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The air in South Carolina was never truly cold. Even at five in the morning, with the sun still buried beneath the horizon, the humidity coated Neil's throat like oil. It made every breath a conscious effort, a heavy drag against the burning capacity of his lungs.
He preferred it this way. The resistance gave him something to fight. It was better than the sterile, conditioned air of the dorms where the silence felt too much like waiting.
He rounded the corner of the Foxhole court, his sneakers slapping against the pavement. He wasn't thinking about the semester or the upcoming season. He was counting exits. It was a habit he couldn't break, checking the gaps between the maintenance trucks, the shadows, the blind spots the security cameras missed. If he had to bolt, he'd go left. The fence there had a loose chain link he'd noticed three weeks ago.
He was aiming for the path that led back to the dorms when a figure stepped out from the side of the inner perimeter fence.
Neil didn't startle. He just stopped. His momentum died instantly, dropping him from a run to a standstill in two steps. His weight shifted to his back foot, ready to pivot.
"Neil?"
Katelyn stood near the gate. She was wearing a massive gray hoodie that swallowed her hands and generic black leggings. She looked harmless. She looked like exactly what she was: a civilian who had no business being awake before dawn.
Neil exhaled, blowing out the tension he'd gathered in his chest. Adrenaline tasted sour in his mouth. It was just Katelyn. Aaron's Katelyn.
"You're up early," Neil said. He didn't sound friendly, but he didn't sound aggressive, either. He just sounded out of breath.
"I couldn't sleep," Katelyn said, tucking a strand of auburn hair behind her ear. She looked nervous, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "Aaron has that biochemistry exam today. I think I'm stressing out more than he is."
"He'll pass," Neil said. He stepped to the side, intending to walk around her. "He remembers everything he reads." Why was she telling him this? Neil didn't care about Aaron's GPA. He cared if Aaron could hold a defensive line.
"Neil, wait."
She took a half-step sideways, blocking his path.
Neil stopped again. He looked at her, genuinely confused. "What? Did something happen?" Had someone died? Did Aaron relapse again? Those were the only reasons he could think of that she'd be stopping him in a parking lot at 5 AM.
"No," Katelyn said quickly. "No, nothing happened. I just... I wanted to talk to you. You're always running off."
"I have practice later," Neil said, as if that explained everything. "I need to finish my miles."
"Just for a minute," she pressed. Her voice was steady, even if her hands were fidgeting inside her sleeves. "Look, I know things are weird. I know you and Aaron have a... complicated dynamic. But we're going to be seeing a lot of each other. I don't want it to be awkward every time I walk into a room."
Neil frowned. "Is it awkward?"
Katelyn stared at him, looking for a trace of irony. She didn't find any. "Yes, Neil. It's awkward. You treat me like I'm a piece of furniture that Aaron drags around. You look right through me."
"I don't look through you," Neil said. "I just don't have anything to say to you."
It wasn't an insult. To Neil, it was a simple statement of fact. He barely had enough social bandwidth for the Foxes. Extending that to the girlfriends of the Foxes seemed like an inefficient use of energy. They had nothing in common. She liked Aaron; Neil tolerated Aaron because of Andrew. The Venn diagram of their interests was two separate circles in different rooms.
"That's... okay, that's blunt," Katelyn sighed, running a hand over her face. "But that's why I wanted to stop you. I wanted to say thank you. For helping keep an eye on Aaron while he was... well, you know. The relapse. And for whatever you did to get Aaron and Andrew to actually exist in the same space without killing each other during it."
"I didn't do it for that," Neil said. He wiped sweat from his forehead. "We need a defensive line that works. Obviously it doesn't if Aaron's not functioning."
"Right. Exy," Katelyn said, a small, wry smile touching her lips. "Aaron said you'd say that. He said you don't do anything unless it's about the court."
"It's easier that way," Neil said. The court had rules. Lines. Referees. Real life was just chaos.
"Well, thank you anyway. He's... lighter. He's actually sleeping." She hesitated, then looked him in the eye. "I know you think I'm just 'Aaron's girlfriend.' But I'm not fragile, Neil. You don't have to avoid me."
"I don't think you're fragile," Neil said. "I just think you're not involved."
"Involved in what?"
"This," Neil said, gesturing vaguely at the stadium, at the scars on his body, at the invisible weight that hung over the Foxes. "You have a normal life. You should keep it that way."
"You sound like Andrew," she said.
Neil bristled. "I don't."
"You do. 'Stay away,' and all that." She shook her head. "I know it's not just a game for some of you. Especially with what happened last year. But I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere just because things get messy."
Neil looked at her. He thought about the library all those months ago, how she had gone dead silent, her eyes wide and wet, terrified into total stillness by Andrew's threats. She hadn't run then, either. She had just frozen.
"You froze," Neil said softly. He remembered the way her pulse had been visible in her neck.
"What?"
"In the library, when Andrew broke off his deal with Aaron. You didn't fight back. You just froze."
Katelyn flushed, the color standing out against the grey morning light. "I was scared. Andrew is... he's Andrew."
"I know," Neil said. He wasn't judging her. He was just categorizing her. Flight or Freeze. She was a Freezer. "It's fine. Most people freeze."
"I won't next time," she said, though she sounded like she was trying to convince herself.
Neil was about to tell her there shouldn't be a next time, but a sound cut him off.
It was a low knocking sound. Clunk-clunk-clunk.
Neil turned his head, his focus snapping instantly away from Katelyn. His eyes swept the parking lot. The sound was wrong. It wasn't the usual chug of the groundskeeping equipment. Three rows over, a dark maintenance truck was idling.
"Neil?" Katelyn asked. She sensed the shift, the way he went from 'awkwardly polite' to 'absolute zero' in a split second. "What is it?"
"That truck," Neil said. "How long has it been there?"
"I don't know. A few minutes? It's just the grounds crew."
"The lights are off," Neil muttered. "Engine is cold enough to knock, but they're idling in the dark." Why idle in the dark? If they were working, they'd have floodlights. If they were sleeping, the engine would be off. This was waiting.
