Nora writes messy books about fictional sports and, occasionally, even messier fantasies. Halfway through her goal of living in 50 cities and 10 countries, she currently calls Minnesota home. She spends her free time watching hockey and being terrible at video games.

Chapter 1

Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn't want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother. If he inhaled slowly enough, he could almost taste the ghost of gasoline and fire. It was at once revolting and comforting, and it sent a sick shudder down his spine. The jolt went all the way to his fingertips, dislodging a clump of ash. It fell to the bleachers between his shoes and was whisked away by the wind.

He glanced up at the sky, but the stars were washed out behind the glare of stadium lights. He wondered-not for the first time—if his mother was looking down at him. He hoped not. She'd beat him to hell and back if she saw him sitting around moping like this.

A door squealed open behind him, startling him from his thoughts. Neil pulled his duffel closer to his side and looked back. Coach Hernandez propped the locker room door open and sat beside Neil.

"I didn't see your parents at the game," Hernandez said.

"They're out of town," Neil said.

"Still or again?"

Neither, but Neil wouldn't say that. He knew his teachers and coach were tired of hearing the same excuse any time they asked after his parents, but it was as easy a lie as it was overused. It explained why no one would ever see the Jostens around town and why Neil had a predilection for sleeping on school grounds.

It wasn't that he didn't have a place to live. It was more that his living situation wasn't legal. Millport was a dying town, which meant there were dozens of houses on the market that would never sell. He'd appropriated one last summer in a quiet neighborhood populated mostly by senior citizens. His neighbors rarely left the comfort of their couches and daily soaps, but every time he came and went he risked getting spotted. If people realized he was squatting they'd start asking difficult questions. It was usually easier to break into the locker room and sleep there. Why Hernandez let him get away with it and didn't notify the authorities, Neil didn't know. He thought it best not to ask.

Hernandez held out his hand. Neil passed him the cigarette and watched as Hernandez ground it out on the concrete steps. The coach flicked the crumpled butt aside and turned to face Neil.

"I thought they'd make an exception tonight," he said.

"No one knew it'd be the last game," Neil said, looking back at the court.

Millport's loss tonight booted them from state championships two games from finals. So close, too far. The season was over just like that. A crew was already dismantling the court, unhinging the plexiglass walls and rolling Astroturf over the hard floor. When they were done it'd be a soccer field again; there'd be nothing left of Exy until fall. Neil felt sick watching it happen, but he couldn't look away. Exy was a bastard sport, an evolved sort of lacrosse on a soccer-sized court with the violence of ice hockey, and Neil loved every part

of it from its speed to its aggression. It was the one piece of his childhood he'd never been able to give up.

"I'll call them later with the score," he said, because Hernandez was still watching him. "They didn't miss much."

"Not yet, maybe," Hernandez said. "There's someone here to see you."

To someone who'd spent half his life outrunning his past they were words from a nightmare. Neil leaped to his feet and slung his bag over his shoulder, but the scuff of a shoe behind him warned him he was too late to escape. Neil twisted to see a large stranger standing in the locker room doorway. The wife beater the man wore showed off sleeves of tribal flame tattoos. One hand was stuffed into his jeans pocket. The other held a thick file. His stance was casual, but the look in his brown eyes was intent.

Neil didn't recognize him, which meant he wasn't local. Millport boasted fewer than nine hundred residents. This was a place where everyone knew everyone's business. That ingrained nosiness made things uncomfortable for Neil and all his secrets, but he'd hoped to use that small-town mentality as a shield. Gossip about an outsider should have reached him before this stranger did. Millport had failed him.

"I don't know you," Neil said.

"He's from a university," Hernandez said. "He came to see you play tonight." "Bullshit," Neil said. "No one recruits from Millport. No one knows where it is."

"There's this thing called a map," the stranger said. "You might have heard of it."

Hernandez sent Neil a warning look and got to his feet. "He's here because I sent him your file. He put a note out saying he was short on his striker line, and I figured it was worth a shot. I didn't tell you because I didn't know if anything would come of it and I didn't want to get your hopes up."

Neil stared. "You did what?"

