Chapter 3
Vale
SEPTEMBER
“Riviera, go long!”
It takes me a split second longer than it should to realize that means me, and I quickly run to catch the unexpected pass.
You’d think after all these years I’d be used to my new last name. Hell, it’s printed across my jersey and taped across my locker. I write it on every test and paper, and hear it shouted and cheered at every single game.
It should be as a part of me as my first name.
It shouldn’t feel like a lie.
Loud whoops go out around the field as I catch a perfect spiral. Rolling my eyes, I toss the football behind me, not waiting to see who will stumble forward to catch it.
Hands come out to slap mine as I jog over to the bench like I just scored the game-winning touchdown. When really, we’re just warming up before we kick off our biggest, most attended game of the regular season, which is set to start in less than an hour.
The stands are already filling up, forming a sea of black, burgundy, and gray, the official school colors of Grady Prep.
It’s our turn to host this year’s Bell Game—an annual face-off between us and our rivals across the river, in which the victorious team gets custody of the revered, retired town hall bell until the other team can win it back.
It’s been a town tradition for going on eighty years.
There’s an opening ceremony and everything.
Then, tomorrow, the big, bronze monstrosity currently placed at the old Colonel D.
Grady train station—from which our school got its name—will be loaded back up on a cart and rolled across the bridge connecting the town.
Well, that’s only if we lose.
Crowley High hasn’t had a turn with the bell in three years, and we don’t plan on surrendering it anytime soon. Definitely not under my watch.
“Yo.” A shoulder knocks mine, pulling me out of my thoughts. A muscular arm reaches around me for the pile of water bottles.
“S’up,” I mumble, popping the sports cap on my bottle with my teeth, before tipping my head back and shooting a stream of water down my throat.
Fletch, our star defensive lineman, looks around the stadium with hard, determined eyes. “Gonna be a good game. A blow-out.” He nods. “Gonna crush ’em, I can already tell.”
I snort softly at that. “Yeah, how’s that?”
He cuts me a sideways look, black paint smudged across his flushed bronzed cheeks. It’s mid-September, but the sun’s been brutal today; not so much hot as bright. He points to his temple, where his sweat glistens just near his buzzed hairline. “I can just feel it.”
“With your brain?”
He nods, grinning like an idiot. “With my soul.”
“And your soul’s in your brain?”
He steps back, cupping his junk protectively through his burgundy compression pants, and thrusts obscenely into the air. “No, man, it’s allll in here.”
I chuck my bottle at his head, and he ducks just before it could hit him in the nose. He’s still laughing as he turns and jogs away.
With a rueful shake of my head, I remove my helmet.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Casey says, joining me. He plops down on the bench, legs spread out before him, heels of his cleats digging into the grass. “Good catch,” he pants, smirking through his face guard as he glances my way.
“Nice throw,” I say dryly.
As the quarterback to his running back, usually I’m the one barking commands at him and throwing balls his way. Not the other way around.
We stretch and shoot the shit while the D-line runs drills. Soon, we’ll be migrating to the locker rooms for last-minute wrapping and pre-game rituals. Coach will do his little speech to get us all hyped up, and then it’s go-time.
It’s one of my favorite parts of the game.
That anticipation just inside the tunnel before we get the go-ahead to run full-steam ahead onto the field.
Heart racing. Chest vibrating. Music blaring from the speakers, warring with the thundering crowd as we explode through whatever fancy-ass banner the cheerleaders put together for that week.
Never gets old, even if everything else about high school has.
“Oh, hey, there’s your dad.” Casey goes to wave, but quickly pulls his hand back, sucking in air through his teeth. “Damn. Remind me to never get on his bad side. He looks pissed.”
Frowning, I turn my head to follow his gaze.
Over by the concession stand, I can just make out the first three letters of my last name printed across a burgundy jersey. Angled away from the field, he paces in a small circle, phone pressed to his ear.
My frown only deepens when Quentin throws a hand up, before jabbing a finger in the general direction of the field. I catch sight of his profile—his rigidly held jaw—and can practically see the flare of his nostrils from here.
It’s not so much that my adoptive dad is upset that has me concerned. It’s that he’s visibly upset.
Quentin Riviera is nothing if not carefully controlled.
Poised. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this animated in all the years I’ve known him.
Even back before he took me in, when he had no choice but to stand in front of a courtroom and defend the people—the system—who failed me in a state-level court case that made national headlines, he wasn’t this… expressive.