"Maybe they're waiting for the supervisor?"
"No," Neil shook his head. The hair on his arms stood up. It wasn't magic; it was memory. He knew what a stakeout looked like. He knew what patience looked like. He'd spent half his life looking out of motel windows at cars that sat too long. "Go to the gym, Katelyn."
"What?"
"Walk away. Now." Neil didn't shout. His voice dropped, becoming flat and urgent, instead. "Use your keycard. Lock the door behind you."
"You're scaring me," she said, stepping closer to him instead of away.
"Good. Then move."
The door of the truck opened.
The man who stepped out wasn't wearing a uniform. He was heavy-set, wearing a thick canvas jacket and jeans. He looked disheveled, like he'd slept in the cab. He slammed the door, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the quiet lot.
He looked right at Neil.
"Wesninski!"
The name hit harder than a fist. It wasn't the sound of it, he was too used to the ghosts for that, but the ownership implied. It stripped away the jersey, the life he'd built at Palmetto. Only dead men called him that.
The voice was wet, gravelly. It sounded like a smoker's cough wrapped in anger.
Neil stepped in front of Katelyn. It was automatic. He didn't really think about it, he just put himself between her and the threat. She was a soft target. He wasn't.
"Go," Neil hissed over his shoulder.
"Is that a Raven or something?" Katelyn whispered, clutching the back of Neil's shirt.
"No," Neil said, watching the man reach into his jacket. Sloppy. A professional would have had the weapon out before he opened the door. "Ravens have better clothes."
The man pulled a knife. It wasn't a sleep combat blade; it was a rusty, serrated hunting knife. He flicked it in the air, a clumsy, arrogant gesture.
"Hey!" the man shouted, starting a lumbering jog toward them. "You little rat! Where's your FBI now?"
Neil pushed Katelyn back, hard. "Run!"
The man didn't run; he charged. He moved with the heavy, uncoordinated momentum of a bar brawler, leading with the knife. He was slow, but he was wide, taking up too much space on the narrow path between the trucks.
"Run!" Neil insisted, shoving Katelyn toward the gap in the fence.
She stumbled back, her sneakers screeching on the asphalt, but she didn't turn. She stared, eyes wide, paralyzed by the absurdity of violence in a parking lot at dawn. She was hesitating. She was going to get caught in the radius.
Neil didn't have time to be angry. He stepped into the man's space. No knives. Just hands. Bad odds.
The knife slashed downward in a clumsy, diagonal arc. Neil twisted his torso, letting the blade hiss past his ribs, missing him by an inch.
"Little rat," the man grunted, reversing his grip. "You think you can just walk away? From him? From us?"
He swung again, a horizontal backhand meant to gut Neil open.
Neil ducked, dropping his weight. He drove his shoulder into the man’s solar plexus, aiming to knock the wind out of him. It was like hitting a wall of wet cement. The man grunted but didn't fall. He was hopped up on something, or just fueled by a rage that dulled the pain.
He grabbed a handful of Neil’s shirt, yanking him close. The knife came up.
Neil stomped on the man’s instep, hitting the small bones of the foot. The man howled, his grip loosening just enough for Neil to tear away.
He saw movement in his periphery. Katelyn wasn't running. She was scrambling backward, tripping over a parking block, but she was still there. The man saw her too.
"Witness," the man wheezed. He pivoted on his good foot, lashing out blindly toward the girl.
It was a sloppy strike, but Katelyn was on the ground. She couldn't dodge. The blade was aiming for her face.
Neil didn't calculate. He didn't think about the odds. He just threw himself into the gap.
He raised his left arm, catching the wrist, but the man was heavy and gravity was on his side. The knife slipped past Neil’s guard. It didn't hit Katelyn. It bit deep into Neil’s forearm, just below the elbow.
The sensation was cold, then searingly hot. Neil felt the skin part, the muscle sever. Blood sprayed, hot and wet, splattering across Katelyn’s grey hoodie.
She screamed.
The sound snapped something inside Neil. It wasn't fear. It was the specific, cold rage he'd inherited from a man he hated.
He ignored the arm. He ignored the fire racing up his nerve endings. He grabbed the man’s hair with his right hand and slammed his knee into the man’s face.
Crunch.
Nose cartilage gave way. The man staggered back, blinded by tears and blood, dropping the knife. He fell to his knees, wheezing, pawing at his ruined face.
Neil stood over him. The adrenaline was a roar in his head, drowning out the pain. His vision tunneled. The easiest thing, the safest thing, was to finish it. A kick to the temple. A stomp to the throat. It would be easy. It would be permanent. It was what Nathan would have done.
He raised his foot. He could already feel the give of the windpipe under his heel.
"Neil!"
Katelyn’s voice cut through the haze. It was high, terrified, and undeniably alive.
Neil froze. He looked at the man groaning on the asphalt, bleeding into the cracks of the pavement. Then he looked at Katelyn. She was staring at him, not at the attacker. She was staring at his face.
If he killed this man, she would see it. She would see the Butcher. She would see the thing Andrew kept promising to prevent him from becoming.
Neil lowered his foot. instead of the throat, he kicked the man hard in the ribs, once, twice, forcing the air out of his lungs, ensuring he wouldn't get up for a long time. The man curled into a ball, sobbing into the tarmac.
It was over.
Neil stumbled back, the adrenaline crashing out of his system and leaving him shaking. He clutched his left arm against his chest. Blood was pouring out of him, dark and fast, soaking his shirt, dripping onto his shoes. Too much blood. Was it an artery?
"Fuck," Neil hissed through his teeth.
"Sit down."
The voice was shaky but demanding. Katelyn scrambled up from the ground. She wasn't looking at the man anymore. Her eyes were locked on Neil’s arm.
"I'm fine," Neil lied. The world tilted slightly to the left.
"You are not fine. Sit down before you fall down."
She didn't wait for him to agree. She grabbed his good shoulder and shoved. Neil, lightheaded and off-balance, let her push him down onto the bumper of the nearest truck.
