Page 27 of Reckless At Raleigh High
“All that aside, I won’t be bringing this up again. And I won’t be going easy on you, Parisi. Mollycoddling does more damage than good, and I’m guessing you might want things to be as normal as possible for your remaining months here as a senior. Am I way off base?”
“No, Coach Foley. You’re rightonbase.”
“Good.” Perfunctory. All business. I like this about her. She shuffles a bunch of papers, organizing them into one neat stack, which she places in the ‘out’tray on her desk. “There are only so many spots on this team. You were a good cheerleader once upon a time, but you were always deferring to Kacey, dumbing down your own talents so she could shine. I knew you could be better, and now I’m demanding it from you. There won’t be any in-fighting. No backstabbing. No arguments, and no drama. If I see things going south with the Sirens, I will confiscate your damn uniforms and disband this shit quicker than you can say ‘Go, Rebels, Go.’Do we understand each other?”
“Um…you mean Roughnecks?”
“No. I meanRebels, kiddo. This football team was called the Raleigh Rebels for twenty-two years before Caleb Weaving showed up and made Jim change their name. He wanted an all-new brand for his son to rule over, but Jake isn’t here anymore, and neither is his fucking father. It’s about time this school remembered its roots. We’re going back to the Rebels. Now, I repeat. Do we understand each other, Silver?”
For someone who just reprimanded us for cursing, her language choice is a little colorful. I nod, though, answering her question. “I’m here to train and nothing else. You won’t get any trouble out of me.”
“What about that boyfriend of yours?”
“Sorry?”
“The new kid. I haven’t even seen him yet, but I’ve heard plenty. Sounds like he’s got trouble tattooed on his back.”
“The tattoo on his back actually says ‘Unbreakable’,” I tell her, my mouth aching around the smile that’s trying to bully its way onto my face.
Coach Foley gives me a wry sidelong look. “He’s been caught up with the cops before. And now he wants on the football team? I wanna know what to expect from him.”
I hide my surprise well. Nearly a month has passed since Ben’s funeral and things have been…well, they’ve been hard. Alex has dipped in and out of that scary dark recess in his mind, floundering every once in a while, as he struggles to overcome his grief. But at the same time, he’s been trying. He’s been studying ferociously, acing all of his assignments. Every day, he runs five miles in the cold sleet and snow before school. He works on his bike in the small garage at the back of the hardware store. He’s even started picking up some shifts when Henry needs to drive down to Seattle for supplies. He might not be working at the Rock anymore, but he’s found plenty of other ways to fill his time. Every single moment of his day is full. He’s always moving, always busy, always keeping his mind occupied. And now he wants on the football team again? He tried out at the beginning of the year, but Caleb Weaving had him booted not long after. I assumed he didn’t really give a shit, but that can’t be true if Coach Foley is right about him requesting his spot back.
“Uh…Alex is determined. Passionate. He works hard,” I tell Coach Foley. “He’s still a mess after his brother’s death, but…he probably needs this. He’s trying to stay afloat. He’s not gonna cause any issues for you, I promise.”
* * *
Creeeeaaaak.
“Quit flailing, Silver. It’s done. It’s fuckingdone.”
Jake’s vicious words taunt me on my approach to the gym. I’ve been walking around the outside of the school for long enough now; I know I can’t avoid the it forever. That doesn’t mean that my anxiety isn’t riding high, though. The last time I walked, or rather I wasdraggeddown this hallway, I had broken ribs, my face had been mashed to a pulp and I was about to be hung by the neck from the rafters. Such violent memories are enough to make even the strongest person break out into a cold sweat.
Creeeeeeeeaaaaaak.
“You want the pain. You want the humiliation. You want to be degraded, hit and kicked and spit on. It’s all you know now. It breeds inside you like a plague.”
I can’t differentiate between my heartbeats. My pulse pounds at my temples like a drum. It throbs in the soles of my feet,dum, dum, dum, dum, out of control.
But…wait.
The pounding, it isn’t my pulse. It’s asound, outside of my body. A repetitive banging, stomping…and it’s coming from inside the gym.
“Oh my god, he’s gonna fucking kill him!”
Coach Foley frowns, quickening her pace. “What thehell?”
I have a bad feeling about this. Too cold and snowy to practice outside right now, the Sirens and the Rebels are having to share the gym for their training sessions, which makes for seriously close quarters. A high-pitched scream splits the air in two just as Coach Foley slams the gym doors open and storms her way through the knot of students who have all formed a tight circle around—
Oh,great.
Around a very familiar looking senior with vine tattoos tangled around the column of his neck, and another student with a Dreadnaughts MC badge inked onto his upper right arm.
It’s Alex and Zander.
Of course it fucking is.
Coach Foley scowls at me over her shoulder. “No issues, huh? I’m assuming one of these morons belongs to you?”