"I tried contacting your parents when he asked for a face-to-face tonight, but they haven't returned my messages. You said they'd try to make it."

"They did," Neil said. "They couldn't."

"I can't wait for them," the stranger said, coming down to stand beside Hernandez. "It's stupid late in the season for me to be here, I know, but I had some technical difficulties with my last recruit. Coach Hernandez said you still haven't chosen a school for fall. Works out perfectly, doesn't it? I need a striker sub, and you need a team. All you have to do is sign the dotted line and you're mine for five years."

It took Neil two tries to find his voice. "You can't be serious."

"Very serious, and very out of time," the man said.

He tossed his file onto the bleacher where Neil had been sitting. Neil's name was scrawled across the front in black marker. Neil thought about flipping the folder open, but what was the point? The man this coach had researched so carefully wasn't real and wouldn't exist much longer. In five weeks Neil would graduate and in six he'd be someone else somewhere very far away from here. It didn't matter how much he liked being Neil Josten. He'd stayed here too long as it was.

Neil should be used to this by now. He'd spent the last eight years on the run, spinning lie after lie to leave a twisted trail behind him. Twenty-two names stood between him and the truth, and he knew what would happen if anyone finally connected the dots. Signing with a college team meant more than standing still. It meant he'd be stepping into a spotlight. Prison couldn't stop his father for long, and Neil wouldn't survive a rematch with him.

The math was simple, but that didn't make this any easier. That contract was a one-way ticket to a future, something Neil could never have, and he wanted it so badly he ached. For a blinding moment he hated himself for ever trying out for Millport's team. He'd known better than to step on a court. His mother told him he'd never play again. She'd warned him to obsess from a distance, and he'd disobeyed her. But what else was he supposed to do? He'd run aground in Millport after her death because he didn't know how to go on without her. This was the only thing he had left that was real. Now that he'd had a taste of it again, he didn't know how to walk away from it.

"Please go away," he said.

"It's a bit sudden, but I really do need an answer tonight. The Committee's been hounding me since Janie got locked up."

Neil's stomach hit his shoes at that name. He snapped his gaze from the folder to the coach's face. "Foxes," he said. "Palmetto State University."

The man who Neil now knew had to be Coach David Wymack-looked surprised at how quickly he put it together. "I guess you saw the news."

Technical difficulties, he'd said. It was a nice way of saying his last recruit Janie Smalls tried to kill herself. Her best friend found her bleeding out in a bathtub and got her to a hospital just in time. Last Neil heard, the girl was on suicide watch in a psychiatric ward. Typical of a Fox, the anchorman had said in crass aside, and he wasn't exaggerating.

The Palmetto State University Foxes were a team of talented rejects and junkies because Wymack only recruited athletes from broken homes. His decision to turn the Foxhole Court into a halfway house of sorts was nice in theory, but it meant his players were fractured isolationists who couldn't get along long enough to get through a game. They were notorious in the NCAA both for their tiny size and for getting ranked dead-last three years running. They'd done significantly better this past year thanks to the perseverance of their captain and the strength of their new defense line, but they were still considered a joke by critics. Even the ERC, the Exy Rules and Regulations Committee, was losing patience with their poor results.

Then former national champion Kevin Day joined the line. It was the greatest thing that could happen to the Foxes and it meant Neil could never accept Wymack's offer. Neil hadn't seen Kevin in almost eight years, and he'd never be ready to see him again. Some doors had to stay closed; Neil's life depended on it.

"You can't be here," Neil said.

"Yet here I stand," Wymack said. "Need a pen?"

"No," Neil said. "No. I'm not playing for you."

"I misheard you."

"You signed Kevin."

"And Kevin's signing you, so-

Neil didn't stick around for the rest.

He bolted up the bleachers for the locker room. Metal clanged beneath his shoes, not quite loud enough to drown out Hernandez's startled query. Neil didn't look back to see if they were following. All he knew, all that mattered, was getting as far away from here as possible. Forget graduation. Forget "Neil Josten". He'd leave tonight and run until he forgot Wymack ever said those words to him.

Neil wasn't fast enough.