Katelyn grabbed the hem of her oversized hoodie. In one jerky movement, she pulled it over her head, leaving her in a thin tank top. She didn't seem to care. She bunched the thick grey fabric in her hands, twisting it into a rope.
"Let me see," she ordered.
"Don't touch it," Neil warned, curling tighter around the wound. His mother's voice echoed in his head: Don't touch. Don't look. If you don't acknowledge it, the pain isn't real. "It’s just a scratch."
"There is a pool of blood under your feet, Neil. Move your hand."
She pried his fingers away. Her hands were trembling, shaking so hard her knuckles knocked against his skin, but her grip was iron. She took one look at the gash, long, jagged, and pulsing with blood, and went pale. But she didn't vomit. She didn't freeze.
She wrapped the hoodie around his forearm, directly over the cut, and pulled tight.
Neil gritted his teeth, a hiss of pain escaping his lips as the pressure flared. It gelt like being burned.
"Hold this," she said, guiding his right hand to the knot. "Keep pressure. Do not let go."
She fumbled for her phone in her leggings pocket.
"What are you doing?" Neil asked. His tongue felt thick.
"Calling an ambulance."
"No." Neil tried to stand up. "No ambulance."
Katelyn shoved him back down. "You need stitches, Neil. That went through the fascia. You can't just put a band-aid on it."
"I have a kit," Neil said. "I can fix it at the Tower."
"You are not sewing yourself up in a dorm room," Katelyn snapped. She tapped the screen with a blood-smeared thumb. "That needs to be irrigated. If it gets infected, you lose the arm. Can you play Exy with one arm?"
"I'm not going to a hospital," Neil said. Panic, sharper than the pain, spiked in his chest. "I don't do doctors. They ask questions. They call the police."
"I’m calling the ambulance," she repeated, her finger hovering over the dial button.
"Call Abby," Neil said. "She’ll fix it."
"Abby is in out of town with Wymack," Katelyn said. "By the time they get here, you’ll have lost a pint of blood. And if I call Abby, she’s going to ask why you’re bleeding, and then she’s going to call the police anyway because someone just tried to murder you."
Neil glared at her. She was right. Abby would panic. Wymack would shout. The team would find out. The media would find out. Neil Josten attacked on campus. It would be a circus.
"If I go to the hospital," Neil said, "they'll want a name. They'll want insurance. They'll want a statement."
"I'll handle it," Katelyn said.
Neil looked at her. She was in the morning air, her tank top stained with his blood, her hair a mess. But her jaw was set.
"You?"
"I'm a student at the university hospital," she said. "I know the attending on rotation. I’ll tell them it was an accident. Training accident. You fell on equipment."
"They won't believe that. It’s a knife wound."
"I'll tell them you fell on a rake. I don't care," she said, her voice rising hysterically before she clamped it down. "I will handle the paperwork. I will stand right next to the bed. I won't let them ask you anything you don't want to answer. But you are going to get stitches. Okay?"
Neil stared at the thug, who was still wheezing on the ground a few yards away. He looked at his arm, wrapped in Katelyn’s ruined hoodie. The blood was already soaking through the thick gray cotton.
He didn't trust civilians. He didn't trust promises.
But he looked at Katelyn’s hands. They were still shaking, but she was holding the phone like a weapon. She had stayed. She had stopped the bleeding.
"If they try to sedate me," Neil said, "I'm leaving."
"No sedation," Katelyn agreed immediately. "Local anesthetic only. I’ll make sure."
"And no police."
"I'll tell them we don't want to file a report."
Neil closed his eyes for a second, fighting the wave of nausea. "Fine."
Katelyn hit the call button. She put the phone to her ear, her eyes never leaving Neil’s face.
"Hi," she said, her voice dropping into a weirdly calm, professional register that Neil hadn't heard before. "I have a twenty-year-old male with a deep laceration to the left forearm. arterial bleeding controlled by pressure. He’s conscious and alert. We’re at the Foxhole Stadium, south lot. Send them to the maintenance gate."
She hung up. She reached out and adjusted the makeshift tourniquet, pulling it tighter.
"You didn't run," Neil murmured, almost to himself.
Katelyn looked at him. Her eyes were wet, fear finally leaking through the cracks in her composure. "You stepped in front of a knife."
"I had to."
"You didn't have to," she said. Her voice broke. "You really didn't."
"He was aiming for you."
"I know." She wiped her face with her free hand, smearing a streak of blood across her cheek. "I know, Neil."
The inside of an ambulance was designed to be efficient, but to Neil, it just felt like a cage.
The doors slammed shut, sealing them in with the smell of antiseptic, latex, and the copper tang of his own blood. It was the smell of bad memories. The space was too small, too bright. The walls were lined with cabinets that rattled as the engine roared to life beneath them. There were no windows in the back. No way to see where they were going. Just a metal box moving at high speed.
Neil sat on the stretcher, his back rigid against the incline. He refused to lie down. Lying down meant surrendering. It meant exposing his throat.
"Sir, I need you to lie back," the paramedic said. He was a young guy, looking exhausted, snapping on blue gloves. "We need to get a line in."
"I'm fine sitting," Neil said. His voice sounded distant, filtered through the buzzing static of shock.
"You've lost blood. If the vehicle turns, you’re going to pass out."
"I won't." He'd run ten miles on a sprained ankle, once. He wasn't going to pass out from a cut.
"Neil," Katelyn said. She was sitting on the bench seat opposite him, strapped in. She still had blood on her face, a smear across her cheekbone that looked like war paint. "Just lie back. Please."
Neil looked at her. Her hands were clenched in her lap, twisting the fabric of her leggings. She was holding it together by a thread. If he fought her, that thread might snap.
He gritted his teeth and leaned back against the thin mattress. He hated the way the ceiling loomed over him.
The paramedic moved in. "I'm going to take your vitals. BP cuff first."
