Sympathy For The Devil

3. The Cost

The "sterling reputation" for which Nazz had expressed her dubious concern remained intact, if it didn't come away even more polished than before. When in the water, Eddward was quick and methodical; out of the water, he paced restlessly like an impatient predator. In spite of himself, Kevin found the whole display strangely intriguing, and despite his attempts to focus on other teams, or at least other Peach Creek swimmers, Eddward continually drew his attention. To say the least, he was a distraction from almost everything else. Kevin held out for most of the events, but as minutes and events dragged on, a small oversight began to make itself known. With a grimace, he glanced to the equally packed seats on either side of him. He sat uncomfortably, fidgeted a bit, tapped his foot, and finally sighed and stood up.

"Bathroom," he assured Nazz when he caught sight of her look of alarm. "I'll be right back."

The path to his left was shorter, and thus the lesser of two evils. With many profuse apologies, and as few collisions as he could manage, he laboriously stumbled over countless feet before he reached the stairs. He breathed a sigh of relief, only to scowl when he noted all the people who, finding a lack of vacancies on the actual bleachers, had settled for seating themselves on the steps. Maneuvering them was a complicated dance in which one wrong move would send him tumbling ass over teakettle to the bottom, and the only thing more embarrassing than that would be standing up and loudly asking the swim captain out on a coffee date or something.

Kevin shuddered.

Once he was safely at the bottom, he had little room to think about how he would get back up to his seat. Damn it, he really should not have waited so long. Keeping his head down, as if that would help him remain undetected, he walked quickly out of the pool area before taking off in the direction of the nearest restroom.

Well, the second nearest, anyhow. Technically, the nearest one was in the locker room, but there was no way he was going to set foot in there. As he hurried by the open door, he could hear movement inside, and darted past to the next available restroom.

He emerged momentarily, wondering if he had missed anything exciting. He doubted it, however; the only meaningful event he could have missed would be a failure on Eddward's part, and he was close enough that he would have heard the dismayed wailing. As he approached the locker room again, he hoped absently that whoever had been inside had already left. To his disappointment, and immediate alarm, he could hear them emerging as he passed.

On instinct, Kevin broke into a run - light-footed, holding his breath - until he reached relative safety around the nearest corner. Behind him, multiple sets of footsteps told him that he had just barely managed to escape their notice.

"Come on, hurry up before someone sees!"

The hushed warning aroused just enough curiosity that Kevin ducked around the corner and cautiously peeked out.

"Dude, this is awesome."

"You're crazy, man. We're gonna get caught!"

"So what? Someone was bound to prank that asshole sometime."

Three boys, each of them easily over six feet, had emerged from the swim team's locker room. None of them, from what he could tell, were swimmers themselves; in fact, he thought he recognized two of them from the track team. One of them was grinning manically; the other two seemed to be various levels of nervous and triumphant. Mystified, he looked at the first again. The glint of something small and metallic drew his gaze to the jock's clenched fist, and he squinted to see what it was.

His eyes flew open in shock.

The trio set off together, thankfully in the direction that led away from where he stood frozen. Their voices, though hushed, reached him nonetheless.