First and Goal (Moving the Chains #1) (48 page)

Get you some, Falls.

When Coach turns on Mike and I, the shit hits the fan. Dr. Filardi texted him our trespasses during practice. Now we’re getting hit again. He rambles on and on about that stupid athletic conference we had to attend last year. The one where Rob pretty much laid out his feelings for Eva in front of every guy in our class.

If anyone had asked me last year if I thought that Hinton’s story didn’t add up, I would’ve said hell yeah. If anyone had asked me if I thought for a second he raped her, I would’ve said probably not. Who knew douche bags like that were hiding in plain sight? I honestly used to like the guy. Then again, I never figured him for someone who would pull that low-level shit.

My little conquest this past weekend was completely consensual, but when I think about it, and how much trouble I could get in if she even joked that it wasn’t, I seriously wonder if I should get something in writing next time. Just because being on the football team keeps me out of trouble with the principal doesn’t mean I want to jeopardize my rep with anyone else. No way do I want to be thought of the way I think of Hinton now. Mike is still beyond pissed at me for involving him in my photo sharing. Maybe I should keep even the girls’ not-naked pics to myself from now on.

An hour, I swear to fucking God, an hour later, Coach releases us like dogs to go run five miles. We get the same punishment as Rob even though we were only ten minutes late. Coach tells us to take the trail and make sure that our dumbass quarterback hasn’t injured himself further since he’s not back yet. Mike still won’t say a word to me even though I keep trying to get in his good graces. No amount of jokes or apologies break his ice wall.

He comes to a dead stop about fifty yards from the head of the trail, his arm coming up to hold me back.

Following his line of sight, my heart pounds painfully in my chest. Rob sits on the ground, cradling some little girl in his arms. They’re both completely covered in blood.

Mike takes off at a sprint towards them. It takes me a second to catch my breath to follow. The closer I come, the more I realize it’s not a little girl that Rob’s holding.

It’s
his
girl.

Mike’s already questioning Rob as I jog up behind him. My God, the sight of them makes me want to throw up. There’s so much blood I can’t possibly tell who it’s from. Her hair is downright wet with it. She looks dead.

Mike’s hysterical voice doesn’t make any sense in my brain over the pounding of my pulse in my ears. All I can do is stare at Rob. He frantically rocks Eva back and forth, caressing her face with a shaking hand.

The more I watch, the sicker I feel. Rob isn’t just covered in blood. His whole shirt is covered in what looks like vomit too. I swallow a few times to stifle my gag reflex. I don’t do puke. Though Mike shouts right next to me, I tune into the words Rob breathes to Eva like a prayer. It’s hard to understand him over his hysterical sobbing.

“Evie, stay with me, please… Just stay with me… Evie, I love you, don’t do this to me… I love you… Evie, just open your eyes and look at me… God, no, don’t do this… Baby,
please
…”

I’m seconds away from passing out. My vision swims, and darks blobs dance at the edge of my field of view. The coppery smell of blood and the rancid odor of barf swirl inside my nose and snake down to my stomach. My abs clench, fighting against my gag reflex.

What the fuck happened?

Mike makes the mistake of approaching Rob and reaching for Eva since he’s not getting any response out of either of them.

Rob snaps his eyes up to Mike. I swear to God, he looks like a rabid fucking dog. He pulls her body tightly into his chest like dead weight. “Don’t touch her.”

“Rob, you have to let me help. I want to help her. I love her too. What happened?”

Rob looks at me. His eyes shine with pure, crazy-ass hatred. “The guy from the diner. He’s down the trail about two miles.
Bring him here
.”

The words come out as some sort of convoluted snarl that sounds nothing like Rob even at his meanest on the gridiron.

Mike has no idea who he’s talking about, but I sure as fuck do. We saw through that asshole from the start, but I don’t think either of us predicted this scenario going down for even a fucking second. I take off down the trail. My urge to barf and pass out is forgotten. I’ve got one goal in sight: to get the motherfucker like Rob commanded. Pretty soon I hear Mike tailing me, talking to 911 dispatch as we tear through the woods.