Neil flinched away, pulling his arm against his chest. It was instinct. He didn't like strangers in his space. He didn't like people touching the scars he kept hidden under his clothes. Every touch felt like an interrogation.
"He doesn't like being touched," Katelyn cut in, leaning forward as far as the seatbelt allowed. "Just tell him what you’re doing before you do it. Don't grab him."
The paramedic looked from Katelyn to Neil. He seemed to decide she was the reasonable one. "Okay. Fine. Sir, I’m going to put the cuff on your right bicep. Is that okay?"
Neil stared at the roof. He traced the rivets in the metal, counting them. "Fine."
He felt the pressure of the cuff, tight and suffocating. Katelyn had her phone out. Her thumbs were flying across the screen, leaving bloody smudges on the glass.
"Who are you calling?" Neil asked.
"Texting," Katelyn corrected. "Aaron."
Neil frowned. "Why? He’s probably awake studying. You’ll distract him."
Katelyn looked up, incredulous. "Neil, you were just stabbed. You think he cares about his flashcards right now?"
"He cares about his GPA," Neil said. "This doesn't concern him. I handled it." Aaron hated complications. Neil was a complication. Getting stabbed was just... Monday.
"You are in an ambulance," Katelyn said, her voice rising. "You didn't 'handle' it. You got hurt. And you got hurt because I was there. He needs to know."
"Aaron is always angry anyway," Neil muttered. "This just gives him a reason."
"I'm telling him to wake Andrew up," she added.
Neil tried to sit up again, but the paramedic put a heavy hand on his shoulder. Neil snarled, a low sound that made the medic recoil.
"Don't call Andrew," Neil said.
"Why?"
"Because he’s asleep," Neil said. "He hates being woken up. If you tell him this, he’s going to come down there and make a scene. It’s just stitches. I can be back before he even wakes up."
That was a lie. It wasn't about the sleep. It was about the fact that Andrew didn't panic like normal people. He went cold. He went destructive. And Neil didn't want to deal with the fallout of Andrew thinking he'd somehow failed to do something when he hadn't even been there.
Katelyn lowered the phone slowly. She looked at him like he was a particularly difficult equation.
"Neil," she said. "If the situation was reversed. If Aaron was with you, and he got stabbed, and you were in the ambulance with him… would you call me?"
"That's different," Neil said immediately.
"How?"
"Because you and Aaron are…" Neil waved his good hand vaguely. "Together. You’re a couple."
"And you and Andrew aren't?"
"We don't do labels," Neil said. It was the standard line. It was the truth. Labels were for people who needed reassurance. They didn't need words to define gravity, it just existed. Giving it a name felt like inviting the rest of the world to have an opinion on it. "It’s not like that. We don't have… whatever you guys have."
Katelyn let out a short, sharp laugh. It sounded brittle. "God, you are so stupid for a genius Exy player. Do you really think he doesn't care?"
"I didn't say he doesn't care," Neil argued, frustrated. He hated that she was looking at him like she knew something. Like she had peered into the thing he and Andrew kept private. "I said we don't do this. And waking him up for a scratch is just going to piss him off."
"It's a four-inch laceration, not a scratch," the paramedic interjected dryly. He was peeling back the edge of Katelyn’s grey hoodie, which was now black with blood. "And this is a hell of a tourniquet. Who tied this?"
"I did," Katelyn said.
"Good pressure. Probably saved him a pint." The medic looked at Neil’s arm, his eyes narrowing as he saw the jagged, older scars crisscrossing the skin around the fresh wound. He paused.
Neil tensed. He knew that look. Self-harm? Abuse? Do we need a psych consult? He braced himself for the pity. Or the disgust. He hated both.
"It was a training accident," Katelyn said clearly. Her voice was sharp. "He fell on equipment. The old ones are from a car wreck years ago. It’s in his file at the university hospital. Dr. Higgins knows about it."
She was lying through her teeth. But she said it with such absolute, bored conviction that the medic just nodded.
"Right. Okay." He went back to working on the IV.
Neil watched Katelyn. She was pale, and her hands were starting to shake again. She was staring at his arm, at the blood she had stopped. She looked terrified, but she hadn't looked away. She lied for him. Without asking. Without hesitating. That was... new.
"You were right," Neil said.
The ambulance hit a pothole, bouncing them both. Katelyn grabbed the safety rail, her knuckles white. "About what?"
"The library," Neil said.
Katelyn flinched, her eyes darting away from his arm. "Neil, please. I really don't want to talk about—"
"I told you that you won," Neil interrupted. He needed to correct the record. "But I shouldn't have."
Katelyn looked at him, confused. "Then why did you?"
"Because it was the score," Neil said simply. "Andrew walked away. You got Aaron. That was the victory condition. I didn't look at how scared you were because I didn't think it mattered. I thought you were just…" He gestured vaguely with his good hand. "Collateral. I thought you were soft."
He looked at the grey hoodie sitting next to him on the gurney. It was ruined, soaked through with heavy, dark blood. She probably loved that hoodie, with how well-worn it looked.
"I was wrong," Neil said. "You didn't freeze today. You stayed. You stopped the bleeding."
Katelyn stared at him. "I was terrified, Neil. I'm still terrified."
"I know. But you’re functioning," Neil said. "I dismissed you back then. I shouldn't have. You handled this better than most people would have." Better than Nicky, who would be hyperventilating by now. Better than Kevin, who would be shouting about Neil's future prospects with an injured arm.
Katelyn let out a shaky breath, her shoulders sagging against the seat. She looked exhausted, smeared with war paint that wasn't hers, but there was a new steadiness in her eyes.
"You really have a terrible way of complimenting people," she murmured.
"It's not a compliment," Neil said. "It's a correction." Facts were facts.
"Well," she said, managing a small, tired smile. "Thank you. For the correction."
"We're five minutes out," the driver called from the front.
"Did Aaron reply?" Neil asked, resigning himself to the inevitable.
Katelyn checked her phone. She grimaced.
"What did he say?"
"He said 'What the fuck'," Katelyn read. "And then he said 'I'm getting Andrew up.' And then… oh."
