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Neil’s heart pounded heavy against his sternum. A weight there that made him half feel like he was drowning on dry land. Like the battle against the Ravens that finally won them their first true victory. The night that Riko had died after trying to hit him at the end of the game. The buzzer sounded through the air as the Foxes made their score before half time. They were up by three. Pride welled through his chest and his lungs ached with the familiar exertion of the game. He smiled.
He was in his fourth year now.
Next year he would be the only one of his Foxes left.
He had been looking over his younger classmen to see who would be able to take his place when he graduated at the end of next year. It was still surreal to think about but Neil had a few options. He was meant to bring them to Wymack at the end of the game. See who would be his Vice-Captain next year as he taught them the ropes and then they could continue the building legacy of the Foxes after he was gone.
It was a good game. Victory had been something more and more common for the Foxes over the years he’d been here and Neil was proud of it. He could see it in Kevin too, the pride his friend had for the team and how much they’d all grown. Kevin and Andrew both had contracts set up and waiting for them come the end of the year. Their performances and their notoriety in the sport had only grown since his first year and it served them well. Their new deal with the Moriyama’s to stay alive had made it that getting into a good team was no sort of question. It was a requirement. If they failed in that they would die.
Neil himself had even had talks with some of the scouts who had shown up over the last few games. They weren’t going to make their decisions yet but his leadership and his work for the team had given him enough support, he thought, to make it in a high enough team to make the money back that he owed. It would be enough to keep him alive, he hoped. He’d even gotten better with the press over the years. He was still bad with them by the standards of anyone and Wymack still tried to avoid having him speak to them alone, but he wasn’t picking fights directly to mob cults anymore. He would make his comments every now and then and he would argue back when he was asked something stupid but really, the media had it coming when they didn’t think about their questions. He wasn’t playing the sport so that he could be loved and adored. He was playing the sport because he loved it. By this point now he would say firmly that he was good at it.
He’d seen the look Kevin would get in his eye when he would watch him running after the ball. When he would switch from being a striker to playing defense and he fought like hell to keep anything and everything out from the goal. Andrew watching over him from behind always gave him extra speed.
They didn’t use that formation often. It was something they only did when certain circumstances called for it. The echo of the Ravens and their drills and the nightmares that happened in the Nest, they tried to avoid it. Like walking around bombs in a minefield, they would practice and they would train and he and Kevin would have their conversations hushed and private about what it was like. They danced around the topic more than speaking about it directly.
The only one who knew every detail and what it did to him was Andrew.
The only person who knew everything about him was Andrew.
Neil relished in the halftime call. He let his arm drop and listened to the sound of his team cheering behind him. Proud Foxes that were excited to be achieving what they wanted. The ragtag team that had the reputation of being at the bottom of the barrel but they were the ones who brought down the Ravens and they were the ones who were now marked as a battle to any and every team they faced. They didn’t win every game, they still had their problems, but they were Foxes. They were happy with that and that alone.
The plan for the rest of the game was going to be swapping out strategies from the candidates he’d picked for Vice. It was going to help him narrow down who was going to work the best under pressure and who would be able to make the gameplans that would best lead their team to victories in the future. With the team having a reputation built, they wanted to keep it. They wanted to make sure it continued to grow and improve even when they were no longer on the team. He and Kevin had made several plans for how they were going to do it. Dan was going to be the coach one day when Wymack would retiree. The Foxes were going to be in good hands.
Neil’s eyes searched the crowd until he found them.
His upperclassmen that he’d grown so close with over the years. Dan, Matt, Renee, and Allison all sat side by side with each other. Nicky was the only one who wasn’t able to make it back for the game tonight but he’d promised to be there for the finale game at the end of the season when Neil would formally announce who his Vice would be. His family cheered loudly in the crowd, their smiles large and faces bright.
Even now he was still getting used to it. Used to the feeling of being known for who he was and not the mask that he carefully constructed. Used to being loved and protected by people who didn’t need to know every detail of his life and had no plans to exploit the information they knew. Matt had gotten into an argument with people on the news one year after he graduated because they were trying to get more information on him. Renee had told him that there were people questioning his background and how he went from being no one and nothing to what he was now. Dan and Allison had defended his name publicly and privately every chance they got.
Neil waved to them. Matt yelled so loud Neil could pick him out even through the plexiglass barrier surrounding the court.
It wasn’t until he was turning around to go back to Andrew that he saw it.
Shadows that were coming into the lower ring of the court where the teams should be. He turned his head fast to see the other side only to find that the other team’s ranks were being flooded the same way.
Cheers in the audience turned to fear at the sight of the first gun.
That was when the screams started.
Survival tactics flooded through his head in an instant. If it would be better to gather his Foxes together and stay out of the way of whatever these people wanted or to spread out and stay low to the ground to make themselves smaller and less of a threat.
They couldn’t run.
Neil promised he wouldn’t run anymore.