I don’t know what I expected to find when we reach the sonofabitch. My adrenaline for fetching him comes to a screeching halt when I see what’s left of his face. He lays lifelessly on the side of the trail.

Rob absolutely mauled him.

If he hadn’t told me who it was before we took off down here, I wouldn’t recognize him now. Mike bends down to his chest to make sure he’s still breathing. He stands up and lands as hard a kick as I’ve ever seen right into his side. He must be dead. Holy fucking shit. Rob killed the man who fucked with his girl. I’ve never been prouder and more terrified in a single moment.

Mike hauls the dead guy over his shoulder like a beast and starts heading back up the trail. I follow. My brain is not even operational. I can’t imagine what Mike and Rob must be feeling. I’m still stuck in horror mode, feeling completely useless. They’re getting shit done.

I guess that’s what it is when you love someone, no matter what kind of love it is.

Mike’s adrenaline wears off about a mile up, and he has to set the guy down. I pull up and grab one arm, draping it around my shoulder as Mike does the same. We haul his dead ass the next mile up, only to be met with a swarm of emergency vehicles.

Holy God, I’m touching a corpse. My skin is in contact with a dead guy’s. His blood stains my shirt and smears on my arm. My stomach rolls again.

The cops are just approaching the trail when they catch sight of us. Then the paramedics take over. I watch the scene unfolding in front of me, still silent.

There are just no fucking words.

A crowd of students is gathered behind yellow police tape, advertising the area as a crime scene. Some are crying, some are on their phones. Probably spreading the word. I wonder how much any of them knows, or what they saw while Mike and I were gone.

Eva’s nowhere to be found. I assume loaded on an ambulance and taken to the hospital. Or the morgue.

Rob’s seated on the back of another ambulance as EMTs attend to him. The expression on his face scares the fucking shit out of me even at this distance. His eyes look as lifeless as Eva and that dude’s bodies. His shirt is gone. An officer stands nearby, labeling a clear plastic bag.

Fuck me, they’re collecting evidence.

Coach is behind the tape, arguing with another cop. Probably to let him through and get to us. His players. His kids. He’s trying to protect us from something. Are we all going to be charged with some crime?

This is way beyond a picture of a hot girl on my cell.

The dead guy is loaded onto another ambulance. Is my brother gonna go to prison for murder? Do they think Rob killed Eva since they got here before we showed up with her attacker’s body?

The cops interview Mike. He talks rapidly about everything he knows. I can’t make a word out of any of it. It’s like they’re speaking some foreign language that I don’t understand. Neither of us fucking knows what happened anyway. That’s all on Rob, who isn’t saying a word to anyone.

And still I stand here, looking around at all the carnage. I don’t even know what just happened. All around me people are talking, crying, freaking the fuck out. But, all I can hear is the silence of two people who will never speak again.

So I do something I haven’t done in years.

I start saying my Hail Marys.

Read on for an excerpt from Book 2 of Moving the Chains:

Second Down

*content subject to change before publication

Prologue

I
don’t know how long it’s been. By the time my brain decides to check back in, I’m sitting in the hospital’s ER waiting room, surrounded by people. Apparently shock is a real thing because I have no fucking clue how or when I got here, or when the rest of these assholes walked in.

Rob has gotten cleaned up. The last time I saw him, he was covered in someone else’s blood and vomit. His eyes are still completely glazed over as he sits silently, his elbows propped on his knees. His hands look as mangled as that dude’s face. Every once in a while his dad, who’s been pacing nearby, yells at him. Gary’s worried that Rob broke a bone in his hand and won’t be able to finish the season. Rob never even responds, but his mom sends Gary death glares. They shut him up for a few more minutes, but then he starts ranting again.

Coach sits quietly across the room watching Rob and Mike like a hawk. I don’t know if Rob’s had his hands x-rayed yet. Maybe that’s what Coach is doing waiting here with the rest of us. Waiting to see if our starting quarterback just killed his chances at an NCAA scholarship murdering the guy who murdered his girlfriend.

