Page 43 of Altius
Silence blanketed the stadium.
Writhing on the ground, screaming in agony, the quarterback clutched his lower leg, which was bent at a grotesque angle.
Reyhan gasped in horror.
One of our players doubled over, dry heaving. More than a few of his teammates looked tempted to do the same.
The referees carried on about their business, engaging in a farcical display of blowing their whistles and throwing their symbolically shallow flags.
“Fuck,” Garvey spat, hurling his clipboard against the ground.
Direct hits to the knees were illegal. Knox might have cost the Narwhals the game.
Tyler stared at the quarterback with a peculiar, almost pleased gleam in his eyes. Yet another victim of the surging pheromones on the Northport sideline.
My first instinct was to rush onto the field, but Wyatt held me tight. His touch grounded me.
I needed to wait for Dr. McEwen’s orders before offering to assist the opposing team, no matter how badly I wanted to help the poor kid.
Knox ripped off his helmet with a feral snarl, eyes bulging, neck veins throbbing, holding his arms aloft with perverse pride—taunting the stricken Garroway Forest players as they stood in a protective circle around their fallen teammate.
The other Northport players surrounded Knox, crowing at the tops of their lungs, delivering congratulatory punches and slaps.
A bloodthirsty cabal rejoicing in their pheromone-fueled oblivion.
Ten
Morgan
“Was that a comeback—or a bloodbath?” The sportscaster on the large-screen television in Pack Redmond’s living room had a booming voice. It didn’t bother me.
My head had been screaming for hours.
“Northport took full advantage of Garroway Forest’s quarterback going out with a broken leg—now confirmed to be a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula—and dominated the second half with three touchdowns and a field goal. While the Narwhals’ defense leaves a lot to be desired, especially when it comes to sportsmanlike conduct, they’re almost unbeatable when their offense finds its rhythm. And don’t forget about their ace kicker, Landon Choi, who leads the conference in field goals completed this season. Next week, they’ll take on their bitter rivals, Wakeland State, for the conference championship.”
“Turn it off.” Alijah sat at the opposite end of the couch, unconsciously mirroring my posture, slumped low on the cushions, holding a pillow against his chest.
He couldn’t stomach another slow-motion replay of the quarterback’s leg snapping in half, or how his lower calf dangled like a limp, boneless tube of meat.
Wyatt turned the television off just in time.
Then he shifted, turning to face me, resting his arm along the back of the couch behind my shoulders. “How bad is it?”
“It’s season-ending, but most players with similar injuries bounce back.”
Alijah sat forward to look at me, still green around the gills. “Definemost.”
“I think it’s about ninety percent,” I said, trawling through my spotty mental archive for statistics. “But that’s not a guarantee. We don’t know if he suffered ligament damage or other injuries.”
“Very reassuring.” Alijah sank back onto the couch.
“How much longer do you think they’ll be?” Wyatt nodded at the closed double doors to the former omega suite, where Owen and Cal had been holed up for almost two hours, making calls and sending emails, laying the groundwork for executive-level retribution.
“Don’t know.”
Whatever action their efforts prompted, the university deserved it.
If Cal’s anger following the quarterback’s injury was vast and thunderous, like the sea before a storm, Owen’s was a cold void, a black hole of disappointment, with a dominating gravitational force that could eat you alive without any conscious effort on his part.