"Oh?"
"He said Andrew just took the keys." Katelyn looked at Neil. "They're coming. And Andrew is driving."
Neil rested his head back against the wall of the ambulance. He closed his eyes. He could picture it: the Maserati peeling out of the Tower parking lot, Andrew’s face blank and terrifying behind the wheel, breaking every traffic law in the state of South Carolina.
"Great," Neil muttered. "He's going to be impossible."
"He's going to be worried," Katelyn corrected.
"He doesn't get worried," Neil said. "He gets manic."
"Call it whatever you want, Neil," Katelyn said, putting her phone away. "But he's coming."
The ambulance began to slow, the siren dying down to a low growl as they pulled into the bay. The doors were about to open.
"Don't let them separate us," Neil said. "I don't have my wallet. I need you to handle the admission." He needed a shield. Katelyn was currently the best one available.
Katelyn nodded. She reached out, hovering her hand near his knee before pulling back. "I'm not going anywhere. I've got you."
The transition from the ambulance to the E.R. was a blur of fluorescent lights and shouting. Neil tuned it out. It was a survival mechanism. He detached his mind from his body, letting the paramedics handle the meat while he scanned the perimeter for threats. Exit signs. Cameras.
They deposited him in Trauma Bay 4, a small, curtained-off box that smelled of bleach and misery. It smelled like the locker room after a loss, but worse.
"Doctor will be in shortly," the transport medic said, stripping the gloves off. "Don't move that arm."
Neil didn't answer. He sat on the edge of the gurney, legs dangling. The local anesthetic from the ambulance was starting to wear off, replaced by a deep, throbbing heat that radiated from his elbow to his wrist. He shivered, the air conditioning biting into his sweaty, shirtless skin.
Katelyn was still there. She stood by the counter, arms crossed over her blood-stained chest. She looked out of place, just a college student dropped into a crime scene, but she wasn't shrinking. She was watching the door.
"You should go clean up," Neil said.
"Not until you're stitched," Katelyn said, not looking at him. "And not until the intake nurse leaves. If they ask for insurance, I need to give them the student account number so it doesn't flag your file."
Neil stared at her profile. "You're good at this."
"At what?"
"Lying."
Katelyn turned her head. Her expression was tight, her lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm not lying, Neil. I'm triaging. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yes. Lying is for self-preservation. Triaging is for damage control."
Neil considered that distinction. It sounded like something Renee would say to justify one of Andrew's knife fights.
The curtain swept back. A doctor walked in—young, looking like he hadn't slept in two days, with 'RESIDENT' embroidered on his white coat. He carried a suture tray.
"Josten?" the doctor asked, glancing at the clipboard. "Laceration to the left forearm?"
"Yes," Neil said.
The doctor snapped on latex gloves. "I'm Dr. Peters. Let's take a look." He reached for Neil’s arm.
Neil’s muscles locked up. It was involuntary. The sterile smell, the white coat, the reaching hand... it all triggered the deep-seated, lizard-brain panic that years of running had burned into him. He didn't see a doctor. He saw the men his father had hired to patch him up so they could start again. He started to pull back.
Katelyn stepped forward. She didn't touch Neil, but she moved into his peripheral vision, placing herself between him and the door. Blocking the exit? No. Blocking the threat.
"He has a localized touch aversion," Katelyn said smoothly. "And a needle phobia. Talk him through it, please. No surprises."
Dr. Peters paused, looking at Katelyn. "Are you family?"
"I'm his medical proxy," she lied. Her voice was bored, authoritative. "I'm also a nursing student at the university."
The doctor blinked, then nodded. The jargon worked. He reset his approach, slowing down. "Okay. I’m going to unwrap the tourniquet now. There might be some fresh bleeding."
Neil forced himself to breathe as the doctor peeled away the hasty bandages the paramedics had used in the ambulance. The air hit the open wound, stinging like acid. Neil hissed through his teeth, gripping the edge of the mattress with his right hand.
"It's deep," Peters muttered. "Through the dermis and subcutaneous tissue. You’re lucky you didn't clip the ulnar artery."
He glanced up at Neil, his eyes dropping to the web of old, jagged scars that surrounded the fresh cut. The dashboard lighter burns, the knife marks, the iron burns from the basement in Baltimore.
The doctor froze. His eyes widened. He looked from the arm to Neil’s face, putting the pieces together. The scars. The name on the chart.
"Josten," the doctor murmured. "You're... the Exy player. The Wesninski case."
Neil’s stomach turned over. He braced himself for the questions. Did it hurt? What was he like? Are you okay? The curiosity of strangers was a tax he was tired of paying.
"I need to call the attending," Dr. Peters said, straightening up. "Given the history, and the nature of this new wound... this looks defensive. If there's an active threat—"
"There isn't," Katelyn cut in.
"I still have to follow protocol," the doctor said, reaching for his pager. "For a trauma victim with this profile—"
"It's already cleared through Dr. Higgins," Katelyn lied.
She said the name with such casual confidence that Dr. Peters stopped mid-reach.
"Dr. Higgins?"
"Yes," Katelyn confirmed, doubling down. "He manages Neil's file personally to avoid leaks to the press. The scars are documented. The new injury is a training accident. An equipment failure on the court. I was there. If you page the on-call attending, you're just going to annoy Higgins for no reason."
Neil stared at her. He didn't have a file with Dr. Higgins. He had never met a Dr. Higgins. Katelyn was inventing an entire chain of command on the fly.
Dr. Peters hesitated. He looked at the scars, then at the exhausted nursing student who seemed to know exactly how the hospital politics worked. He was a resident; the last thing he wanted to do was wake up a Department Head over a misunderstood protocol.
"Higgins is managing it?" Peters asked.
"Since last spring," Katelyn said. "Check the chart notes under the privacy lock if you want, but we just need stitches so we can go."
It was a gamble. If Peters actually checked the digital system, he’d see she was lying. But it was 5 AM, the ER was busy, and Katelyn was offering him an easy way out. People always took the easy way out.
