Chapter Text
Elizabeth Parks. Ravens dealer, number five as of last Sunday. Partnered with Colleen Jenkins. Five foot seven, one hundred and sixty pounds, right-handed, stick size four, first shift, junior.
Her cheek still itched—probably due to the swelling, but it felt more like something psychological—a stinging pain that lanced through her face whenever she caught her reflection in a wayward mirror. At first, she’d processed it with a numb surprise. Some twisted form of relief, perhaps, that Riko had taken the time to have it inked properly instead of just carving directly into her skin. Not that it mattered much when it came to the wearing threads of her sanity; she’d paid continuously over the last week for her flagrant (though unconfessed—at least, she was fairly certain she hadn’t confessed anything) betrayal. Seeing as her face was the only remaining extremity that hadn’t seen the sharp edge of Riko’s knife, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he had or hadn’t sliced it open too, but seeing the ink—horrifying as it was—was some sort of assurance that she was on a right path.
Not the right path, certainly, but a right path.
So in spite of the whispers, the sneers, the dangerous looks that Grayson and Zane both shot her that sent a wave of ice down her spine—in spite of it all, she dragged her screaming body to the court and checked Grayson with all the force her shredded skin could muster, because wasn’t this exactly what she’d asked for?
****
The moment she’d hit SEND on the text, she knew she’d damned them both, and could only pray to a god she didn’t believe in that Renee Walker was accustomed enough to damnation to drag someone else out of the fire with her.
EP: I don’t know what strings the Foxes can pull, but Jean needs out. Now.
Jean had explained to her, once, different shades of fear. Most of the senior Ravens had long since been trained out of it, but what did they know about real fear (what did she know, for that matter)? He’d pointed it out on Kevin—hopelessly expressive Kevin, who always wore part of his heart on his face unless there was a camera shoved in it.
There was a pinch of his lips at one level of fear—a certain yellowish pallor at another. Jean had said, as though it were something normal to say, that he was nearly certain he knew every shade on Kevin’s face from mild anxiety to dread. She’d noticed some of the more obvious hues—like being able to tell the difference between green and violet—but had never considered herself any sort of expert on reading fear, even on the most legible of faces.
But she’d understood, in that moment when the master had gotten the call—without hearing a word of it, she’d understood what Jean had meant the last two-and-a-half years, about shades of fear. And as she’d stared at the utterly unrecognizable expression on Jean’s face something had curdled in her stomach, acidic fingers tearing at her intestinal lining.
So she’d sent the text and started counting the minutes of the drive between Palmetto State and Edgar Allen.
****
RW: We’ve gotten jean settled at abby’s. He’s still fairly out of it, but is stable. I’ll text you when he’s awake.
EP: Don’t risk it.
EP: Thank you, Renee.
****
Terror was a tricky thing. It was easy to forget, as time passed, how emotion could still your feet; stop your breaths. The Ravens were only as strong as their weakest link, and panic made any link brittle. There were two solutions, then, in the Nest—either to become incredibly adept at navigating the few pockets of air that didn’t reek of fear, or to take it all into your bones, weave it in your marrow, gulp in gallons of anxiety and dread until the pockets of relief were forgotten, until you either learned how to breathe underwater or drowned.
El clutched the showerhead with white knuckles, counting the seconds as the water seared her skin, dripped over her nose and mouth until her lungs screamed and her ears roared. She felt her legs start to shake and dug her nails into her opposite hand as she was finally forced to take in a short breath that was half liquid, and then another, imagining her lungs as vases filling slowly with water, her head a swimming, dark pool, her limbs limp attachments. She doubled over as she coughed up the water, every muscle taut, each bruise and cut and stitch in her skin protesting against the unnatural stiffness of her body, the uncontrollable shaking that gave way to a pathetic tremble. She clung to the shower head and held her face under the water. She had lost track of the seconds. It was likely too few.
In the muddled mess of her thoughts, there was a flash of gray eyes. Even by Raven standards, Jean had practically leapt out of the shower the moment the first drops of water hit his body. It had been one of the few things he could escape, she supposed, and so he’d done what he could to escape it.
