Page 63 of The Golden Receiver

I focused harder on the scuff. It was a strange shape. It reminded me of a picture of a parallelogram from my high school geometry textbook, except it veered off at the very end. Like some kind of spotty tail leading away into nothingness.

“I was leaving the library, and I was cornered. I was surrounded. There were five of them,” I started. My eyes closed as the images began to cloud my head, as clearly as if it were happening now. Happening again. “They said—they said some things about the team. About how I didn’t belong here, took their spots, things like that.”

“Do you know who it was?” Coach Shaw demanded, his voice deathly serious.

I sucked in a sharp breath before forcing myself to look up at my coaches. I couldn’t look at Evander right now. “No,” I lied.

Evander’s hand tightened on my knee, and I knew he did not approve of my lie. I knew he wanted me to tell everything, to have Willis, Reyes, and Hopkins punished for their late-night attack. To get the coaches to pry out the names of my other attackers.

“It was the blood moon. They were—they weren’t in their human forms,” I told him. At least this part was honest. If they hadn’t spoken, I never would have known who had attacked me. I probably could have figured it out from context clues, but there was no need to clue our coaches in on that little tidbit. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but⁠—”

“You did the right thing,” Coach Erikkson interrupted. “Tell us everything, and we will get to the bottom of this.”

I spent the better part of the next hour answering questions about the attack. I told them what I could remember of what my attackers had said. I described my attackers, but I left it as vague as I could. They might have wanted to figure out who was to blame for all this, but I didn’t need the trouble.

Even if I gave them the names I knew, there would still be the two I didn’t. There could still be other people on the team ready to take up where Willis, Reyes, and Hopkins left off.

It wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make me safer.

After they were finished, they called up the team doctor and made me get checked out. There wasn’t any real damage that they could see, but they told me I needed to sit out the next few practices. I’d probably be forced to sit out the next game, too.

Guess Willis was going to get his wish and get to start.

It was well past lunchtime when Evander and I finally made our way back to Karloff Hall. We stopped by my room long enough to get me a change of clothes. I was lucky none of my roommates were out in the common area. I could hear the TV coming from Zay’s room, and I could hear other kinds of noises coming from Ryker and Teagan’s room. I sure as hell wasn’t going to interrupt them to tell them what happened. I knew it would have to happen eventually, but I was more than happy to put it off.

“How’d it go?” Preston asked when we stepped into his suite. He was sitting in the same chair he’d been in when we’d left, meticulously highlighting a passage from a textbook. “Did you make them pay?”

“No,” Evander grumbled. “Kieran stopped me before I could get my claws in them.”

“Yeah, heaven forbid I stop you from assaulting someone,” I scoffed. I wasn’t going to regret that decision either. “He made me talk to our coach instead. Coach made me see the team doctor. Now, I just want to fucking relax.”

“Let me know if you two need anything,” Preston requested before he went back to his highlighting.

I followed Evander back to his room. The moment the door was shut, he leaned in and gave me a soft kiss. I knew he was trying to watch out for the bruising on my face and my busted lip, and I appreciated the care. He pulled back and went to sit on his bed. I sat down beside him, because the only other place to sit was that uncomfortable as all hell desk chair.

I was in enough pain.

“Why didn’t you tell them who it was?” Evander asked the second we were sitting down. The way the words came out made me wonder how long he’d been holding them in.

I knew I owed him that answer, but I also knew he wouldn’t understand my reasons. Nothing I said could make him see why I’d made the choice I did. I knew he’d hoped that Willis and Reyes got some kind of punishment for what they did, but I just couldn’t do it.

“Snitches get stitches?” I suggested with my best attempt at a soothing smile. I could feel on my face that it was a failed attempt.

His face made it pretty damn clear too. His usual smile was nowhere to be seen. In fact, in the past twenty-four hours, I’d seen him looking serious more times than I had in the months I’d known him. I didn’t like it. I’d much rather have him smiling like an idiot while he chased his own tail or got distracted by a squirrel on campus or whatever it was he was doing. This serious demeanor just looked wrong on him.

But it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Not telling keeps you in danger.” His voice was just as serious as his face, and it was just as out of place.

I wanted to poke him or something. Do something to put a smile back on his face. Unfortunately, with the mood he was in, I didn’t think it would do either of us much good.

“And you think getting them kicked off the team would make them my biggest fans?” I questioned with a raised brow. “They’d just get more pissed. Look at it this way. I’m sitting out this week’s game. They won. When Willis shows his ass off on the field and the team loses, maybe they’ll realize there’s a reason I’m starting over them.”

Evander seemed to contemplate this for a moment. He sat stiller and quieter than I’d ever seen him. In fact, I didn’t know it was possible for him to be so still or quiet. He was always moving, always talking, always tapping his fingers or doing something. He was loud and energetic, and just like that serious look on his face, this seemed wrong.

I needed to explain more. I needed to explain better. “Besides, I only know three of the five people who attacked me,” I told him. “That leaves two people who could do it again. And who knows if there are other people on the team who think like they do. Friends of theirs that would be willing to join in and help them get their revenge.” I shook my head. “It’s better this way.”

It had to be.