"Fine," Peters sighed, dropping his hand. "Okay. But I'm documenting it as an athletic accident."
"That's all we need," Katelyn said.
Neil started breathing again.
Neil looked at her. She wasn't looking at him; she was watching the doctor’s hands, monitoring the procedure like a hawk. She was lying for him effortlessly. She was rewriting his history to make it palatable for a stranger, protecting the truth so Neil didn't have to.
He had always thought of Katelyn as "Aaron's cheerleader." A soft thing. A variable that complicated the math of keeping Aaron alive. He had assumed she was like the rest of the student body. Blissfully ignorant, requiring protection from the reality of the world Neil lived in.
He was wrong. She wasn't ignorant. She was just playing a different game. And she was cheating. Neil respected that.
"I'm going to inject more lidocaine," Dr. Peters warned. "Little pinch."
Neil squeezed his eyes shut as the needle slid into the raw edges of the wound. He focused on the pain, turning it into white noise.
"Breathe," Katelyn’s voice came from his left. Not soft, not comforting. An instruction. "In for four, Neil. Out for four."
He did it. He inhaled. He exhaled.
"Again."
She paced his breathing for him while the doctor worked. Tug. Pull. Snip. Neil felt the pressure of the thread, the weird sensation of his skin being pulled back together.
It gave him time to think.
Katelyn was looking at him now. She looked wrecked—pale, exhausted, hair falling out of her ponytail. But her gaze was steady.
She reminded him, suddenly and violently, of the Foxes. She had that same stubborn, reckless durability. She had looked at the violence in the parking lot and hadn't looked away. She had looked at his scars and hadn't asked a single question.
He thought about his personal promise to keep the Foxes safe. He had always excluded Katelyn from that mental list. She was an outsider. If the ship went down, you saved the crew, not the passengers.
But she wasn't a passenger anymore. She was standing in a trauma bay, covered in his blood, lying to a doctor to keep the police away. She had stepped into the foxhole with him.
She fits, Neil realized. The thought was jarring. She actually fits.
It was annoying. It meant his map of the world had to expand. It meant he had to watch out for her, not just because she was Aaron’s leverage, but because she was… whatever this was. An accomplice. The circle was supposed to be closed. She'd pried it open with a tourniquet and a lie.
"You didn't have to stay," Neil said quietly. His eyes were still closed.
"Don't talk," Dr. Peters murmured. "Almost done."
"I'm not leaving," Katelyn said. "Aaron would freak out if he got here and you were alone."
"Aaron isn't here."
"On the way."
"Last one," Dr. Peters said, pulling the final knot tight. He snipped the thread with a sharp, metallic click that seemed to echo in the small bay.
He stepped back, stripping off his latex gloves with a snap. "Okay. Fourteen stitches. That’s a clean closure, but it’s going to be tender once the lidocaine wears off."
Neil flexed his fingers experimentally. The movement pulled at the skin, a dull, tight sensation, but his hand worked. The nerve was fine. He could still hold a racquet.
"I'm going to print your discharge papers and the prescription for the antibiotics," Dr. Peters continued, tossing the gloves into the biohazard bin. "You need to keep that dry for forty-eight hours. No lifting. No heavy impact." He paused, giving Neil a stern look over the rim of his glasses. "And absolutely no Exy for at least two weeks. If you pop those sutures, the scarring will be significant."
Neil opened his mouth to argue, because practice was in six hours, and Kevin would have a stroke if he missed it, but Katelyn stepped into his line of sight. She shot him a look that was sharper than the needle Peters had just used.
"He knows," Katelyn told the doctor, her voice firm. "I'll make sure he follows protocol. Two weeks."
Neil shut his mouth. He wasn't going to win that argument right now, not when she was looking at him like that. It was the same look Wymack used when Neil tried to play on a sprained ankle.
"Good." Dr. Peters grabbed his metal tray. "I'll be back in five with the paperwork."
The doctor walked out, the curtain swaying shut behind him with a soft swish.
The silence that followed was heavy. The high-stakes performance of the last twenty minutes evaporated, leaving the room feeling cold and small. The air conditioner hummed overhead, a monotonous drone that seemed to amplify the smell sifting around the room.
Neil slumped slightly, the adrenaline finally draining out of his system completely. He felt hollowed out, cold, and achingly tired. He looked at his arm. The neat row of black stitches looked stark against his pale skin, joining the chaotic web of white scars that mapped his history.
He looked up at Katelyn.
She had moved back to the counter. She was leaning against it heavily, her arms crossed over her chest, staring at a spot on the tiled floor. The casual, bored authority she’d worn for the doctor was gone. She looked exhausted. Her ponytail was falling out, strands of auburn hair sticking to her forehead, and her tank top was a ruin of dried, dark blood.
Her hands, resting on her elbows, were trembling. Not a little. A lot.
"You're shaking," Neil observed.
Katelyn looked up. Her eyes were dark, dilated, and unreadable. She looked down at her hands, frowning as if they belonged to someone else.
"Adrenaline crash," she said. It was a clinical assessment, detached. "Hypoglycemia, probably. I didn't eat breakfast."
"You said you weren't squeamish," Neil said. "In the ambulance."
"I'm not."
"You look like you're going to pass out."
Katelyn let out a breath that was half-sigh, half-laugh. She pushed herself off the counter and walked over to the rolling stool Dr. Peters had used, sitting down before her legs gave out.
"It's not the blood, Neil," she said, rubbing her temples. "I’ve seen compound fractures. I’ve seen surgery. Anatomy doesn't bother me."
"Then what is it?"
She looked at him, her gaze dropping to the fresh bandage on his arm, then back to his face.
"It was the sound," she said quietly. "When the knife went in. And the way he looked at you. It wasn't… it wasn't an accident. It was active."
Neil tilted his head. "Active?"
"Malice," Katelyn clarified. "In the hospital, people get hurt because of cars, or gravity, or bad luck. It’s physics. But that man in the parking lot… he wanted to kill you. Watching a human being try to destroy another human being is different than looking at a wound on a chart."