Andrew was stepping out of the goal toward him. The people storming didn’t look like guns for hire but they didn’t exactly look military or police grade either. Their uniforms were all black, heavy duty, high quality if he had to guess but they weren’t anything a sanctioned uniform would look like. To untrained eyes he could guess no one would know. But he knew.
Neil knew when they made it to the benches on either team’s side and shoved guns in the players faces to order them to the ground. When Wymack tried to step in to defend them and was grabbed with his arm wrenched behind him and slammed face first into the barrier. Neil needed to grab Kevin before he could get himself or anyone else killed.
Abby, Wymack, Aaron, and three freshmen were on the bench. Everyone else was with him on the court.
He watched one of the freshman try to fight. She was shot in the leg for it.
In the next seconds the gunmen were storming onto the court. Cameras were still rolling. This was a live broadcast game. Police would be on their way. Medical would be on the way. They just needed to stall. They needed to figure out what these people wanted and as long as Neil could keep them talking then they would be okay. He survived the Nest, he survived his Father. He could survive this.
If he couldn’t then he would make damn sure that his team could.
He could feel Andrew’s eyes on him as he dropped his racket to the ground and brought his hands to surrender. The other team that was still on the court followed suit. His own Foxes were slower to follow his example but they did it all the same. They didn’t move while the other team was herded away and given orders to sit against the wall by their goal. While they were held under the threat of bullets by a single gunnmen and the others came back over to point at the Foxes.
One gun for every two foxes on the court.
All but him.
The man with his gun aimed directly for Neil’s chest was wearing an armband around his bicep. The leader, if he had to wager a guess.
“We don’t have anything for you.”
He’d been diligent when picking out new Foxes with Wymack. He kew that they would all have their baggage and that the Fox reputation was deserved more times than not. They were rowdy and they were haunted but they deserved a second chance. They deserved the chance to live where the world spat at them and turned its back. The team was the only reason he was alive today and he was going to fight like hell to make sure everyone behind him got to keep their chance at the same thing he got to experience.
If this went wrong, well, Neil had made his peace with dying for this team years ago.
“You are exactly what we were looking for,” the man’s voice lowered to a sneer, “Nathaniel.”
His stomach twisted uncomfortably at the sound of the name. He didn’t hear it often. Andrew’s words to leave Nathaniel dead in that basement with his father had meant everything to him and he had lived by them.
“My name is Neil.”
The man scoffed. He listened to his Foxes be lined up behind him and ordered to their knees.
They were setting them up like a firing squad.
“Step over here, Junior. Face them.”
They’d shot one of his team already for trying to fight. If he wanted them to have the best chances to survive this then he had no choice but to obey.
“Get on your knees.”
He did.
Neil looked over at his team’s bench and saw Abby with the wounded freshman. She was working to stem the bleeding. Abby was trying to keep her calm and from the look on her face, from cursing out their attackers. That was good. That meant she was going to be okay.
“What do you want?”
“Payment.”
The only person he owed anything to wouldn’t do something as stupid or as public as this. He had his deal to pay back the Moriyama family. There wasn’t a point in killing him now. If anything, this was probably going to get this group executed. Putting Kevin, Andrew, and him all in danger like this and on live television was bad for their business. Bad for operating goals. They would be safe. Part of him even wondered if there was an assassination plot already starting to move to get them out of this mess.
“For?”
He resisted the urge to turn and look when one of the gunmen yelled the order to stay still at his team. Kevin and Andrew were beside each other. He could see the stress in Kevin’s body just from how he was holding himself. Andrew was harder to read but Neil knew what he would find if he looked at him.
He couldn’t look at him.
“Your father.”
Even dead Neil was being hunted by him.
“I have no business with whatever he owed you—”
“You owe us for his life.”
Neil bit his tongue so hard he thought it might bleed. He’d known that his Uncle and the FBI hadn’t caught everyone who ever worked with his Father. He knew that for as terrifying and evil as the Butcher was, he was still adored by some in the crime rings. He was damn near cult worshiped in some areas even though the thought of that made him sick to his stomach. He’d walked past a group of people on campus the year before talking about papers they were writing for criminal justice classes and that they were writing about the Butcher of Baltimore and how cool he was. He’d made it back to the dorm and thrown up. Andrew had found him tucked against the side of the bathtub and helped him from there.
He had the feeling that wouldn’t be in their cards for tonight.
“You made a choice that night, Junior. Yourself or your Father. You’re going to make that choice again.”
His heart felt like it was trying to beat out of his chest.
“Yourself?” The man shifted his gun. Neil knew what it meant. Even when the man’s head nodded behind him. “Or your team?”
“Leave them alone. Take me.”
They weren’t going to take him. They wouldn’t make this much of a show and they wouldn’t do this in such a public manner if they were going to kidnap him. They’d be found too quickly and they would rally too many more people onto his side. They would have no support from other criminal organizations. It was a waste of time.
