AllFreeNovel
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“This is the last year they’ll ever truly be free,” the coach tells me. “This game may be the highlight of their lives.”
But not mine. He knows I have everything in front of me, and I’ll leave this place in the dust once I graduate.
I gaze over the faces of my team as they smile and joke around. In ten years, most of them will have a life no one will want.
“Go on!” Coach yells at them. “Get out of here!”
“Yeah!” they howl.
I start after them, but Dewitt stops me with two fingers in my chest.
“You run,” he orders me. “Three miles. Then you can go.”
He nudges me back, and I look at everyone gathering up their gear and making their way out to enjoy their day off.
Withholding my sigh, because I know I deserve this, I pivot and jog for the track that circles the football field. Stepping onto the broken, faded clay, I start the first of twelve laps, trying to be quick about it, but I eventually settle into an easy pace, indulging in the quiet and the light sprinkle of rain.
Dewitt is right. I have tunnel vision. I want to win, but I’m using them, and I used to be better than this. Making everything about me makes me no better than Kade, and I like it here. I like these people.
I was a good kid. I liked doing science experiments and research just for the hell of it. Because I was curious.
I read and collected, explored and tried new things, and now…
Now I’m him.
He never used to be this way, either. Cocky and arrogant and smug. He was always bolder than me, but he liked me.
What good is winning the game if he changes me?
I don’t know how many laps I’ve done, but I spot Dylan and Farrow leaving on his bike and pick up my pace. She wears her jacket—the same one Mace stole a few days ago—and she and Farrow rush off, looking like they’re in a hurry. It’s her birthday today. I should say something.
I race a couple of more laps for good measure and gather my stuff from my gym locker, not bothering to change.
Heading into the parking lot, I see Constin hanging with a few others.
“Give me your bike and take my car,” I tell him, holding out my keys.
He stares at my hand, sucking a drag off a cigarette. He’s not one to be told things, especially when I came down on him the other morning for being in Dylan’s house.
But he digs out his keys, tossing them to me, because my car is worth a lot more than his bike. I hand him my set and take his helmet before climbing on his motorcycle.
I head home.
I’ll shower, change clothes... Maybe run into the Falls to see my parents. The Pirates have school today, so Kade won’t be around town.
But the first thing I check for when I pull up in front of my grandfather’s brownstone is Farrow’s bike. I run inside Dylan’s house, finding the door unlocked and no sign of her.
It takes about two seconds for me to realize where he took her.
Jumping back on the bike, I coast down the hill, toward the docks, and turn onto River Road. I don’t have a motorcycle license or a lot of experience, so I cruise slowly, the bike rocking ever so slightly as I navigate the bumpy roads and swerve around potholes.
I’m glad Dylan can’t see me now, but to my satisfaction, Kade isn’t a whole lot better on a bike. He has one, but he prefers his truck. It fits his crew.
I stop at the sign, just before the hill, and lift my visor before I take out my phone. Holding it up, I zoom in on thetrack snaking through the trees higher and higher, spotting Dylan and Farrow zooming in and out of view.
She’s on another bike. Goddammit. Did he take her to Green Street to get one? I’m going to kill him.
She’s there again, in my lens, but then I lose sight of her as she curves with the street. I hold my breath as she slides around the Throat, disappearing.