Neil considered that. To him, violence was a language. It was how his father spoke. It was how the Moriyamas did business. It was just a method of communication, harsh and efficient. He had forgotten that for people like Katelyn, people who grew up in the sunlight, violence was an aberration. A horror story.
She wasn't shaking because of the gore. She was shaking because she had seen the monster, and she hadn't blinked.
"You get used to it," Neil said. He didn't mean it to be comforting; it was just a fact.
Katelyn looked at him, her expression searching. "How?" she asked. "How do you just… sit there? You let him stitch you up like you were getting a haircut. You stepped in front of a knife like you were stepping onto a curb."
"I had to," Neil said. He shrugged his left shoulder, careful not to pull the skin. "If you panic, you die. Or you lose the arm. It’s just logic."
"It's not logical," Katelyn whispered. "It's terrifying."
"Both," Neil agreed. "But if you focus on the facts, the terror waits until later."
Katelyn stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, she nodded. It wasn't a nod of understanding (she would never understand, not really) but it was a nod of acceptance. She was cataloging him, filing this new data away. Neil Josten: Human Shield.
"Well," she said, her voice strengthening a little. "The facts say you need antibiotics and a tetanus booster."
"I'm up to date on tetanus," Neil said.
"Of course you are," she muttered. She looked down at her shirt again, picking at the stiff, stained fabric of her tank top. She grimaced. "God. Aaron is going to have a heart attack when he sees me."
"He'll be fine," Neil said. "He's dramatic."
"He loves me," Katelyn countered. "That's not dramatic. That's just… rational. If he walked in here covered in someone else's blood, I’d lose my mind."
"He won't be covered in blood," Neil said. "Besides, he'd probably try to suture himself and yell at everyone while doing it."
"No, he wouldn't," Katelyn said, but a small smile was tugging at the corner of her mouth. "He’s going to panic. And then he’s going to yell. Probably at you."
"I'm used to that, too," Neil said.
"I know." Katelyn sighed. She reached out and adjusted the blanket on the end of Neil’s gurney, smoothing a wrinkle that didn't exist. "But he’s going to yell because he was scared. He hates being scared."
"He's a Minyard," Neil said. "They don't do 'scared.' They do 'angry.'"
"Same thing," Katelyn said wisely.
He had always treated Katelyn like background noise. She was Aaron’s accessory. A prop. A variable that only mattered because Aaron wouldn't shut up about her. Neil had ignored her because she didn't fit into the game, and if it wasn't about the game or survival, Neil didn't burn calories on it.
But she wasn't a prop. She was sitting on a stool in a trauma bay, covered in his blood, holding the line. She had lied to a doctor to protect his secrets. She understood the Minyards just as well as he did.
She wasn't background noise anymore.
"Katelyn," Neil said.
She looked up. "Yeah?"
"Next time," Neil said, gesturing to her ruined clothes with his good hand. "Don't use the hoodie. Use my shirt. You liked that hoodie."
Katelyn stared at him for a second, startled. Her eyes widened slightly, realizing that he had noticed. Then, a small, genuine laugh bubbled up out of her throat in a release of tension that made her shoulders drop two inches.
"Okay, Neil," she said, her voice soft. "Next time. But let's try not to have a next time."
"No promises," Neil said.
"You're impossible."
"I've been told."
Katelyn shook her head, but the smile lingered. She opened her mouth to say something else, but the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway cut her off.
They weren't the squeaky rubber-soled shoes of nurses. They were heavy, frantic strikes against the linoleum. Running.
Katelyn sat up straighter. "Here we go."
Neil braced himself. He shifted on the gurney, squaring his shoulders.
The curtain to the bay didn't just slide open. It was ripped back with enough force to snap three of the plastic rings off the rail. The sound was like a gunshot.
Neil didn't flinch. He just watched.
Aaron stood in the opening. His hair was even messier than usual, chest heaving, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt he must have grabbed off the floor. His eyes scanned the room, panicked and wide, until they landed on Katelyn.
He saw the blood on her chest. He saw the red smears on her hands.
"Katelyn!"
The name tore out of him. He crossed the small room in two strides, grabbing her by the shoulders, his hands shaking. "Katelyn? Are you—Jesus, look at you. Where are you hit?"
"I'm okay," Katelyn said immediately, grabbing his wrists to stop him from frantically patting her down for wounds. "Aaron, stop. I'm okay."
"There is blood all over you," Aaron choked out. He looked like he was about to vomit. "There is so much blood."
"It's not mine," Katelyn said firmly.
Aaron froze. "What?"
"It's not mine," she repeated. She stepped back and pointed at the gurney.
Aaron turned. For the first time, he actually looked at Neil.
Neil sat there, the fresh white gauze around his forearm stark against his scars. He looked back at Aaron with a neutral expression.
"It's his," Katelyn said.
Aaron stared. His brain seemed to be misfiring, trying to recalibrate from 'My girlfriend is dying' to 'Neil Josten is bleeding.' The terror in his face drained away, replaced by a sudden, sharp confusion, and then anger.
"You," Aaron breathed. He let go of Katelyn and took a step toward the bed. "What the fuck did you do?"
"I went for a run," Neil said.
"You're covered in blood," Aaron snapped. "You got Katelyn covered in blood. What is wrong with you? Can you go one single month without dragging everyone into your bullshit?"
"Aaron," Katelyn warned.
"No," Aaron spun on her. "Look at you! You're shaking! You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be anywhere near him when he's doing... whatever this is."
"He saved me," Katelyn said.
Aaron stopped. His mouth was open to shout again, but nothing came out. "What?"
"A man attacked us in the parking lot," Katelyn said. She wasn't shouting. She was stating facts, just like she had in the ambulance. "He had a knife. He went for me. Neil stepped in front of it."
Aaron looked at Neil. He looked at the bandage.
"He stepped in front of it?" Aaron repeated, like he didn't understand the physics of the sentence.