He won the case, because of course he did. He wasn’t the state’s attorney for nothing. The man is a ruthless, callous force to be reckoned with when he has to be.
But despite what prosecutors might say, he isn’t heartless.
Hell, to make up for what he had to do, he adopted me. What better way to right such a wrong, than by saving one of its victims from winding up in another shitty home?
Casey whistles under his breath. “Who do you think he’s talking to?”
I shake my head. “No clue.” Yet I can’t escape the feeling that whatever's going on somehow involves me.
That hunch is confirmed a second later when Quentin’s eyes dart my way. He abruptly stops talking when our gazes clash, his eyes widening a fraction while mine narrow, his shoulders tensing at having been caught mid-tirade.
What the fuck is going on?
Lips pursed, he rubs a hand across his stubbly jaw, and glances away, nodding to whoever’s on the other end of the call. He says something I can’t make out before hanging up.
“Yo, did you guys hear?” a voice pants.
Casey shifts his attention to the newcomer.
Not really in the mood to hear whatever fresh tea’s got my teammates foaming at the mouth, I tune them out.
Just when it looks like Quentin’s about to make his way over here and hopefully shed some insight as to what’s going on, something in his periphery steals his attention. Freezing him in place.
The fingers knotted in his hair are slow to release and drop to his side to hang lifelessly. And it’s then, at that perfectly timed moment, a snippet of conversation from behind me filters through, taking a half-second longer than it should to register.
“Ashwood as in the insane asylum?” Casey blurts.
No…
Oh fuck no.
My vision begins to tunnel, blackening around the edges. Next thing I know, I’ve whirled around and grabbed the collar of some underclassman’s jersey. “The fuck you say?”
The kid’s eyes widen, cheeks visibly blanching.
I’m dimly aware of Casey letting out an uneasy laugh. “Dude…”
Throat constricting around my swallow, I release whatever his name is, shoving him back a step.
He gulps, darting a look just over my shoulder. “Um, I was just telling Casey about the new charity case. My mom’s on the school board. Guess they had an emergency meeting today to address some, uh, concerns. He starts Monday.”
“Did you get a name?”
The kid gives a quick, jerky shake of his head. “A-all I know is he’s enrolling as a s-senior. And r-r-rumor has it he… he—”
I snap my fingers impatiently. “He what?”
“Vale,” Casey warns softly. I can feel him shifting nervously next to me, as if debating whether or not to risk a season-ending injury.
The kid’s shaking like a leaf, but I don’t care. I stare him down hard, waiting.
Another audible swallow, then, “K-killed someone.”
I go utterly and completely still.
It can’t be…
“That so?” I say in a dangerously quiet voice.
The kid nods. Shrugs. Shakes his head. “I-I don’t know. L-like I said, it’s just a rumor. I mean, just ’cause he was a patient at Ashwood—if-if that’s even true—doesn’t mean he’s dangerous?” He says it like a question.
“My uncle did a stint there,” Casey says, nodding. “Bipolar. Stopped taking his meds, and just got, like, super depressed. Definitely not a threat to—”
At the look I shoot him, he raises a hand. “Shutting up now.”
“Anything else?” I say quietly to the kid, my tone flat.
His face reddens, and he shakes his head.
Nodding shortly, I dismiss him and make my way over to the bench.
It takes me a second to realize Casey’s followed, and he’s saying something, his voice slow to penetrate the heavy fog clouding my senses.
“...that about?”
I give a little shake of my head. “Nothing.” Out of habit, I go to fiddle with my eyebrow piercing, only to remember I had to take it out for the game.
“Didn’t seem like nothing.”
I sigh, drop my hand to my lap, and cut him a flat look.
Rolling his eyes, he says, “Fine. Whatever.” A beat passes, before he can no longer resist asking, “Do you think it’s true?”
“What?”
“That this dude murdered someone when he was only twelve years old? That would mean he’s been locked up for, what, five? Six years?”
“Congrats, you can do math.”
My heart pounds. I must’ve missed that part of the conversation.
Casey scowls, but it’s quick to morph into a snort of laughter. He shoves my shoulder. “Asswipe. What’s it to you anyway?”
Spreading my legs, I rest my elbows on my thighs and hang my head between my padded shoulders. I don’t say anything right away. It’s not often I lose control like I just did, and it’s for this very reason.