Man, that’s just fucked up.

Mike looks like he’s been crying too. Normally, that would be weird, but not today. He’s not in nearly as bad of shape as Rob. Maybe that’s because we didn’t see everything that Rob saw. Or maybe it’s because neither of us is actually in love with Eva. Holy shit. I heard him say it with my own ears. Rob
loves
Eva.

Eva’s friends sit nearby, holding each other and taking turns doing that whole ugly cry bullshit. I can’t fucking stand it when girls do that. It’s such a pathetic attempt to get attention. Jeremy sits in the middle of two girls. His girlfriend, Alyssa, is the one bawling her eyes out now. When Jeremy catches me staring at them, he gives me a look that borders on sympathy. I have no idea why. Fuck, I feel bad for
him
having to put up with that shit.

Mom sits beside me, rubbing circles on my back. I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s not soothing, but rather irritating the shit out of me now that I’m somewhat coherent. I haven’t really spoken much to anyone since the cops took my statement. She was standing right beside me when I gave it so thankfully, I didn’t have to repeat myself to her. She can tell Dad later or whatever. I don’t want to tell that story ever again.

A nurse comes out of the double doors leading to the treatment area of the ER and yells for Falls. I guess Rob hasn’t had his x-rays yet after all. He doesn’t even register her calling him until his mom touches his shoulder and whispers something in his ear. She gets up to go back with him, but he just shakes his head and pats her arm, walking slowly away like a fucking zombie.

Patty starts crying…again. Gary throws his arms up in the air, raving about his son’s blown shot until Coach finally has to drag him outside where he can’t upset everyone else. The tension in the air ratchets up another notch. Mike’s mom, Cindy, wraps her arms around Patty, and they both cry together.

Stupid fucking tears. Tears never change anything or help anyone.

Crying is fucking selfish is what it is.

Awhile later, the double doors open again, but it isn’t Rob coming back. Some woman I don’t know, but who looks an awful lot like Eva comes walking out of the treatment area in a daze. She must be Eva’s mother. Patty and Cindy glance up at her. Pretty soon the three of them are wrapped together, their shoulders shaking with shared sobs that pierce my ears like a shotgun. Have I mentioned I fucking hate it when girls cry?

I didn’t even know that Rob’s and Mike’s moms knew Eva's mom.

Mom stands up and walks over to them along with Mike, but I stay where I am. My mind might be kind of operational, but my body feels like it was hit by a fucking Mac truck. I’m not sure I can move without falling flat on my face. I already know what they’re saying anyway. I know what I saw. Eva's dead. I’m glad that Rob is back in x-ray and isn’t here to witness this. I don’t know if I can be around when they give him the news. I wonder if his eyes will ever look alive again. Wonder if he’ll ever smile that stupid fucking grin that he does. Wonder if he’ll ever play ball again. Wonder if he won’t follow in his grandfather’s footsteps, chasing the woman he loves.

I still can’t wrap my head around that. Rob loves Eva. I know my best friend, and he wasn’t just saying it. He actually loves her, or at least he thinks he does. That’s why he was willing to put up with whatever she dished out to him these past few weeks. He’s in love with her. Fucking scary ass shit, right there. I never considered that there were worse ways a girl could leave you than just walking away. I will never put myself in that situation. Ever.

Rob pushes through the double doors next, his hands taped at the knuckles. I hold my breath as the group of women turn to him, watching as one of them delivers the news that will alter his life forever. I can’t hear what they say, but he crumples to the ground like a deflating balloon, burying his face in his hands. His whole body shakes with sobs, but he never makes a sound.

That same eerie silence that took over when we found them sneaks up on me until I’m shaking every bit as much as Rob. He didn’t even act like this when he found out his grandpa committed suicide. The temperature in the waiting room seems to drop a few degrees, the air sucked away as everyone turns to watch our star quarterback fall apart.