He was halfway through the locker room when he realized he wasn't alone. There was someone waiting for him in the lounge between him and the front door. Light glinted off a bright yellow racquet as the stranger took a swing, and Neil was going too fast to stop. Wood slammed into his gut hard enough to crush his lungs into his spine. He didn't remember falling, but suddenly he was on his hands and knees, scrabbling ineffectually at the floor as he tried to breathe. He'd puke if he could only manage that first gasp, but his body refused to cooperate.

The buzzing in his ears was Wymack's furious voice, but he sounded a thousand miles away. "God damn it, Minyard. This is why we can't have nice things."

"Oh, Coach," someone said over Neil's head. "If he was nice, he wouldn't be any use to us, would he?"

"He's no use to us if you break him."

"You'd rather I let him go? Put a band-aid on him and he'll be good as new."

The world crackled black, then came into too-sharp focus as air finally hit Neil's tortured lungs. Neil inhaled so sharply he choked, and every wracking cough threatened to shake him apart. He wrapped an arm around his middle to hold himself together and slanted a fierce look up at his assailant.

Wymack already said the man's name, but Neil didn't need it. He'd seen this face in too many newspaper clippings to not know him on sight. Andrew Minyard didn't look like much in person, blonde and five feet even, but Neil knew better. Andrew was the Foxes' freshman goalkeeper and their deadliest investment. Most of the Foxes were self-destructive, whereas Andrew seemed keen on collateral damage. He'd spent three years at a juvie facility and barely avoided a second term.

Andrew was also the only person to ever turn down the first-ranked Edgar Allen University. Kevin and Riko themselves set up a meet-and-greet to welcome him to the line, but Andrew refused and joined the dead-last Foxes instead. He never explained that choice, but everyone assumed it was because Wymack was willing to sign his family as well-Andrew's twin Aaron and their cousin Nicholas Hemmick joined the line the same year. Whatever the reason, Andrew was blamed for Kevin's recent transfer.

Kevin played for Edgar Allen's Ravens until he broke his dominant hand in a skiing accident this past December. An injury like that cost him his college contract, but he should have recuperated where he'd have his former team's support. Instead he moved to Palmetto to be Wymack's informal assistant coach. Three weeks ago he was officially signed to next year's starting line-up.

The only thing a dismal team like the Foxes could offer Kevin was the goalkeeper who'd once spurned him. Neil spent this spring digging up everything he could find on Andrew, wanting to understand the man who'd caught Kevin's eye. Meeting Andrew face to face was as disorienting as it was painful.

Andrew smiled down at Neil and tapped two fingers to his temple in salute. "Better luck next time."

"Fuck you," Neil said. "Whose racquet did you steal?"

"Borrow." Andrew tossed it at Neil. "Here you go."

"Neil," Hernandez said, catching Neil by his arm to help him up. "Jesus, are you all right?"

"Andrew's a bit raw on manners," Wymack said, coming around to stand between Neil and Andrew. Andrew had no problems reading that silent warning. He threw his hands up in an exaggerated shrug and retreated to give Neil more room. Wymack watched him go before looking Neil over. "He break anything?"

Neil pressed careful hands to his ribs and breathed, feeling the way his muscles screamed in protest. He'd fractured bones enough in the past to know he'd gotten lucky this time. "I'm fine. Coach, I'm leaving. Let me go."

"We're not done," Wymack said.

"Coach Wymack," Hernandez started.

Wymack didn't let him finish. "Give us a second?"

Hernandez looked from Wymack to Neil, then let go. "I'll be right out back."

Neil listened to his footsteps as he left. There was a rattle as he kicked the door prop out of its spot and the back door swung closed with an agonizing creak. Neil waited for it to click before speaking again.

"I already gave you my answer. I won't sign with you."

"You didn't listen to my whole offer," Wymack said. "If I paid to fly three people out here to see you the least you could do is give me five minutes, don't you think?"

The blood left Neil's face so fast the world tilted. He took a stumbling step back from Wymack, a desperate search for both balance and room to breathe. His duffel banged into his hip and he knotted a hand around its strap, needing something to hold onto. "You didn't bring him here."

