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Nix
Thwack.
The air whooshed from my lungs as I went down hard. Everything ached. My shoulders, my thighs, and calves. The muscles in my arms were heavy and sore.
The Devils defensive line were all over me. It was a shitshow and it was starting to piss me the hell off.
“Jesus, Nix, you good?” Kye offered me his hand and pulled me up. I shook off the tension radiating through me and nodded. “What I need is for our guys to give me some fucking space.”
“They’re all over us, bro.”
I glanced at the scoreboard. Despite having me pinned down, Denby was also struggling to get past our defense so they were only leading by one touchdown. Everything was still to play for, but I had a bad feeling. Like a storm rolling in on the distance, the air felt charged, full of anticipation.
I’d barely had time to breathe in the first two quarters and it was starting to show.
“We need to put some points on the board,” I said to my guys as they joined the huddle.
“What you thinking, Nix?”
“We go with the play we’ve been practicing.”
“You sure? It’s a risky move. Puts you out in the open…”
“They won’t be expecting it. If I can rush enough yards, we can tip things in our favor.”
“Okay,” Kye said, clapping his hands together. “You heard the man. Let’s give these punks something to moan about.”
We moved back into position. My center, a guy named Gunner, cradled the ball as the Devils defense moved along the scrimmage line. Adrenaline pulsed through me, my muscles pinging with exertion. We needed this win. It wasn’t so much about the season as it was about proving to these rich boy assholes that just because we were from The Row—that our lives were hard and we didn’t come from much—didn’t mean we lacked skill. We had what it took to be here, on their field, playing at their fancy school.
“Ready to quit yet, Wilder?” one of their players snickered. “There’s only one way this ends, and that’s with you broken and bleeding.”
“Fuck you, asshole,” I muttered, rocking from side to side as I waited for the whistle. “Red seventeen,” I called the play. “Red seventeen.”
My players began shifting into position, laying the diversion with precision just as we’d practiced again and again over the last couple of weeks.
“Hut,” Gunner called, snapping the ball to me. I caught it and dropped back, keeping an eye on the defense as they barreled through our guys to get to me.
One of my running backs slipped past me, faking the pass, and took off down the left side, drawing the attention of the Devils defense.
And I ran.
Pumping my legs hard, I went wide around the scrimmage and shot down the right side of the field. It only took a second for them to realize but I was already flying like a rocket, blood pounding in my ears with every thud of my cleats against the ground. Fifty… forty… thirty… I ate up the yard markers as a swarm of red and white jerseys hurtled toward me in my peripheral vision.
“Go, go,” Coach yelled, and the crowd seemed to yell right along with him as I kept running. Twenty… ten…
A hulk of a player broke free from the pack and dove for me, his fingers wrapping around my ankle as I tried to leap out of the way. He managed to get a decent grip, yanking me hard until I was no longer moving forward, but falling.
Cradling the ball to my body, I waited for the impact. The whoosh of air from my lungs and clang of pain as my body hit the ground. Players dove on top of me like a house of cards collapsing as I fought with everything I had to keep the ball in my hands.
“Okay, okay, let him up, let him up.” The referee yelled as I tried to roll onto my back and get air into my burning lungs. But right as I moved, something crumpled into my kidneys. A fist. A grunt spilled from me as I cussed under my breath, fiery hot agony lancing through my back.
“You’re going down, Wilder,” someone hissed before the sea of bodies cleared.
“Nix, you all good?” Kye stood over me with the rest of our offense. He helped me up again, but this time, I winced.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said, scanning the field for my attacker, but it could have been any one of them. They all glared at me with utter disdain.
