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“I’m sore, Felix. Diving for balls all day takes a toll on the spine.” He gestured at the ground behind him with a lazy flick of his hand. “And the rookies are so unreliable these days. They forget things.”
The defensive line’s equipment bag sat at his feet, a massive canvas sack stuffed with weighted vests, cones, medicine balls. Eighty pounds of gear, minimum.
“Pick it up,” Anatol said.
I stared at the bag. “That’s rookie work.”
“Is it?” He tilted his head. “I thought the Captain served the team. Leading by example and all that.”
He stepped closer, looming over me, blocking out the stadium lights, and lifted one hand to tap the side of his nose.
The Secret.
“My back really hurts, Felix. And when I’m in pain, I get chatty. I might accidentally mention on live TV how strange it is that Regillen’s ankle healed in a few hours.”
He waited. He wanted to see it, the exact moment the King broke.
The choice was simple, dignity or survival.
The bag looked like a dead body wrapped in canvas.
I bent down.
A ripple of shock went through the remaining players on the sideline. Sylla stood up. Varo froze mid-stretch. They were watching their captain kneel, and the silence in the Colosseum was absolute.
I grabbed the straps and hoisted the sack onto my shoulder, grunting as the canvas scraped up my neck where the bruise hid under the collar.
Anatol watched me settle the weight, then nodded, satisfied.
“Good man,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “That’s leadership. Clean the mud off them before you rack them, yeah?”
I gritted my teeth, adjusted the load until it sat painfully across my trap muscle, and trudged toward the equipment shed with my head down while the eyes of the Tier 1 squad bored into my back.
Leander stood at the mouth of the concrete corridor.
The ice was abandoned back on the bench and a towel hung off his shoulders, and instead of the sneer I had braced for, his face was twisted into an angry confusion. He knew I was arrogant. He knew I was obsessed with status. A man like me did not kneel for a brute like Anatol, and Leander hated things that didn’t make sense.
He reached out to take the bag from me.
Panic spiked in my chest, because that one gesture could collapse everything the last three days had built. Anatol would think we were united, and he would escalate the threat. I couldn’t let him be involved. I had to be the villain so we could be safe.
“Don’t,” I snapped.
Leander froze, his hand hovering in the air. “You’re carrying his trash, Felix. Put it down.”
“I said don’t touch it.” I recoiled from him and swung the heavy bag between us like a shield. “I don’t need your help. I’m the captain. I can handle the gear.”
“You’re not the Captain now,” Leander spat, his eyes flashing with disgust. “You’re his little bitch.”
The word landed harder than any tackle I had taken all season. I stood there and let it, because it was working. The confusion was closing over. The seam was sealing itself shut with exactly the story I needed him to keep.
“Get out of my way, Regillen,” I said. “Go to the dorm. Stay on your side of the line.”
I pushed past him, checking his shoulder hard with mine, and I didn’t look back. If I looked at him, I might crumble.
The equipment shed swallowed me in shadow and the smell of rubber and turf paint. I racked the vests. I shelved the medicine balls in regulation order. I hung the empty bag on its hook, eighty pounds gone off my shoulder in one motion, and stood alone waiting for the relief to arrive.
Nothing got lighter.