Wymack stared hard at him. "Is that a problem?"

Neil couldn't tell him the truth, so he said, "I'm not good enough to play on the same court as a champion."

"True, but irrelevant," a new voice said, and Neil stopped breathing.

He knew better than to turn around, but he was already moving.

He should have guessed when he saw Andrew here, but he hadn't wanted to think it. There was no reason for a goalkeeper to meet a potential striker. Andrew was only here because Kevin Day never went anywhere alone.

Kevin was sitting on top of the entertainment center along the back wall. He'd pushed the TV off to one side to give himself more room and covered the space around him with papers. He'd watched this entire spectacle and, judging by the cool look on his face, was unimpressed by Neil's reaction.

It'd been years since Neil stood in the same room as Kevin, years since they'd watched Neil's father cut a screaming man into a hundred bloody pieces. Neil knew Kevin's face as well as he knew his own, the consequence of watching Kevin grow up in the public eye from a thousand or more miles away. Everything about him was different. Everything was the same, from his dark hair and green eyes to the black number two tattooed onto his left cheekbone. Neil saw that number and wanted to retch.

Kevin had that number back then, too, but he'd been too young to have it done permanently. Instead he and his adopted brother Riko Moriyama wrote the numbers one and two on their faces with markers, tracing them over and over anytime they started to fade. Neil didn't understand it then, but Kevin and Riko were aiming for the stars. They were going to be famous, they promised him.

They were right. They had professional teams and played for the Ravens. Last year they were inducted to the national team, the US Court. They were champions, and Neil was a jumble of lies and dead-ends.

Neil knew Kevin couldn't recognize him. It'd been too long; they'd both grown up a world apart. Neil had further disguised his looks with dark hair dye and brown contacts. But why else would Kevin Day be here looking for him? No Class I school would stoop so low, not even the Foxes. Neil's records said he'd only been playing Exy for a year. He'd been very careful this year to act like a know-nothing, even loading up on and lugging around How-To books last fall. It was easy to pretend at first, since he hadn't picked up a racquet in eight years. The fact he was playing a different position now than he'd played at little league helped, since he had to relearn the game from a new perspective. He'd had an enviable and unavoidable learning curve, but he'd still fought hard to not shine.

Had he slipped? Had it been too obvious that he had past experience he wasn't talking about? How had he caught Kevin's eye despite his best attempts to stay hidden? If it was that easy for Kevin, what sort of beacon was he sending to his father's people? "What are you doing here?" he asked through numb lips.

"Why were you leaving?" Kevin asked.

"I asked you first."

"Coach already answered that question," Kevin said, a tad impatiently. "We are waiting for you to sign the contract. Stop wasting our time."

"No," Neil said. "There are a thousand strikers who'd jump at the chance to play with you. Why don't you bother them?"

"We saw their files," Wymack said. "We chose you."

"I won't play with Kevin."

"You will," Kevin said.

Wymack shrugged at Neil. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but we're not leaving here until you say yes. Kevin says we have to have you, and he's right."

"We should have thrown away your coach's letter the second we opened it," Kevin said. "Your file is deplorable and I don't want someone with your inexperience on our court. It goes against everything we're trying to do with the Foxes this year. Fortunately for you, your coach knew better than to send us your statistics. He sent us a tape so we could see you in action instead. You play like you have everything to lose."

His inexperience.

If Kevin remembered him, he'd know that file was a lie. He'd know about Neil's little league teams. He'd remember the scrimmage interrupted by that man's murder.

"That's why," Neil said quietly.

"That's the only kind of striker worth playing with."

Relief made Neil sick to his stomach. Kevin didn't recognize him and this was just a horrible coincidence. Maybe it was the world's way of showing him what could happen if he stayed in the same place for too long. Next time it might not be Kevin. Next time it might be his father.

"It actually works in our favor that you're all the way out here," Wymack said. "No one outside of our team and school board even knows we're here. We don't want your face all over the news this summer. We've got too much to deal with right now and we don't want to drag you into the mess until you're safe and settled at campus.

Copyright: Nora Sakavic