Page 38 of Blood Sport

The piercing blue eyes of the man I saw that night standing over their bodies appear in my mind. Would it be such a bad idea to tell Miles what I remembered? I want to tell him in the hopes that it’ll help the police find the monster who took our parents away from us, but there is something deep within my soul telling me that he wasn’t the person who took their lives. Maybe it was the pain in his voice as he said my mom's name or the sadness in his eyes when he looked at me, I don’t know.

Then why was he there that night?

Nothing about the man adds up in my mind, but then again, I don’t know much at all about the investigation, so that must be why I can’t make sense of the mysterious man and his presence that night.

As much as I want to pressure Miles into giving me more information, I know he’s not going to budge on his stance of keeping me in the dark to protect me. I want to tell him that I don’t need protection anymore because I’m an adult, but that isn’t going to change his mind, and I know that.

All of this is giving me a fucking headache.

I sigh. “I want to know who killed them, Miles,” I whisper, shaking my head. “It kills me that I don’t remember more from that night or who hurt them.” I can feel tears forming in the corner of my eyes as my emotions get the best of me.

Miles reaches across the table and places his hand on my shoulder. The gentle squeeze he gives is comforting. “I know, Ev, and I’m sorry you feel this burden. But I promise you that once we know more, I will fill you in on the details, okay? Until then, you’ll just have to be patient and trust me.”

I blink back the tears and nod. Although I don’t know if I can be patient. There is an itch inside my chest that is telling me to keep pushing, that the nightmares I’ve been having mean something. But what that something is, I don’t know. But I’m going to make damn sure that I scratch that itch, whether Miles helps me or not.

14

Jaylen

“All right team, form a single line,” Coach calls across the pitch.

I turn from the small circle I formed with Ethan, Preston, and Miles to look at where Coach stands in the middle of the pitch. Without saying a word, the team walks toward him and forms a line, side by side. His eyes move down the line, holding our attention for a beat before moving to the next person. He clasps his hands behind his back and rocks back and forth on his feet.

“Listen up. We may not have a game this week, but it doesn’t mean that we can slack off in practice, okay?” he says, his eyes looking up and down the line. “The Panthers aren’t going to be an easy team to beat next week, so we need to keep our heads in the game.”

“Yes, Coach,” we say in unison.

The Raiders and Panthers have a long-standing rivalry that dates back close to fifty years ago. We don’t necessarily have beef with the players, but more so the team and club name as a whole. Although, I don’t like a lot of the players. For as long as I can remember, the Panthers like to play dirty by performing late tackles that don’t get called by the ref and pretending to be hurt when they’re not to try and get us fouled or receive a penalty. I find myself frustrated each time we come head to head, but I try not to let it get to me.

Each time we have played the Panthers in the past couple of years, the Raiders have come out on top, but there were a few games where we got our asses handed to us. So, I understand why Coach is reminding us to take the game seriously, especially the closer we get to the finals. We want to be sitting at the top of the leaderboard, so we can’t slack off now.

“Now, get back to it,” he says, waving us away with his hand. “Jaylen and Miles, I want you to focus on goal shooting for the rest of the afternoon, got it? And if anyone needs anything, you know where to find me.”

We watch Coach walk to the side of the field to stand in the technical area. When he turns to face us, we leave the line and go back to training. Miles falls in step beside me as we walk to the goal box on the other side of the field. Sweat glistens on his temples, and I know I mirror him. The sun is relentless today, but thankfully, my cold skin helps to regulate my body temperature.

When I transitioned at eighteen and my skin turned as cold as an ice cube, I was looking forward to not sweating anymore because why would a vampire sweat? We’re technically dead.

Turns out that if I do enough physical activity, I’m able to sweat because my body is too slow in trying to keep me cool. Again, it comes back to the whole being dead thing. It’s an odd thing to go through when you know you’re no longer a human, but you can still sweat in some circumstances like one.

“Practice on a Saturday afternoon sucks,” Miles says from beside me, tossing a soccer ball in the air. He catches it with ease and repeats the movement.

I slow to a stop when we reach the goal box. Cain is already warming up in front of it, his eyes hard and focused as if we were in an actual game. I turn to Miles. “Why? Do you have something better you could be doing?”

He smirks. “Oh, you know I do.” He drops the ball at his feet. “I met up with my sister this morning. She wanted to ask me questions about our parent's death.”

My ears perk up at the mention of Evie. I clear my throat and fold my arms over my chest. “Oh, yeah? Is everything all right?”

I watch as Miles lines his foot up with the ball, takes a few steps back, and then runs at it with as much force as he can. The sharp sound of his boot making contact with it echoes in my ears, and I watch as it slides into the top right corner of the net, just barely grazing past Cain’s fingers.

“Shit, man,” Cain curses, and punches the ground.

Miles exhales and turns to me. “Yeah, everything is fine. I just feel bad that I can’t share more with her.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand,” I say. Cain kicks the ball toward me, and I catch it with the inside of my right foot.

“I’m just trying to protect her, Jay. You know that,” Miles says with a sigh.

I position the ball where I want it. I’m hoping to go low and sink it in the bottom left corner. I’m used to going high, but I need to brush up on my other goal-scoring options, and it also helps to keep Cain on his toes as well.

---