of him repressed into a subtle gleam in his eyes.
Neil said, “You want me to run.”
“You are a fool,” Jean murmured. “They all are.”
The light in Jean winked out. The impenetrable, beaten mask slipped back on.
The knock at the door came shortly after Riko had rejoined them. They ate at the table. Neil’s appetite had fled after the terse exchange with Jean, but he picked at his steak dinner methodically. Jean stared at his noodles until Riko snapped at him to stop being ungrateful. Riko had somehow managed to talk the hotel into providing them a bottle of wine, despite being underaged—he supposed fame had it perks—and poured all three of them a tall glass.
“I don’t drink,” Neil said.
“You do tonight,” said Riko.
There was a picture being painted over the course of the evening which set Neil on edge. Kevin’s absence lingered between Riko and Jean like a haunting. It was obvious that Riko was hurt by Kevin’s decision to leave the Ravens, which wasn’t surprising. Raven fans across the nation had hurled accusations of betrayal at Kevin when news broke that he would be joining the Foxes in the next season as a striker, not an assistant coach. Riko and Jean, the other members of the Perfect Court, must have been doubly betrayed.
But there was a razor’s edge to their pain. A vindictiveness on Riko’s part and a simmering injury within Jean that only occasionally reached the surface. Whatever the nature of their relationship with Kevin—whatever reason Kevin had not to return to the Ravens—was complicated and obscured.
More alarming was the way Jean acted. Riko’s arrogance wasn’t surprising, and Neil could handle the fragile ego of men with power. Physically, Riko was slight and young—nothing like Neil’s father. He knew how to side-step, and he wasn’t overly concerned with hurting Riko’s feelings. Jean, on the other hand, was terrified of exactly that. He was the single most subservient person Neil had ever seen, hardly moving without Riko snidely prompting him to. The question was whether that was an intrinsic characteristic of Jean, or whether it was learned behavior. You will learn, or you will be taught.
Jean had almost chugged the first glass of wine, and Riko dutifully poured him a second. Neil took measured sips of his own, enough that his distaste wouldn’t be obvious while still maintaining sobriety. It was vintage, apparently, and it left a dry filmy feeling on his tongue. But it must have been to Riko’s taste, as he was drinking almost as quickly as Jean was.
Not for the first time, Neil had the uneasy sense that he had miscalculated something.
“You never answered my question,” Riko said, apropos nothing. He rubbed his thumb against his steak knife. “What are you running from?”
“Nothing,” said Neil.
Riko cut a piece of his steak and dropped it onto Jean’s plate. “I don’t like liars, Josten. Wouldn’t you rather start our relationship with honesty?”
“What relationship?”
“Captain and teammate? King and subject? Maybe we can even be friends.”
“You don’t have friends,” Neil said. It felt true as he said it, although he’d meant it as a testing dig at Riko’s patience. The sooner he understood the limits of Riko’s ego, the sooner he could adjust.
Riko’s answering smile confirmed his suspicion. “You’re good at that. Avoiding the question.”
“I just don’t see why it matters,” Neil said.
“That’s for me to decide.” Riko sighed, settling into his chair. He took a sip of his wine. “I’m going to find out one way or another. I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what you need.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Again with the avoiding,” said Riko. “I get it. You don’t trust me, because you’ve just met me. But you can absolutely trust me when I say that you are a Raven, which makes you my responsibility. If there’s some nasty little something in your past that will negatively affect the team, I need to get on the front end.”
“It won’t affect anything,” Neil lied.
He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it. In refuting Riko’s statement, he’d admitted that there was something in his past that he was trying to get away from. Riko knew it too, pushing his plate away to prop his elbow on the table, resting his chin in his hand.
Jean sent him a steady look. Give in, he seemed to be saying.
Neil licked his lips. He took a long drag from his wine, half-draining it, just to give himself time to think. He looked for what bone he might offer to keep Riko’s attention diverted from the truth. Anything Neil said could put him in further danger. Surely it wouldn’t take much for Riko to recall a man viciously murdered in front of him and the boy who had been his fellow witness. He was already playing with fire by agreeing to join the Ravens, but if his real name got out, he might not even have the chance to touch the court in a real game before he was dead.
“My mom,” Neil said, hating himself.
“Your mom?” Riko purred.
