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He thought it was ego. He thought I was jealous.
Good. Let him think that. It was safer than the truth.
“Back off, Regillen,” I snapped. “It’s one drill.”
“It’s our ranking!”
“Reset!” Gallus yelled. “Last run. Get it right, or you’re both running laps until you vomit.”
We lined up again.
Anatol winked at me from the goal.
We ran the drill. Again Leander worked himself open, and this time he did it out of spite, a run so clean it was an argument. Again I refused the pass. I took a bad shot from twenty yards out instead, leaning back as I struck it so the physics would finish the sabotage for me, and the ball sailed over the crossbar into the empty stands.
The whistle blew. The session was over.
“Pathetic,” Gallus spat. “Symbiosis failed. Aggression without coordination is useless.”
He tapped his datapad.
My wrist vibrated.
COMPLIANCE DROP: -2%.
STATUS: CRITICAL.
I had saved us from the court-martial, but I was digging my own grave with the rankings.
I walked toward the sideline.
Leander intercepted me, drenched in sweat, his chest heaving, furious.
“You sold me out,” he said. “Just like before, you refuse to play with me.”
“I played my game,” I said, keeping my face blank.
“You played like a coward.”
He spat on the turf between my cleats.
“Stay out of my way in the dorm, Felix. If you speak to me, I’ll cut you.”
He stormed off toward the locker room.
I stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away, tracking his silhouette until the shadows of the tunnel swallowed him whole.
Anatol jogged off the field. He pointed a finger at me, then tapped his nose. We have a deal.
CHAPTER 13
LEANDER
Silence settled over the room like concrete, filling the space between the beds until the air felt too heavy to breathe.
Three days passed in a blur of gray routine where we trained, we ate, and we returned to this box without speaking a word. Felix Cento, who argued with coaches and the Director, had honored my one rule to the letter. I should have counted that as a win. Instead it sat wrong in my gut, because obedience was the last thing I had ever expected from him, and he gave it completely, every hour, without once pushing the line.
The Duo Dorm was a cage designed for two, but we lived in it like ghosts haunting the same graveyard. The only sounds were the squeak of mattress springs and the hiss of the shower, and under the sounds the room kept its own record of us, my analgesic balm warring with the soap Felix used to scrub his skin. We breathed, we moved, but we did not talk.
