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Coach laughs. I tell him my girlfriend, a support staff member of his team, is missing and he laughs. I don’t even realize I’m lunging for him until Beiler’s arms band around my middle to hold me back.

“Relax, lover boy. She’s probably at an all-you-can-eat buffet, pushing them closer to bankruptcy.” He chuckles at his own joke, and I make another run for him. He steps back, but smirks. “I say good riddance. I’ve been telling everyone from thebeginning…she ain’t right for the team and certainly not a star player like you. She’s not NFL material.”

With absolute certainty, I know he is responsible for whatever has happened to her. “You will get what’s coming to you Mr. Heacock.”

“That’s ‘Coach’!”

“Not anymore.” I turn around to find the security office. “I quit.”

“You can’t quit! You have a scholarship! We own you!”

“Fuck you.” I vaguely hear my teammates pouring out of the locker room, the din of their voices barely audible over the ringing in my ears. Gill, Hall, and Staunton catch up to me at the elevators.

Gill presses the button. “Beiler is staying behind to deal with Heacock. You can’t quit, man.”

“I can. I did.”

“We’ll find her. Then we’ll nail Heacock’s ass and get him gone.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“We’ll talk about it later.” Staunton steps out of the elevator first, walking backward to look at me. “Phia is our main priority.”

“Thank you.” Inside the security office, they are reluctant to help until Geary and Beiler both confirm that security footage is needed to find a missing person. A threat or two to their personal safety might have sped up the process as well.

“Why is she dragging the cart into the hydrotherapy room?” Hall leans closer to the small screen.

Staunton stands upright, “Why isn’t she coming out?”

“That’s weird.” One of the security guards rewinds the video, then does it again. “The footage is looped. Look at the timestamp.” He points to the bottom of the screen, and it jumps backward.

I’m out the door, running to the elevator, my boys behind me. I must hit the buttons on the elevator 100 times, and as soon as the doors open, I’m sprinting back to the locker room. Most of the team is still hanging out, probably waiting to see what’s going on. Through the locker room, past the showers, I throw open the connecting door to the hydration therapy room.

It’s empty. The sauna, the ice bath, the room…empty. “AGH!!!” I thread my fingers through my hair and pull hard as I scream. My heart is racing, my lungs burn, every muscle in my body coiled with tension. I open my mouth to scream again, when Staunton puts his hand over my mouth.

“Shut up.” Several seconds of silence pass and then I hear it. A weak whimper.

“Jesus Christ!” I drop to my knees next to the in-ground hot tubs and fight with the ties for the covers. I toss the first one back, but the tub is empty. Hall and Staunton throw the other off and there is Phia, gasping for breath. I crawl into the nearly empty tub with her and pull her into my lap. “Phia! Breathe, baby, just breathe.” I look up at Gill, “Call 911 and Beiler.”

Everything is a blur around me, my focus on Phia and Phia alone. It isn’t until the paramedics arrive that I loosen my grip on her. She hasn’t said a word, drifting in and out of consciousness, her fingers gripping my shirt so tight, they are white.

Schultz and Duffy find me in the back of the ambulance just as they are about to close the doors. “Her bag.” Duffy holds it up to me and I take it.

“Thanks.”

“We’ll follow you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“You’re team. She’s team.” Schultz cuts me off. The doors shut and we’re on the road. I sit next to her, holding her free hand as the paramedic works fast to get her hooked up to an IV and a bag of fluids, checks her vitals, and tries to ask her questions. Phia’s mouth never opens, she never tries to answer, her eyes never move from the roof of the rig.

She isn’t dead. But I fear I may have lost her just the same.

Phia 11.

I’m still alive. I don’t think that’s sunk in yet. At least not completely. I close my eyes and I’m right back in that hot tub, trapped and desperate to breathe. Every second that passed, every minute, one more closer to death.

And for what?

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