Two minutes more. She could last two minutes more. She ground her teeth, willing her body to submit, even as the nails in the back of her hand drew blood, even as her legs wobbled dangerously. This, she supposed, was one of the few things she could control, and so she would do what she could to control it.
****
“You’re lucky I’m your partner,” Colleen said one night. It was odd to hear her voice in the darkness—usually both of them were sound asleep within minutes of the lights going out. But the King had come to court that day with a particularly foul attitude, and they had all been a bit on edge because of it—Colleen especially, apparently, because she’d waited up for El to get back, which she didn’t make a habit of for both of their sakes.
El sank onto her bed and it creaked as she fumbled for her night shirt. She could hear Colleen shifting on her own mattress, and didn’t have to wait long for the follow-up explanation. “Zane would have killed for that number.” Colleen’s tone was schooled in neutrality; there was no threat, no pity, no resentment.
“I know.” The fresh fabric felt stifling the moment she pulled it over her head, and she allowed herself a grimace where no one could see it.
“He’s probably keeping Grayson off your back, too. He’s the only one who could.”
El didn’t doubt it. Though the events of January hadn’t done much to curb Grayson’s arrogance and general sense of entitlement, Zane had at least dealt a thorough enough beating to make Grayson think twice before overreaching when it came to things that Zane had claim over. And since Grayson saw everything and everyone in terms of dominance and property, of course he reduced Zane’s amity towards Colleen to possessiveness.
It worked out well enough for her, since Grayson couldn’t cross Zane, Zane wouldn’t cross Colleen, and Colleen’s performance was dependent on El’s—at least for the remainder of the semester. After Zane’s graduation it was anyone’s guess what would happen, but that was something she would get to when she got to it.
Instead of working through all of those thoughts aloud, she said simply, “I know,” and eased her aching body back against her pillow. She thought—to the extent that she would allow her thoughts to wander—about the fickleness of Zane’s loyalty; about the steadiness of Colleen’s. She was lucky that Colleen was her partner, in more ways than one, and that gratitude was the only thing that forced her to ask the question that brought bile to her throat. “Is it enough for you to forgive him?”
The quiet, vengeful part of her was glad that Colleen didn’t jump to an immediate ‘yes,’ even though she’d witnessed firsthand the tightness in her partner’s frown the first, and second, and third times she’d rebuffed Zane’s tentative apologies over the last months. It hurt, to see Colleen hurting—of course it did.
But there were two parts of being a Raven: hurting and hating. And El hated Zane with a vehemence that went beyond words.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Colleen said eventually, and that was probably the best answer El could have hoped for.
****
KD: Hello, Elizabeth. I’ve been speaking with Jeremy Knox. The Trojans will sign Jean if he’s willing to sign with them.
****
Jean watched Friday’s match between the Ravens and the Trojans surrounded by scattered papers he’d scribbled over with notes and the smell of warm soup. The notes held insights from a week’s worth of Trojan recordings which had been, at least, somewhat enlightening to watch when they weren’t infuriating. The soup held vegetables and some variety of spice that Jean didn’t care for but ate anyways.
He muted the dithering commentary of the commentators as he tracked the Trojans’ warm-up routine on the court—fairly standard, but then again, there wasn’t much room for variety in an efficient warmup once a team got to a certain level of competency. The only divergence from what he expected was what looked similar to a basic dexterity drill that, in his opinion, was a waste of time on the court only minutes before a game. Further disconcerting were the wide smiles and the encouraging shouts that the Trojans seemed to be eagerly sending each other over every other minute success.
“Waste of air,” he muttered to himself, and he may well have spiraled into a dismal speculation of how the upcoming semester would look had the camera not panned to the Ravens—to two very specific Ravens—and his blood froze.
“You didn’t.” There was no one to hear his whisper, and even if one person could, Jean didn’t know who he would choose to direct it towards. But unless the world was playing a very, very cruel trick on him, it was impossible to deny the ink on El’s cheekbone through the grill of her helmet, the way that she was acknowledging Riko in a way that he had never seen her do when he’d been at Castle Evermore.
