A man stood in the middle of our locker room. He wore a suit, styled his gray hair short, and brandished a watch I thought I could pawn to pay my rent for the next five years.

I had never seen him before.

Before I could open my mouth, Money Guy gestured to the room.

“Sit down, please. For those of you who haven’t met me, I am Tomas Gosden, the owner of the Tide.”

We all shuffled into our places, and waited.

“It has been brought to my attention that serious accusations have been made against Coach Nowak. Until this is sorted out, he will be temporarily suspended.”

Clay. It had to be. He must have taken the video to someone he trusted. Or Slade had beaten him to it.

No one spoke. So I did.

“What does that mean for the team?”

Mr. Gosden stared at me hard and long. Maybe he was trying to remember my name or maybe he knew exactly who I was because he’d seen me on my knees being electrocuted.

My face caught fire. Embarrassment, guilt, and anger flashed through me.

I held eye-contact and squared my shoulders. If Slade or Coach Clay had flipped me out of the frying pan so I could burn in the fire, I’d do it with eyes wide open and no regrets.

“Duncan Spark,” he stated. Not asked. He knew me.

“Yes, sir.”

“I need you to come with me. The rest of you, please remain here. I’ll have a word with each of you before you go home. Your assistant coaches will be here shortly. Food is being delivered.”

Food. So this was going to take some time. I stood and nodded briefly to Steele.

The captain nodded back and took the reins. “Let’s get out of this gear and hit the showers,” he said.

Everyone got moving. Dollar cracked some kind of joke that got a chuckle or two.

They were okay. They weren’t in any danger.

I just kept repeating that as I followed Gosden down the corridors to Nowak’s office.

He walked in like he owned the place, which, yeah, he actually did.

“Take a seat, Mr. Spark. Water?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” I dropped into a chair. He opened a small fridge in the corner and handed me the cool bottle.

“You’ve made quite a stir in the league this year, Duncan. May I call you Duncan?”

“Sure.”

“I want to go over how I see this playing out.” He walked around the desk, glanced at the chair, and decided to rest his fingers on the back of it instead of sitting.

“There are a lot of ways to get ahead in this league. But this is your first year. You were vastly overshadowed by the wizard on your team. You were not the strongest player on your previous team, but you are smart enough to know that if you volunteer for the Dead Man, all eyes will swing to you. Suddenly, you’re the star. You have traction in history.”

Everything he said was wrong, but I’d listen until he was done. I drank water and kept my eyes on him. I wanted to know his angle before I jumped down his throat and told him he could shove his assumptions up his ass.

“What did you think you were getting out of releasing the video to the public?”

“I didn’t release the video to the public.”

“Do you know who did?”

“No.”

“It’s not a secret, Duncan. Icarus Slade released it. He was cut from the team and he’s using this, this trumped up video, to throw Coach Nowak under the bus.”

“Have you talked to Slade?” I asked. “Have you looked him in the eye and told him he’s a liar like you’ve looked me in the eye and told me I’m a manipulative, cheating narcissist?”

He let out a breath and ran a hand over the lapel of his jacket before pulling out the chair and easing down into it.

“No, I haven’t. Not yet. I want to hear the truth from you. What you know. What Coach Nowak did or didn’t do. Anything you saw happen to other players.”

Slade had told me I wasn’t the only player Nowak had put under the stun. Knowing that Nowak had hurt my team for no other reason than to establish dominance set fire to the anger in me.

No one touched my team like that. No one hurt them. Not while I was standing. Hell, not while I was on my knees.

“I have not seen him abuse the other players on the team. But I’ve been told by Slade that it’s happened.”

He blinked once, slowly in that way only sensitives did. He probably could tell if I was lying.

“Continue.”

“I mouthed off to him, he gave me a bag skate and then he shocked me unconscious. I was new to the team but I was following his directions. There was nothing in my behavior that should have earned me that many shocks. I didn’t even shift.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“The trainer and assistant trainer knew. They have my medical reports, though I think they’ve been falsely edited. I also told Slade, Random Hazard, my ex-coach Elliott Clay and also Hawthorne Graves.”

“You should have gone to the authorities, Duncan. The police, the league commissioner. Whatever the nature of the threats, you should have followed up with the correct action.”

“Yeah, well. Here we are.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, then sat back in the chair and made keep-going circles with his hand. “Then what happened?”