"Yes," Katelyn said. "So stop yelling at him."
Aaron looked at Neil again. The anger was still there, of course. Aaron held onto anger like a lifeline, but it was complicated now, muddy. He hated Neil. He wanted Neil gone. But Neil had taken a knife that was meant for Katelyn.
The debt was in the room with them, invisible and suffocating.
Before Aaron could respond, the curtain moved again. It didn't rip open this time. It slid back silently.
Andrew Minyard stepped into the bay.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Andrew was wearing his black bands, a hoodie, and jeans. He looked bored. He looked like he was thinking about grocery lists. But Neil saw the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes didn't blink.
Andrew didn't look at Katelyn. He didn't look at Aaron. He walked straight to the gurney, stepping into Neil’s personal space.
He looked at the bandage. Then he looked at Neil’s face.
"Start talking," Andrew said. His voice was dead flat.
"It was a stray," Neil said. "Old business. Not the Moriyamas."
"Name?"
"Didn't give one. I think he worked for my father. Washed up. Desperate."
Andrew’s eyes flicked to the bandage again. "And the arm?"
"Fourteen stitches," Neil said. "No nerve damage. I can play in two weeks."
Andrew stared at him for a long moment. He reached out, his hand hovering near Neil’s face. He waited, giving Neil the second to pull away. Neil didn't. Andrew hooked his fingers under Neil’s chin, tilting his head up, checking his pupils, checking for lies.
"You're an idiot," Andrew said.
"I know."
Andrew let go of his chin and finally turned to look at the others. He looked at Aaron, who was still looking at the floor. He looked at Katelyn, covered in Neil’s blood.
Andrew stared at the blood on Katelyn’s shirt. He did the math instantly.
"She called the ambulance," Neil said, answering the unasked question. "She stopped the bleeding."
Andrew looked at Katelyn. It wasn't a friendly look, Andrew didn't do friendly, but the threat level in his posture lowered from 'Lethal' to 'Warning.' He gave her a single, curt nod.
Then he turned back to Aaron.
"We're leaving," Andrew said. "Get her out of here. She smells like copper."
Aaron flinched, snapping out of his daze. He reached for Katelyn’s hand. "Come on. I have clothes in the car. You need to… we need to get that off you."
Katelyn looked at Neil. "You're okay?"
"I'm fine," Neil said. "Go."
Aaron hesitated. He looked at Neil one last time. He looked like he wanted to say something. Maybe thank you, maybe fuck you, maybe both. In the end, he just tightened his grip on Katelyn’s hand and pulled her toward the exit.
"Don't die," Aaron muttered as they passed the curtain.
"Try not to fail your exam," Neil retorted.
Aaron flipped him off without looking back.
The curtain swished shut, leaving Neil and Andrew alone in the hum of the trauma bay.
The silence crashed back down on them. Without Aaron’s frantic energy or Katelyn’s shaky determination, the room felt suddenly airtight.
Neil looked at Andrew. Andrew wasn't looking at the exit. He was staring at Neil, his eyes dark and unreadable, his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pockets. He looked exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that had nothing to do with sleep and everything to do with adrenaline.
"I didn't mean to bother you," Neil said quietly. "I told her not to have Aaron wake you up."
Andrew stepped into his space. He moved fast, crowding Neil against the edge of the gurney. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and gripped the edge of the mattress on either side of Neil’s hips, trapping him.
"Shut up," Andrew said.
"It was just a scratch until the knife slipped," Neil tried to explain, the guilt itching under his skin. "It's stupid to have you have to drive all the way—"
Andrew took one hand off the mattress and wrapped it around the back of Neil’s neck. His fingers were cold, but his palm was warm against Neil’s hairline. He squeezed, hard enough to be grounding, forcing Neil to look at him.
"Yes or no?" Andrew asked.
"Yes," Neil breathed.
Andrew kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. It was hard and brief, tasting of bitter coffee and stale cigarettes. It was a claim. It was a check. Andrew verifying that Neil was solid, that he was warm, that he was still there to be touched in the first place.
Neil closed his eyes, leaning into the pressure, letting the familiar contact steady the world that had been tilting since 5 AM.
Andrew pulled back just as abruptly as he’d moved in. He didn't step away, though. He kept his hand on Neil’s neck for one second longer, his thumb brushing the pulse point under Neil’s jaw, checking the rhythm.
"You are a threat to my sanity," Andrew muttered.
"I know," Neil said.
Andrew finally released him. He stepped back, putting distance between them, putting his armor back on. He walked over to the counter and leaned against it, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You ran in the dark," Andrew stated.
"I like the dark."
"You got stabbed by a ghost."
"He was slow," Neil defended.
"And yet," Andrew pointed at the gauze. "You are the one bleeding."
"I had to keep her clear," Neil said.
Andrew went silent. He studied Neil, his gaze heavy and unreadable. "You saved her."
"She's part of things," Neil said. "Indirectly."
"No," Andrew said. "She isn't."
"She makes Aaron functional," Neil argued. "If she dies, Aaron breaks. If Aaron breaks, you get… difficult."
"Difficult," Andrew repeated, deadpan.
"Homicidal," Neil corrected.
Andrew pushed off the counter, snagging Neil's shoes from where they'd had him strip down earlier. They were surprisingly the only things clean.
"You need new clothes," Andrew said, "and I need coffee. We are leaving."
"I haven't been technically discharged."
"I don't care." Andrew tossed the shoes onto the bed. "Put them on. If you pass out on the way to the car, I am leaving you in the parking lot."
"You won't," Neil said, sliding off the gurney.
The room spun, just a little. Neil stumbled, his knee buckling.
Andrew was there instantly. He put a hand on Neil’s back, between his shoulder blades. It wasn't a shove. It was a brace, steady and warm, holding him upright against the pull of gravity.
Neil looked at him. Andrew’s face was blank, but his grip on Neil’s shirt was tight.
"Try me," Andrew said.
Neil smiled. It was small, tired, and real. "Okay."