“I ditched her last year.” Don’t think about it, don’t think about the Velcro noise of her congealed blood detaching from pleather seats, her bones, the ashes, the charred black skin. “It doesn’t affect anybody other than me. Nothing’s going to come down on the team for it.”
“She beat you?”
Neil nodded.
“I don’t get it,” Riko said. “So what?”
Neil looked at Jean, who was studying his own glass of wine with undue scrutiny, but he had no reaction to Riko’s obvious disregard for parental abuse.
“I’m sorry?” Neil asked. “Is that not a good enough reason to not want to be around her?”
Riko shrugged. “How badly did she beat you that you couldn’t just tough it out one more year?”
“You’re insane,” said Neil.
“I’m pragmatic. Lots of people have heavy-handed parents. Not so many then fake a transcript and ID to run away.”
“You don’t know my mom,” Neil said. He was floundering, twisting up the story in himself. An abusive mother—don’t think about her, don’t think about Dad and the cleaver and the axe, keep it simple, keep it false. “You don’t know what she’s capable of. She’d hunt me down if she knew where I was. She’d kill me. I couldn’t just let her find me.”
“Are you expecting her to?”
His teeth hurt from grinding. A headache was slowly starting to pound behind his eyes. “Yes.”
Riko was quiet for a minute, contemplating Neil’s half-lie. His head tilted, bird-like, as he ran some hidden calculus. Finally he said, “Are you in a missing persons database?”
“Why?” Neil asked. He absolutely was. He’d been homeschooled before they went on the run, but eventually their disappearance had been noticed by the authorities. They’d never been able to prove anything—like they’d never been able to prove his father was connected to a number of disappearances and organized crime—but it was an open secret that Nathan Wesninski was a person of interest when it came to his absent family. But it wasn’t like Neil could go running to the police for protection. Half of the cops in his father’s territory were bought and paid for, and the Feds had only managed to make the money laundering charges stick. They would shit themselves to get their hands on Neil as a possible witness, but if that happened, Neil would be a completely different world of trouble.
Riko’s answer was bone-chilling. “Your physical will include a DNA panel. Is that going to be a problem for you?”
There wasn’t a way he could answer that without giving something away. I can still leave, Neil thought. When they fell asleep, he could sneak out and abandon Neil Josten’s identity. A contract couldn’t hold him here, if the person who signed didn’t exist.
So he said nothing, woozy.
Riko swayed slightly, his cheeks flushed with excitement. “Neil…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Neil said.
“So defensive,” said Riko said. He yawned. “I was only trying to help.”
Jean said, “Riko, what is…?”
Neil’s eyes slid to him. Jean was holding his glass, his eyes a liquid storm, his posture askew. Leaning slightly to the left, away from Riko. When he looked up to Neil, his head bobbed. His lips parted, a soft little oh escaping him. Jean’s first glass of wine must have hit him hard, and the second was half-gone. But when Jean looked to Riko, his expression was inexplicably sad.
“But I’ve been good,” Jean slurred.
Riko looked at him as if he were speaking another language. “What are you on about, Moreau?”
Jean made a noise which Neil could only describe as a whine. He sat his glass down and stood up abruptly. Or tried to, rather, stumbling and leaning on the table for support. “Please,” he said. “Please?”
“Jean,” Riko said. “Are you seriously drunk right now?”
“Sorry,” Jean said, “’m not fighting, Riko, please, please…”
Neil had seen drunk men before. He’d seen tipsy teenagers and beer guzzlers and had felt the hot, sour breath of his whiskey-drunk father on his face. This was not that. Neil looked at Jean’s dark glass of wine, and Riko’s own empty one, and came to a quick conclusion. “Bathroom,” he said. “Both of you. Now.”
“What?” Riko said. Jean took a half step toward the bathroom and fell. The confusion on Riko’s face blossomed into alarm. “Oh, dear.”
Neil jumped from his chair, his headache sharper than it had been only a minute ago. Jean was moaning softly, his eyes dilated, as Neil fumbled to feel his pulse. He pushed Jean’s sleeve back, curled his fingers over the chaffed skin, and counted. It was sluggish but steady, and Jean stared at Neil’s hand in drugged epiphany. His voice was watery when he said, “Aide-moi.”
“Oh dear,” Riko said. Neil looked up sharply at the tone. He sounded vaguely amused, still seated at the table. He picked up his wine glass and held it up to the light, squinting. Then he took another careful sip.
“Are you out of your mind?” Neil asked. “It’s drugged!”