He wasn’t going to be taken.
He was going to be killed.
He heard the shock from his team at his words. The horror that all of them were exclaiming at what he’d just sentenced himself to.
“You die or they die.”
Neil wasn’t going to play this game.
“Do you have ears? I gave you my answer. You want payback then you shoot me.”
“You’re playing the selfless game?”
“They don’t deserve to die.”
“And you do?”
Neil looked the man in the eye when he answered.
“For my family, yes.”
A gun had never seemed as loud as it did in that moment. Pain blossomed through his chest as the ring and boom of the gun still rattled through his skull. In seconds the air was gone from his lungs. Sucking out of him and draining into the rest of the world. Shattering through his padding and armor he wore for the game and then Neil was on the ground. He choked and warm blood flooded into his throat. When he tried to turn himself to his side to cough it out, a boot connected against his middle. He was kicked. He was turned on his back. He was being stepped on.
“You said yes. You don’t get to save yourself.”
Out of nothing but reflex, Neil looked to Andrew. He saw his Foxes staring in horror. He saw the gunmen watching him. He saw the smug pride in their eyes that they had won.
But they were against Foxes.
And Foxes fought.
Until the bitter end.
With an explosion of speed and fury, Andrew was striking against the gunman in front of him. The others on the team followed the example immediately. Jumping into action and fighting and kicking. They acted like they didn’t care that there were guns on them. Like it didn’t matter that they could die for this at any moment. They were fighting. They were winning.
Neil heard the loud bangs as more people flooded the stadium. He thought he heard the sounds of shouts calling out police.
He heard more gunfire.
There was a bang as the doors of the barrier opened. The weight over him was gone.
He couldn’t see.
Hands were on him. He was being manhandled and voices spun over his head too fast for him to catch properly. It didn’t make sense. None of it.
Certainly not when he opened his eyes and saw Aaron over him.
Not when Aaron was covered in blood.
He tried to ask. He wasn’t sure what made it out was actually a word.
“Shut up. It’s yours. I’m trying to keep you alive.”
He nodded. His eyes slipped closed again. It hurt to breathe. Everything in his chest hurt. Everything about him hurt.
But his family was here. They were alive. They were fighting. Police were here. They were safe. They were going to be okay. He’d had the choice to save them and he had.
He’d done it.
More people gathered around him. His family. He could hear their voices. He could hear their fear. They were telling him to open his eyes. Neil tried.
Cameras flashed in his peripheral. He heard Wymack yelling. He heard him cursing at people to stay back. Part of him wanted to laugh at how ridiculous it was. He was shot and bleeding to death in the middle of the court and all the press cared about was getting the best picture of him. Getting the best headline, the best cover, the best whatever they wanted for their clicks and their reads. Not his life. Not that he was dying. Not anything for respect.
“Look at me.”
Andrew’s order sounded like a plea.
“Neil.”
It was hard to focus. He couldn’t draw in a full breath.
“We need that ambulance. Now.”
Fingers found the side of his neck and Neil looked up to find Abby above him. She looked afraid.
“We need you to keep breathing. Stay awake, okay, Neil? Stay awake.”
“He’s losing too much blood.”
“He can fight. Andrew? Can you keep him awake?”
He couldn’t hear anything. The thundering of his blood in his ears. The whooshing sound of his heart. There was a ringing sitting in the background. A wailing that he couldn’t make out if it was sirens or something else. He hoped it was sirens. He hoped it was more police coming to take care of everything that had gone so wrong. That his team was going to be safe.
“Look at me.”
He heard Andrew. He looked up into hazel eyes and for the first time in so long, Neil saw fear in them.
“Talk.”
When he tried, blood clotted his throat.
“I love—”
Andrew shook his head. Neil ran out of air to speak. Andrew put their heads together. Close and private and just for them.
“Don’t make me say it.”
He couldn’t think clearly. He tried to ask what he meant but all that came out was a breathless whine.
“Do not die, Neil.”
He hesitated. Like the word that came next was a loaded gun.
“Please.”
Andrew hated that word. Andrew never said that word. He was hearing things. He was wrong. He wouldn’t. Never. Not even for this. it went against everything Andrew had told him in the past. What that word meant to him was too much.
But he realized then in a moment of sharp focus.
The word did exactly what Andrew needed it to do.
As he saw the paramedics rushing for him. As he heard Abby and Aaron giving information for his wound.
The word woke him up. It made him focus. It made him pay attention.
It kept him from slipping off.
It kept him alive.
Andrew was shaking. Neil could see him trembling where he stood. His Foxes were watching. They all looked terrified.
But he was on the gurney now and exhaustion washed over him so fast it felt like he was ripped under the current of the ocean and sucked out to sea.
“You’re going to be alright, Son. Just hold on.”
He was no one’s son.
“We’ve got you now.”
That meant nothing.
Andrew said Please.
Andrew meant everything.
And for that, he would live.