Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“If you tell me that you can read a single word,” Jeremy started.
“Some of them I can read very well,” Jean said, wrenching out of Jeremy’s grip. He got up and went to take his second notebook away from Cat. It only took him a second to decide he didn’t trust them to not go through them again, and then he gathered the rest and turned as if to carry them out of the room. Laila neatly stepped between him and the door with a grim expression.
“Move,” Jean warned her.
Laila didn’t budge. “Why?”
Jeremy was sure she meant why did you keep them, not why did they do it, but Jean said, “I left the Raven lineup during championships. They were justifiably angry.”
“Justifiably—” Cat was too furious to finish it; Jeremy heard her audibly choke on the rest of her outburst.
“Them losing this spring had nothing to do with you leaving,” Jeremy said. “Even if you’d stayed, you couldn’t have helped them. You were off the court for twelve weeks with injuries.”
“Three fractured ribs,” Cat said, as if Jean had somehow forgotten. She and Jean stared each other down, righteous fury on one side and hostile defiance on the other, as she recited Kevin’s text message from memory. “Sprained LCL. Twisted ankle. Broken nose. Fuck them. Fuck them,” she said again when Jean made a quick, dismissive gesture.
“You don’t understand,” Jean said. “You never will.”
“I understand that they beat you within an inch of your life and then rioted when you left,” Cat snapped back. “I’ve been watching and tracking rumors for months, and I’ve lived with you long enough to know how many of them have to be bullshit. They’re dragging you through the mud, but you won’t even try to defend yourself.”
“Cat,” Jeremy tried, getting to his feet in case he needed to break them up. “Yelling at him isn’t going to fix anything.”
Cat ignored him and jabbed a finger at Jean. “How dare they blame you for anything after what they did to you. How dare you grieve them.”
It hit like a sucker punch, but Jean’s frustrated rejoinder was worse: “They don’t know.”
It was not at all what he meant to say. Jeremy saw it in the horror that flickered across his face and the hand that came up a half-second too late to cover his mouth. The silence that fell in the room was absolute, until all Jeremy could hear was his heart drumming bruises into his lungs. All of Cat’s anger had gone out of her; she could only stare at Jean in stunned disbelief and incomprehension.
Laila moved faster than a snake to catch Jean’s wrist. How she held on when Jean flinched at her touch, Jeremy didn’t know; he himself took an involuntary step back to give Jean more space.
“What does that mean?” Laila demanded, but Jean wouldn’t even look at her.
In another moment he’d draw blood where his fingernails were burrowed into his cheek, and Jeremy had the fleeting idea that Jean wanted to tear his own face off to take back what he’d said. The warning bubbled in his chest, but Jeremy’s voice was gone. Maybe Laila saw it too, because her knuckles went bloodless where she was holding onto Jean.
“How could they not know?” she asked.
“No,” Jean said, muffled through his hand. “Forget it.”
“Jean, please.” Cat hooked her fingers over his in a vain attempt to get his hand loose. “Talk to us, okay? Just talk to us.”
Jeremy’s mind was going a thousand miles a minute, sorting through every aborted and rejected conversation he’d had with Jean these last few weeks. He thought about Jean’s grief and his rarer anger. If the Ravens didn’t know how badly he’d been hurt, then they couldn’t have done this to him. But the Ravens were always at Evermore, so who else could have been responsible? Who else was allowed access to the hive mind? Who else could inflict such violence without any retribution from the coaches?
“Coach Moriyama?” he guessed, but even as he said it, he rejected it. Kevin transferred with a broken hand; Jean transferred with fractured ribs. Why a coach would destroy his star players during championships was unfathomable, especially when he’d gone out of his way to orchestrate a spectacular rematch between Riko and Kevin. But if the Ravens weren’t to blame, and the so-called master was innocent, it came down to one person. One improbable, impossible person whom the Foxes hated with an unsubtle and unexplained ferocity.
He wasn’t sure what showed on his face, but Jean abruptly yanked out of Laila’s grip. She went for him again, but Jean threw his notebooks at her and was out of the room a heartbeat later. Jeremy was a half-second too slow to grab hold of him, so he chased him down the hall instead. Jean tried to slam the bedroom door in his face, but Jeremy shouldered it open. Cat and Laila were kind enough to stop right outside the doorway to watch, but Jeremy crossed the room when Jean did and waited just out of arm’s reach.