He wanted suddenly—violently—to throw the offensive laptop across the room.
Something red-hot and aching boiled under his skin, and he tore his gaze away from the screen—from the sight of Elizabeth Parks’ marred face—long enough to stare at the back wall, to chase away the feeling of panic-fevered skin under his fingers, to drown the sound of muffled screaming with white noise. When he managed to look back at the laptop, the camera had pulled back to show off the whole court again. After a moment of sickening deliberation, he turned back on the audio.
“—for the Raven King to fill out his Perfect Court as he approaches his penultimate year with Edgar Allen. One way or another, I’ve no doubt that this will shape up to be a memorable game, so hold on to your Exy rackets and buckle in!”
The game, in spite of the broadcaster’s assurances, was not particularly memorable. The Trojans, predictably, refused to escalate violence on the court, and the Ravens barreled and bullied their way through the pacifist defense. This wasn’t to say that the Trojans were bad by any standard—if anything, their skill made it all the more infuriating that they wouldn’t take the final step towards being properly competitive. In the second half, Jean was able to properly study and appreciate the talent of Laila Dermott, the USC goalkeeper, who he imagined could outplay Kenneth any day but whose lacking backline meant that the Ravens never lost sight of the lead.
In the first half, to his chagrin, his gaze kept being drawn towards mid-court.
He didn’t know what he expected to see. Logically speaking, being marked for the Perfect Court should not alter one’s performance in the slightest. The tattoo was just a reminder; those who had it had been Perfect Court before receiving the ink, and would remain Perfect Court even if it was removed—Nathaniel was proof of that. Still, some part of him was watching for… something. An increase of reckless checks, maybe, or sneers of satisfaction when the close-up camera alit upon her face. A limp, a wince, some betrayal of discomfort at the friction between gear and barely-healed stitches. Some sign of a temper worn down to the fuse, of resolve bitten to the quick.
But she played as she always had played—brutal, efficient, calculating. It was one of the earlier conversations they’d had, after Phil had snidely remarked that there was no point in scratching without digging your nails in to tear a deeper would—some jab about how she’d failed to follow up a trip with a hearty check when she’d had the time to do so. She’d regarded him with a shrewd derision that had no place on a freshman countenance—and endeared her to no one but Thea Muldani and, begrudgingly, himself. Her cool comment was still embedded in Jean’s consciousness a year and a half later: You’re welcome to be a sadist for sadism’s sake, but I’d prefer to use my time winning instead of kicking a man when he’s down.
It wasn’t that she didn’t throw her whole body into checks, that she refused or shied from unnecessary violence on the court like the Trojans did. Pain, to an end, was a tool—she’d understood that doctrine long before crossing Riko. As long as that tool was producing the desired results, she would wield it with all the strength she had. But there was no glee in her expression when she bent a backliner’s wrist until his racket dropped; there was no gloating when she swept at someone’s unsuspecting feet. She made the decisions she made on the court and moved on to the next task, no hesitation, no slowing until her feet left the court floor.
Jean didn’t always understand it, how she played. For moments, he’d thought he had, but watching from behind a screen as she dealt out plays with grim, sure determination reinforced the idea that he never had understood what drove her to join the Ravens, to take her seat on the Perfect Court. With a pang, he realized that he would likely never get the chance to understand again. The ache in his chest didn’t subside until the halftime buzzer sounded and the court cleared.
****
He never got past writing her email address. After that, he could manage nothing more than a stare at the blinking cursor on a white backdrop. Every time he let his fingertips brush the keyboard—every time the beginning ideas of a message began to form in his mind—he was overcome with the urge to crawl through the screen and back onto the Edgar Allan court to claw the inky number off El’s face.
****
EP: How is he?
RW: Managing. Restless, I imagine, though he’s recovering well. Apprehensive about the upcoming year, but I think I can coax some hope into him yet.
****
The raw vitriol with which Edgar Allan turned on Jean was so frenzied it felt rabid, as though the last few weeks of his absence had held nothing but bated breath for the other shoe on Evermore’s favorite punching bag to drop.
