Aftg react

Part49

Foxes react: chapter 2

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He didn't remember putting his head down and definitely didn't remember falling asleep. Fingers digging into the back of his skull startled him awake. He grabbed for a gun, for a knife, for anything close enough to buy him room to flee, and sent the computer mouse skidding across the table. Neil stared blankly at it, then at the screen in front of him. Fingers clenched into a fist in his hair and Neil didn't resist as Andrew forcibly tilted his head back.
"Is your learning curve a horizontal line?" Andrew asked. "I told you yesterday to stop making my life difficult."
"And I told you I wouldn't promise anything."
Andrew let go of him and watched pitilessly as Neil rubbed at his head. Neil sat up straight and started shutting his browsers down.

They grimaced at this, it was sad for some to see how two weeks had effected by these two weeks spend in Edgar Allan, Kevin had a face of understanding since he knew how hard it was to break the Ravens schedule.
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When she was done with his upper half she still had to take care of his legs. The striped bruises across his thighs, left there by heavy racquets, had her pursing her lips in outrage. There were layers of them, fresher purple ones over fading green and yellow. Neil's knees weren't better off, consequence of falling to them so many times.
"Coach won't let me on the court until you clear me," Neil said. "How soon can you?"
Abby looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. "You can gear up when you don't look like you were trampled in the derby."
"I'm getting better," Neil said. "Besides, I played in worse shape at Evermore."
"This isn't Evermore. I know the season is important to you, but I won't let you risk your safety and health any further. You need to take it easy for a while. For a week," she said, raising her voice when Neil started to protest. "Next Tuesday I'll decide whether or not I want to let you play. If you do anything strenuous between now and then I will bench you for another week. Understand? Use this week to rest. And when you can, leave the bandages off. These need to air."
"A week," Neil echoed. "That isn't fair."
"No," Abby said, and cupped his face in her hands. "This isn't fair. None of this is."
The pain in her voice killed Neil's argument in his throat. Abby looked him over, tracing his vicious scars and new wounds with a desolate gaze.
"Sometimes I think this job is going to kill me," Abby said. "Seeing what people have done, what people continue to do, to my Foxes. I wish I could protect you, but I'm always too late. All I can do is patch you up afterward and hope for the best. I'm sorry, Neil. We should have been there for you."
"I wouldn't have let you be," Neil said.
Abby folded her arms around him and pulled him into a hug. She tried to be careful, but it hurt regardless.

They were angry to see all the new marks and scars Neil had gotten and their feelings grew more and more by the seconds it was bad but regardless how mad they were for now it was overcame by the sadness from hearing Abby's words.
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Andrew had brought a small knife out and was turning it over and over between his fingers. It wasn't one of the ones he kept in his arm bands, but Neil wasn't surprised he didn't recognize it. He almost never saw the same knife twice.
"It is not that fascinating," Andrew said.
"No," Neil agreed.
He didn't know how to explain the complicated emotions a sharp
blade stirred up. His father was called the Butcher for a reason. His favorite weapon was a cleaver sharp and hefty enough to take limbs off in a single hack.

They tensed up hearing something like that all except Renee and Andrew both knew violence they grew up around it even if it was a different kind. No one wants to know what would happen it Neil's father or his men cough up with him.
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Before the cleaver Nathan Wesninski used an axe. He still kept that axe around for when he really wanted someone to suffer. The blade was dull enough now it required a bit of extra weight and effort to cut through bone. Neil only saw him use it once, the day he met Riko and Kevin at Evermore Stadium.
"It's just..." Neil grasped for words, too-aware that the conversation across the room had quieted down a little. The upperclassmen were trying to listen in without being obvious.

They remember that moment it was almost funny to see themselves act like that but right now with what they were listening to it would be impossible for anyone to even smile at it.
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Neil settled for the vaguest explanation he could and hoped his teammates would mistake the pronoun for Riko. "I've never understood why he likes knives."
Such simple words should not have gotten the reaction they did. Andrew went still and looked up, but he didn't look at Neil. He looked at Renee, so Neil did, too. She'd stopped mid-sentence to stare at Neil, but the Renee studying him wasn't the Foxes' redeemed optimist. Her sweet smile was gone and the too-blank look on her face reminded Neil of Andrew. Neil instinctively tensed for flight-or-fight. Before his body figured out what to do Renee shifted her inscrutable gaze to Andrew.
They stared each other down, soundless and still, oblivious to the bewildered looks their teammates sent between them. Andrew didn't say anything, but Renee lifted her chin. Andrew hummed in response and put the knife away.
"He will lose his taste when he has one in his gut," he said.

Now since they had the whole picture to look at they understood even more because it was the truth the had believed he meant Riko but knowing that his worries were not about him but his father made everyone uneasy and they hoped it would not come down to something like that.