“I was an outcast from the team. Coach Nowak wouldn’t allow me to run drills, didn’t let me play. The team could not make eye contact or physical contact of any kind. They didn’t speak to me. Well, Slade spoke to me, but that was it. It was solitary confinement in a crowded room.”

“Did you tell anyone about this at the time?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “How does a man with a mouth like yours stay quiet about these things?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve seen you play, Duncan. Especially when you were with the Thunderheads. You were always running your mouth like it was the last piston that would win the race.”

He said it in such a normal, coach-like, or in this case, owner-like way, I forgot I didn’t trust him and smiled.

“Yeah, I’m friendly and outgoing like that.”

He tapped his fingertips on the desk. “I wish you would have brought all of this to someone in an authority position when it first started. I don’t know what your relationship was with Elliott Clay—”

“We’re solid. He’s a great coach. I’d play for him for the rest of my life, if I could.”

“And yet you didn’t tell him what was happening for weeks?”

I rolled a shoulder, uncomfortable with his question and my answer to it. “I thought I should handle it on my own. I know being a part of a team doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy and friendly all the time. I get that I have to earn my way, prove my way.”

His eyes shifted, taking in my face. Maybe it was the seriousness of my tone. Maybe it was that I was telling him a personal truth.

“Do you think you made the right decision?”

“No. Not even close. But it got me here, playing the game with a great team. Plus, we just won against the best team in the league. Gotta love that, right?”

He tapped his fingers again. “I’m sure you and I will need to talk again. I can’t say what will happen from this point forward, but I want you to know that I intend to see this to the end and to make sure there are no other incidents like that video. I won’t allow torture in my locker room.”

It seemed like the least he could do, but at least he was doing something. “Thank you, sir.”

“I’ll be talking to the team and staff. But until I gather all the facts on Coach Nowak’s alleged behavior…” He held up his hand when I started to protest.

“I’ve seen the video,” he said. “What he did to you was out of line. You have my sincere apologies for what was done without my knowledge. However, it is an entirely different set of consequences he will face if this was a one-time incident as opposed to being habitual behavior. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It would be in both your and my interests if you do not involve the press further. I’d suggest getting a lawyer, Mr. Spark. These allegations will bring out the sharks.” He leaned forward, offered his hand.

“Off the record, I wish you would have spoken up the moment it happened. I wish you would have come to me. But I’ll respect your reasons for not doing so. This is my number.” He handed me his card. “I’ll be in touch, Spark. Call me if you need anything.”

I shook his hand. It was warm, dry, and strong. The handshake was firm like his words, not promising everything would work out, but promising to be as fair as possible about it.

“Is that all, sir?” I asked.

“For now. The pizza and burgers should have arrived. You might want to eat before they’re gone.”

I stood.

“One more thing,” he said when I reach the door.

I looked at him.

“If you could stay on this team, or be on any other team, where would you choose to be, Mr. Spark?”

My insides twisted. The Tide were my team. My pack. But…

But even though I felt like I had made a place here and had done good for this team, it wasn’t the same as being a Thunderhead.

I hadn’t been kidding when I said I would play under Coach Clay for the rest of my life.

No matter what my brain told me—that I belonged here, this was my team, these were my pack mates, I was their alpha and couldn’t leave them—other images overrode those thoughts.

Dollar was an alpha. He already fit in with them better than I did in a much shorter time.

He belonged in a way I still hadn’t mastered. Like that drop of water in a stream thing Clay had talked about.

My team, my pack liked him. If I left, they’d be more than fine. They’d be better.

Being an alpha meant doing the right thing for my pack. The right thing for my pack wasn’t me.

I knew where I belonged. Had known my pack from the first moment I’d dragged Hazard down to tryouts. That was family. It would always be family to me.

“If I had any choice, I’d play for the Thunderheads, sir,” I said. “Second to that, I’d stay on the Tide. But not if Coach Nowak continues his career here.”

“Remember what I said about the press. Send in Tabor Steele to see me next.”

“Yes, sir.”

The smells of soap and pizza met me when I got back to the locker room.

Showers were done and a pile of empty pizza boxes were stacked up on the floor near the garbage can. The full pizza boxes covered a table set up against the wall. I aimed for the full boxes.

“The fuck, Duncan,” Steele said, crowding up in my space, his hand on my shoulder. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

He was pale and a little sweaty in his street clothes. He should have had plenty of time to cool down from the game, but he looked sick.

There were no reporters in the room, just the team.