It was Sergio, of all people, that dropped the headline over breakfast, in a voice that was carefully schooled in neutrality to bury any shock. Back In Gold: USC Trojans Announce Jean Moreau’s Transfer for Fall 2007. The Ravens seized the information with gleeful violence, and by the end of the day El had heard the contents of the article in every tone of mockery and jeer from West Virginia to the west coast, until the hateful text may as well have been burned to the inside of her eyelids.
If she looked closely enough, she could see—perhaps—flickers of Sergio’s shock, maybe even grief, in the faces of her closest teammates. But she was likely just imagining it. And regardless of what any individual felt, they were all pulled down by the tide of Raven hatred one way or another.
It was Grayson’s idea to deface Jean’s property, because of course it was. A single declaration, as though he’d waited his whole life to make it: “Well well, if the whore is too much a coward to stay a Raven, we may as well do the courteous thing and send him back his materials. Finals are coming up, after all.”
She was sure it had taken time—a few minutes, at least—to ransack what had been Jean’s side of his and Zane’s shared room, but it felt like she blinked and Jean’s notebooks and the few personal belongings she knew he’d treasured were scattered on the floor of the den with a collection of thick black sharpies from who-knew-where. She had half a second to process the careful, looping font of his handwriting on the cover of his notebooks before the Ravens descended on them in a swarm, markers distributed and uncapped with sharp snaps, hateful words and scribbles blocking out the painstaking notes he’d taken throughout the year.
For a moment, the air smelled like smoke. The corners of An Encyclopedia to Creatures Big and Small were blackened and curling, eaten away by hungry orange tongues, and she was struggling to breathe.
She dropped to her knees among her teammates, snatching a few of the more well-worn postcards and one of the remaining sharpies, heart pulsing in her throat. There were a few people, she imagined, who cast her a glance out of the corner of their eye, but panic and fervor were expressions that she wore similarly enough that she trusted—hoped—their gaze would slide over her as she began to black out one of the postcards, committing the words to memory as best she could as her marker obscured them in bold, irrevocable strokes.
Jean—bienvenue de Nouvelle-Orleans. Je wish que tu étais ici. Les gens parlent beaucoup de français et je ne comprends pas them. Hope you are well. —KD
It was clumsy as far as slight of hand went, but she was able to tuck the remaining two postcards under her knee as she scribbled, and given that she didn’t receive a cuff to the ear she could only hope that she hadn’t been seen. Keeping them hidden would be a different issue when she stood. That would have to be a problem for the future version of her that had to deal with consequences.
Jasmine checked her shoulder, and El shot her a glare as something in her chest seized in panic, but she was just pushing a pen and paper into her hands, curling her fingers around El’s so that they gripped the pen together. For the first time in her life, she was pretty sure, Jasmine wasn’t looking at her like she was the dirt on Riko’s shoes—rather, her eyes were ablaze with an energy and fury that made her stomach bottom out. “Fuck him,” Jasmine seethed. “Fuck. Him.” And El realized belatedly that for the first time in her life, Jasmine thought that they were on the same page—that she was trying to commiserate with El through the disappointment of losing a member of Riko’s perfect court.
El blinked, not sure how she was supposed to be schooling her expression, no idea what Jasmine was seeing on her face.
It just made Jasmine’s hand on her fist tighten. “Don’t give me that look, Parks,” and El wished fleetingly that she knew what look Jasmine meant, then immediately regretted that wish when she hissed, “He fucked you over worse than any of us. Use that. Use that. He will not get away with this.”
She managed to drag her gaze away from the intensity of Jasmine’s glare. Zane was scribbling on a loose scrap of paper, surrounded by defiled notebooks and mementos. Sloppy with ire as his writing was, she caught key words that gave her the gist of its contents. Traitor. Worthless. Rot in hell.
Jasmine had released her hand, and El was struck with a sudden bout of nausea, the manic hatred pushing in from all directions, her wrists burning with phantom pains, blood between her teeth. She forced the pen and paper back at Jasmine and filled her voice with bitterness that wasn’t at all difficult to summon. “I have nothing to say to him.”