Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Thursday was when Dan finally started to lose her cool. This was her fourth year as the team's captain. She'd been subjected to verbal abuse and outright hatred since she started. Seeing people finally rally behind her and her team flustered her. She kept a brave face in front of the cameras, but she spent Thursday night in Matt's bed.
The more excited the students grew, the more uneasy the Foxes felt, and the tension at their practices that week was suffocating. They were sick with nerves by Friday. Andrew was the only one completely unaffected. He bounced off the walls and harassed his teammates endlessly. Kevin, on the other hand, didn't say a single word at Friday morning's practice.
Traffic that day was completely out of control, no matter how much outside help campus security called in. Wymack signed his Foxes out of their afternoon classes and called them to the stadium at three. Serve wasn't for another four hours, but he wanted to shield them from the madness unfolding around the university. Dan turned on the TV and flipped channels until she found a movie to watch. Aaron and Matt went into the foyer to do their homework in peace. Neil and Kevin went to the inner court and sat on the Foxes' bench in silence.
At five-thirty Wymack ordered them enough food to feed a small army. The Foxes sat in a circle to eat but didn't speak. Only when they'd thrown their trash away did they finally look at each other. Dan pulled the Ravens' roster out and began going over it, but by now the Foxes knew all of the Ravens' names and numbers by heart. They'd been studying the Raven line for weeks, watching old games and memorizing statistics. They'd watched recordings of past Raven games to get an idea for how their opponents played and looked for any weaknesses they could exploit. They'd come back empty-handed. The only chink in the Ravens' armor was Kevin's absence.
Kevin tried explaining Raven synchrony earlier this week, but Neil almost wished he could forget that story. Ravens came to Edgar Allan University for one reason only: to play Exy. Every athlete Coach Moriyama accepted was expected to sign to a professional team upon graduation. School was a secondary concern for all of them. They were all enrolled in the same undergraduate degree and took their classes together in groups of three or four. They weren't allowed to go anywhere without taking at least one teammate with them. They weren't supposed to socialize with anyone outside the team.
They didn't even live in the student dorms, but they didn't live where everyone thought they did, either. Edgar Allan was a smaller university than Palmetto State, with fewer sports and more arts programs. One perk they offered was interest-based housing in lieu of general dorms. Sororities, fraternities, and larger clubs could all petition to have special living arrangements. The Exy team had a house of its own, but the Ravens only slept there when keeping up appearances.
Evermore wasn't on school grounds for a reason. It belonged to Edgar Allan, but it doubled as the national team's stadium. Because of its dual purpose Evermore was built with extra amenities: towers for celebrities and the ERC, lounges for high-profile guests, and spacious living quarters for visiting teams. Those quarters were built underground beneath the court floor, and that was what the Ravens used as their dormitory. That was where Riko and Kevin grew up.
If the Ravens weren't in class, they were expected to be at Evermore. They lived and breathed Exy on a scale no other team could or would. Their intense lifestyle, forced integration, and vicious punishments put them on a whole different scale than any of their opponents. They were, in short, the complete opposite of everything the Foxes knew and understood. Tonight's game pitted a hive mind against a fractured bunch of rejects.
An hour out from serve the stadium guards unlocked the gates and started letting people in. Neil thought he could feel the stadium shake beneath the weight of tens of thousands of feet. He dressed to the distant rumble of excited voices and met his team in the foyer. Wymack had the stick rack out already. Kevin opened the lids over his pair and threaded his fingers through the nets.
"Can you do this, Kevin?" Abby asked, searching his face for any sign he was okay. "Can you play?"
"If I am breathing, I can play," Kevin said. "This is my game too."
"Words to live and die by." Wymack motioned for them to line it up. "I expect a double-digit score from my offense line. Kevin, you know their defense better than anyone else and they don't know how to face you right-handed, so run them into the ground. Neil, get at least five points or I'll have you running marathons every month until graduation."
Neil stared at him. "Five points?"
"You got four last week."
"We weren't playing Edgar Allan last week, Coach," Neil said.
"Irrelevant," Wymack said with a jerk of his hand. "Five points or twenty-six miles. Do the math and decide which one makes you happier."
He didn't give Neil a chance to argue but looked at Allison and Dan. "You ladies let offense drown if you have to. They're not your concern. Your focus tonight is keeping the defense line afloat. Get me? We know the Ravens are faster and bigger and better than us. We only have a chance so long as we can control their score. Defense, keep the strikers away from goal. Period, end of story. Andrew, for once in your miserable midgety life play like you want us to win, would you?"
Andrew looked amused by that request, which Neil didn't find at all reassuring. The warning buzzer sounded over their heads, alerting them they were due in the inner court in a minute. Neil wasn't the only one who started when it went off and he was more than a little alarmed that Kevin was one of the ones who jumped. Abby fixed Kevin with an intent look that Kevin refused to return. Wymack clapped his hands at his team until they fell in line.