I chewed and swallowed my bite of meat lover’s, then wiped the back of my hand over my mouth. “You saw the vid?”

Several people held up their phones.

Great.

I shrugged. “I was the new guy, right?”

“You didn’t think we would believe you?” Big D came up close too. He bumped his shoulder into mine. Left it there.

“Would you have?” I was starving, so I stuffed my face.

“Yes,” he said. “I would have believed you.”

The pizza stuck in my throat along with emotions I hadn’t expected.

The other wolves drew near, reaching out to pat my back, touch my arm, telling me they would have believed me too. That might have looked strange to some people, but for a second-marked, for me, it was heaven.

“Thanks,” I finally said. “I wish the whole thing would have gone down differently. I made dumbass mistakes.

“We all did,” Steele said.

“Well, not me,” Dollar chimed in. “I wasn’t even here.”

Paski, my favorite tiger in the whole hockey jungle, threw an empty beer can at his head, he caught it, threw it back, and just like that, normalcy had been restored.

Dollar was good for them, good for the team. I was not blind to how many players smiled when they looked at him as if they didn’t want to look away.

I wondered how long he would remain content to stay in the sidecar while I alphaed us down this road.

“Mr. Gosden wants to see you next, Steele.” I shoved the rest of the pizza in my mouth and accepted the beer Zima pressed into my hand.

Steele nodded and headed out the door.

“So that game tonight, boys and girls,” I said. “What a game.”

“Hell of a game,” Nadreau agreed holding up his drink for a toast.

I popped the top on my beer, lifted it. “To the Tide! May it continue to roll right over those Brassholes.”

The toast was echoed, other beverages lifted. Then we all took a long, deep swallow.

I stayed until the last player left. It took that much time to return my messages. Random, Mom and Dad, and Coach Clay had all called. I ignored everything from the press, even Scott Dart’s offer of a low-key conversation if I were ever in the mood.

Every other player on the Thunderheads left a text. Most were worried, some were furious. A few wondered why the hell I wasn’t home with them this very minute and threatened to drive up here to get me themselves.

I hated to worry people, but the outpouring of concern and support was pretty humbling.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I got up the guts to watch the video.

It made me sweat, made my heart race to watch Nowak shock me over and over.

What I didn’t know was that he’d kept shocking me even after I was unconscious.

But it wasn’t my out-of-control spasms that made me sick to my stomach. It was the look of joyful hatred on Nowak’s face.

If there was evil in this world? I’d just seen it.

I made it to the bathroom before I lost what was left of my pizza dinner. Then I washed my face, turned off my phone, and left.

There was no question that vid threw Nowak in a bad light. It might even be brutal enough to damage his reputation and get him suspended for the rest of the regular season.

Did I think it would cost him his job? Naw. The league thrived on scandal and violence. It filled seats.

We were the freak league, and that was what freaks did.

I walked across the parking lot, content in the quiet, content to have some time alone with my thoughts. Just as I reached my car, I felt someone watching me.

I paused, my car door half-open and scanned the shadows.

“You’re welcome.” A flash of yellow eyes, and Slade moved under the lamp post, hands in his pockets, red hair a flame of its own.

“Could have warned me you were going public with the vid,” I said.

He shrugged and started my way. “You could have warned me you called Coach Clay and told him he should pick up my contract.”

“You leaked the video before I called Coach Clay. Didn’t you?”

“Does it matter?”

He stopped on the other side of the open door. There was something different about him. Then it hit me. The relaxation in his muscles, the stillness of his hands, the evenness of his breathing.

He looked happy. No, he looked content.

“He’s signing you, isn’t he? Coach Clay? You dog, you!” I smiled. “You’re gonna be a Thunderheads. It’s a great damn team. The best.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I got your back, Icky.”

“Hate that name.”

“Gonna use it forever, Icky because we are BWFFFs: Best Wolf Fox Friends Forever.”

A smile cranked up one side of his mouth, revealing teeth. “You are the dumbest thing in the universe.”

He exhaled and stared up at the sky like he could see the moon and stars through all the clouds and darkness.

“Thanks. For all of it. Everything.”

“Do right by them,” I said. “Best team you’ll ever be a part of, I mean that. Don’t throw it away.”

He nodded, still looking at the sky. Finally, “See you around, Donuts.”

“See you around, Icky.”

I got in the car, and he took a couple wandering steps away. He was still staring at the sky, a smile on his face, when I drove away.