“Yes,” said Riko, smacking his lips. “Stupid…”
“Help me get Jean to the bathroom,” Neil said. “He needs to throw it up.”
“No.” Riko made no move to get up at all, but he lilted to one side, and then the other as he righted himself. Drugged, too—not as heavily as Jean, as he had only one glass, but still drugged.
Neil cursed. He shrugged Jean’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him up. Jean was hot and heavy against him, and they made slow progress. One step after another. Jean was muttering in French, slips of words and phrases that washed together and didn’t make much sense. What Neil could catch made him sick to his stomach. Not again, Jean said. Please not again. Help me. Kevin.
When he finally had Jean to the bathroom, he forced him over the toilet and said, “Throw up.”
Jean blinked at him, doe-like, and then he obediently shoved his fingers down his throat.
He left Jean gagging and stormed back into the main room. Riko was slumped over the table.
“I’ll go get Rossi,” Neil said. “Just hold—”
“No,” Riko gasped. He jerked up. “No, he could be in on it, he could be the one who did it. You—you stay. Stay here.”
“You’ve been fucking poisoned,” Neil said. What the actual hell was going on here? “I have to go get help!”
“Not poison.” Riko’s head lolled as he gave Neil a speculative smile, like there was an amusing joke that only they shared. He was lagging, his speech slowed as the drug took hold. He shook with visible effort to keep himself upright. “GHB. Poison’s too… too obvious. Too hard to hide. But you’d know. Yes—you’d know.”
“What?”
“You… You and Rossi,” Riko said. He laughed humorlessly. “You’re in on it together, huh? You’re a plant. You… He drugs us. You kill us, make it look like a suicide. Is that it? First it was my fucking car. That didn’t—didn’t work, fucking totaled it, thought. And then it was that moron with the, mm, coke, but that didn’t work. I just don’t… don’t know why.” His eyes were fever-bright. “Who sent you?”
Somebody was trying to kill Riko Moriyama. Someone who wanted it to look like an unfortunate accident or a tragic fall from grace, and despite Riko’s assumption, it wasn’t Neil Josten. His mind leapt to the Butcher, but this wasn’t his style. If the Butcher was out to quiet a witness, Riko would be in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the Patapsco.
Neil ran to the door of the suite, locking it in a hurry. Then he dragged the coffee table to barricade it. Riko was wrong to assume that Neil had sent to finish the job. But he wasn’t wrong to think that someone would come. And whoever did manage to get into their suite to slit Riko’s wrists, they wouldn’t be happy to see that Neil wasn’t similarly incapacitated.
“I’m hardly running,” Riko said, watching as Neil pulled his and Jean’s chair to the barricade. He was completely lax in his chair. If Neil didn’t know better, he would have assumed Riko was unconcerned, lazily watching his own death being manufactured.
Neil didn’t bother responding. Riko was needling because he was a caged animal, and he wasn’t likely to believe Neil if he tried to tell him that he wasn’t involved. It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you, Mary had said.
But who was trying to kill him? And why?
Barricade in place, Neil went back to the bathroom to check on Jean. He was on his back, unconscious. At least he’d managed to throw up some of it. He checked Jean’s pulse again, and deciding he was fine for the moment, left him there.
Part of him still wanted to get Rossi involved, but just because Riko was wrong about Neil, that didn’t mean he was wrong about Rossi. He even entertained the thought of getting the police involved, but if that happened, he was only inviting scrutiny. All it would take was a fingerprint.
“Fuck,” Neil whispered. He flushed the toilet, turned Jean onto his side so he wouldn’t asphyxiate on his own vomit, and went back to Riko.
Riko watched him with half-lidded eyes as Neil picked up the steak knife.
His hand was clammy around the hilt. He had never understood why his father preferred a blade to a gun. He closed his eyes, pushing down thoughts of his father’s basement and training sessions with Lola, and opened them to see his knuckles had gone white. The blade was dull, the knife too unwieldly to be a good weapon, but there wasn’t anything better in the room. There wasn’t any time to throw a fit about holding a knife.
“Do you want me to put you in your bed?” Neil asked.
Riko said, “Does it matter?”
Whatever. They could all be sore and miserable together. No one would have a good night’s sleep.
Neil turned his back on Riko and pushed the couch to face the door. Then he sat down and waited. If someone came to kill them, he would at least face death the way his mother had: on his feet, fighting for somebody else.